North Wind: Trill of Consciousness Review

Few things are more disappointing to me than an awesome, innovative premise with a messy, unfortunate execution. Sadly, that pretty much encapsulates how I feel about North Wind: Trill of Consciousness.

North Wind is an adventure/platformer, brought to us courtesy of developer Henry Gosuen. Right off the bat, I was intrigued by the pixel-based art, with some of the visual design hinting ever so distantly at similarities to the excellent Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP. And while it doesn't sport a Jim Guthrie soundtrack, the music is also relatively atmospheric and moody for a one-man project. But the biggest draw was in the game's central mechanic.

North Wind's map is divided, vertically, into three segments that can be shifted by swiping them left or right. This can cause sections of previously inaccessible terrain to become open based on matching up differing map segment combinations. The deeper into the game one makes it, the more sections of the map are unlocked. It's honestly a very neat central conceit and one that I was extremely excited to explore deeper.

But the controls... oh, those controls.

In the end, the controls are actually pretty basic, with players moving Dir (the main character) using just left and right arrows and a jump button. However, actually getting him around the map is a sluggish, tedious affair at best. Combat (when it occurs) consists of just hurling him at enemies and hoping not to get damaged in return. Not that combat needed to be a more complex affair, but some degree of precision would be appreciated.

Similarly, the game doesn't do a very good job of communicating what players are supposed to actually do. I'm all for artistic games where exploring the environment and learning about abilities and goals in an experiential way is part of the journey, but they need to be elegantly put together in order to work. North Wind falters in that regard. There's no explanation of what any of the elements on the UI even are, save for obvious things like health.

Speaking of health, dying allows players the option of returning to life with a single heart remaining, or being restored to full health by spending a buck via in-app purchase. Boo. Very poor form to see that on the screen after every death. Just give me a limited number of lives and continues and we can go about this affair the old-school way, but don't nickle and dime my resurrection. That just feels crass.

Oh, North Wind: Trill of Consciousness. With both appealing audiovisual content and a super-cool and unique premise, it had promise in spades. To be hamstrung by something as fundamental as controls and user interface makes me very unhappy. Perhaps Mr. Gosuen will take this one back to the drawing board. I'd love to see the same mechanic used again, but with an expanded scope and tighter controls.