on Kickstarter in December 2013, and released for the PC via Steam on the 11th March 2014. It is set in the procedurally generated Steampunk world of Cordeus, where Sky Whale oil represents the energy source of paramount importance. Predictably, this state of affairs led to overconsumption, which is driving the species into extinction, and will plunge the civilization back into the dark ages as well.The only potential alternative are the exotic sources of energy which were supposedly used by the ancient beings known as the Aetherkin. However, research into the matters related to the Aetherkin has monopolised by the armed group known as the Servants of Cordeus (SOC), and everyone else is forbidden from taking part in it. You have been the one secretly hired to uncover this secret regardless, which requires travelling through the ancient Aetherkin temples, combating wildlife, SOC guards and bosses, all for the tablets that might reveal the secret...
Tropes present in Windforge:
- Artistic License – Geology: Melting copper ore in the furnace instantly creates bronze ingots. Bronze is an alloy of copper and tin.
- The Beastmaster: Improving Wisdom allows the player to tame the creatures in the game (first small, and then large ones), through attaching the grappling hook to them, and standing on their back for five seconds.
- Bottomless Magazines: Averted for the player, as every ranged weapon you use, up to and including turrets on the airships, requires ammunition. Still
- Cool Airship: A crucial part of the setting. Your aeronaut pilots one, you can build them, and there are hostile airships which will engage you in aerial battles as well.
- Doomed Hometown: This trope applies if you chose Wurstein as your hometown, since it gets enveloped in poison gas later in the game.
- Double Jump: Unlocked by raising Agility to 60 points. Maxing it out provides you with a quadruple jump.
- Energy Ball: Fired by the various turrets in the Aetherkin ruins. The boss of the Temple of Waves generates an energy projectile that bounces along the ground.
- Energy Weapon: One of the turret attack types in the Aetherkin temples. Some will go right through the walls, and others will ricochet off them. Some of the beams can also poison you.
- Everything Breaks: Everything consists of blocks, and all of them are destructible. Developers specifically stated that "the game is designed without barriers such as fake doors, invisible walls, and unbreakable obstacles".
- Flash of Pain: Enemies flash red as they take damage.
- Gatling Good: The elite SOC agent in the Driftstone Fortress has a gatling gun.
- Gender Is No Object: Nothing in the game is influenced by your gender.
- Grappling-Hook Pistol: Available from the start, and is crucial for exploration.
- Grievous Harm with a Body: "Whale Crush" achievement is obtained through killing a sky whale in such a manner that it falls on top of something and kills it, too.
- Heavily Armored Mook: The heavy infantry of Servants of Cordeus wear plate armour, in contrast to the simple soldier jackets of the basic troops.
- Hollywood Acid: Some basilisks spit out globs of acid, instead of fire or poison.
- Hyperactive Metabolism: Eating food heals the player character. The first perk gained from increasing Vitality is "Improved Digestion", which lets you recover more hitpoints in such a manner.
- Informed Equipment: Averted. All of it will be seen on the character.
- Item Crafting: More than 1200 items can be crafted in the game. Investing in Wisdom also improves the quality of the crafted items.
- Knockback: Present during the melee combat, and can be extended through certain perks.
- Load-Bearing Boss: Every temple you raid will begin to collapse as soon as you kill its boss.
- Money Spider: Purple beetles drop dollars upon death for some reason.
- Multiple-Choice Past: You choose the character's hometown at the start, which proceeds to determine the character's occupation, and hence, their stats. I.e. coming from Wurstein makes you a Butcher, and thus strong, but lacking in formal education, whereas Englestrom's dwellers are merchants, who are intelligent, but lack strength.
- No-Gear Level: Driftstone Fortress is this. The player gets thrown in the dungeon there after meeting Merchant of the Clouds, who turns out to be a SOC agent and double-crosses you.
- Powered Armour: The best-protected (though also the most restricting) wear you can get.
- Player Death Is Dramatic: The Game Over screen shows a skull with a single golden tooth and wearing goggles, with a caption "You slip into a world of darkness"...
- Regenerating Health: Full regeneration is unlocked through maxing out your Vitality stat. Raising Vitality to 60 will regenerate your health below one-third threshold.
- RPG Elements: There are Agility, Strength, Wisdom and Vitality stats. Improving these also allows the character to unlock additional perks - i.e. improved Strength allows one to extend the range of melee attacks with Power Strike, aim heavy weapons in all directions, or to increase the mining speed.
- Spikes of Doom: Present in the ruined Temples and the like, from the tutorial onwards. Temple of Stillness in particular is mostly covered in them, while the earlier Temple of Vision will keep on creating them.
- Spread Shot: Shotguns, obviously. Various turrets also fire such spreads.
- Suicidal Overconfidence: From the start of the game, you can encounter tiny bandit airboats with barely enough space for two people and their small semi-automatic turrets on top of a completely open and exposed deck. They will still stand in place and fire at a much larger airship equipped with machine-gun turrets.
- Super Spit: Some creatures spit out poison.
- This Is a Drill: The basic mining instrument is one.
- Universal Poison: Used by a range of enemies, from the poison basilisks to a variety of Aetherkin lasers that poison on impact. It can also be crafted and applied to some melee weapons.
- Wave-Motion Gun: Aetherkin Wave Gun. Its crafting schematics are discovered in the Temple of Waves. The guards in the final temple of the game will also use these.
