Wind Peaks

Long before Bethesda was bought by Microsoft and became known as that company that won't stop re-releasing Skyrim, they were a lowly developer trying to make a name for themselves with sports sims and licensed fare. One of their earliest games was a Nintendo Entertainment System take on the popular Where's Waldo book series, which ended up being a boring, hard-to-play adaptation that has always felt like a terrible mis-match to me. It may have taken thirty years, but thanks to the new game Wind Peaks, I feel like I finally understand the potential of what Bethesda was trying to do oh so many years ago. This debut release from Brazilian developer Actoon Studio is a fun and gentle reminder of the simple joy of poking around overly complicated pictures scavenging for the right objects and people. And best of all, nobody is wearing tacky red stripes.

We're going camping! No, not you and I, we still have few more days of winter ahead of us, but Wind Peaks is here to put us in the outdoor mood. It stars a scout and his group of little campers as they discover the wilderness, get into trouble and eventually search for buried treasure. This sets up a short but eventful adventure where we help the group locate the scattered items needed to complete every step of their surprisingly harrowing journey. From tracking down the kids' clothing that was washed away by the river to exploring the spooky witch house in the middle of the woods, these little campers would be lost if we weren't there to lend a helping hand.

We do this by going on a series of scavenger hunts that play out like an elaborate version of Where's Waldo. The goal of each level is to find the half dozen or so missing items, all of which come together to help the campers complete their quest and get one step closer that hidden treasure. For example, you may need to find a shovel to dig up the box, a flashlight to illuminate the night, a banana to locate the monkey and a fishing rod to, well, fish. By the time you've completed the ten stages, you will have found cats, clothes, corn, mysterious potions, garden gnomes, scuba equipment, three-eyed fish, bells, whistles and all kinds of other everyday items.

You do this by zooming in and out of the procedurally-generated worlds and interacting with the trees, rocks and cabins. Beyond occasionally needing to use the items you find, there isn't much to the game beyond pointing at the thing you're looking for and then scouring the map for the next object. Once you've found everything, you're tossed into another stage where you do it all over again, this time with a different set of items to locate.

That may sound simple, but anybody who has opened up a Where's Waldo book will tell you that tracking everything down can be tricky. These objects tend to blend in with the background and be hidden behind trees and buildings. Sometimes they will be easy to find, while other items will take a lot of searching and good eyes to track down. There was a moment late in the game where I spent the better part of 15 minutes trying to find a specific four-leaf clover, which gave me very real flashbacks to being a kid spending just as much time doing the exact same thing. Think finding Waldo is tough? Just wait until you're looking for the one four-leaf clover found in the woods.

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It's the wonderful hand-drawn graphics that ultimately bring everything together. Wind Peaks looks like a picture book, complete with cartoony characters and lots of funny details scattered around the forest. Everything from the color choices to the locations are easy on the eyes and fun to search through. And even when I spent way too long looking for that damn clover, I kept running into parts of the level that I hadn't noticed before. That said, there is sameness to the locations that started to get to me after a while. Yes, every level is different and unique, but you're still searching through a forest. While it may not have made sense given the camping theme, it would have been nice to visit the city, a zoo, a mall or something not completely surrounded by similarly-colored trees. They needed to mix things up a bit.

My other main complaint should come as no surprise -- Wind Peaks is extremely simple. You scavenge around the level picking up the items on your list. That's it. Even when you have to use the camera or one of the other items, you're still just looking and pointing. And with only ten stages to complete, the game itself is a bit on the short side. I was taken off guard when I saw the ending cinema. It left me wanting more story, more puzzles and maybe even more depth. I guess I'll have to wait until the second season to get more of Wind Peaks.