Windosill
Windosill is the story of a toy car, a little blue box with wheels and a smokestack, who one day dares to journey outside of its confining storage shelf. You, armed with the power to touch, carry, poke, prod, and experiment, will lead the toy through a cool blue dream presented in stages, a series of shadow-boxes full of curious characters and structures, each with its own puzzle to be solved.
This is the new point-and-click (and drag and tug and spin) game from Vectorpark, a.k.a. Patrick Smith, who brought us the enigmatic Feed the Head, among other wonders. In fact, Windosill is very similar to Feed the Head. It lets you explore a surreal environment by touching things, watching their incredibly smooth animation as they respond to you, and unpeeling their internal logic. You do travel from place to place this time, but as with all of Smith's work, the focus is always, always on playfulness and discovery.
Unlike Feed the Head, Windosill costs a few dollars to play the full game. The first half is free, however, and worth experiencing on its own.
Is it worth buying the second half of the game? Yes. Yes, it really is. It won't occupy you for long, but neither will it waste your time. Playing through it more than once reveals all kinds of connections you wouldn't notice the first time. Even the winking blob in the first room has new resonance when you know the fractal mutant it appears as later.
Analysis: It's a joy to play Windosill, because although the tone is dreamlike, the population is so physical. Each object has its own weight and material, its own squishiness, sproinginess and yield. When you click on some widget or worm, your cursor disappears as the object reacts, and every time, you feel like you just reached into the screen and grabbed hold of something solid.
Smith offers a world where everything is magical, where you can discover the rules from scratch, like a child. The laws of physics are more or less familiar, but everything else is new. You play with Windosill and it plays back, sharing its secrets in baby steps, never cheating, never even betraying the presence of puzzles or goals. It feels like before you arrived, all these geometric plants and bird heads and giant moons were just sitting there lonely, blue, waiting for a playmate.
Windosill may be short, but it feels complete. The beginning is just like any other morning, right down to pulling open the curtains to check the weather, but the ending is downright spiritual. This game will reward you and intrigue you, inspire you without preaching, leave you wanting more.
Thanks to Languidiir, Marglark, and Asher for sending this one in!
Walkthrough Guide
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Windosill Walkthrough
This walkthrough will simply tell you how to get to the next screen. I REALLY suggest you take the time to enjoy each one before moving on.
Scene 1
Turn on the light
Put the cube in the hole above the door on the bottom right
Open the door and push the car through
Scene 2
Pull open the curtains
Pull the dot off the i
Put the cube in the hole, open the door and push the car through
Scene 3
Click the cloud to main the raindrop fall
Click the puddle until a worm pops out
Click the top of the tower do the bird appears, and give it the worm.
Use the cube in the door and move on
Scene 4
Pull the top of the sphere off until there is just a tiny ball left
Put the ball in the cylinder
Click and hold on the donut until it fills the cylinder
Push the top of the cylinder down
Click and hold on the pyramid to make it shoot out a ball, and catch the ball by clicking and holding on the cube
Use the cube on the door
Scene 5
Click around the face of the square as much as you can to open as many boxes as possible. Eventually you will find the cube
Pull out the cube and then use it on the door
Scene 6
Push the bricks out of the tower on the right until you can pick up the beach ball
Place the beach ball on the top of the second tower
Click and hold the bottom of the tower on the very left from bottom to top to push the cloud out.
Spin the globe on the second tower to the right slowly until the cloud is centered over the third tower.
Click the cloud to make it start raining. Click the third tower and use the legs that come out to kick a cube into the foreground by clicking them.
Use the cube on the door and move on
Scene 7
Simply pick up the different objects in the background until you pick up the pipe.
The pip will puff out smoke and eventually one of them will turn into the cube
Scene 8
Spin the planet around until you see the moon
Spin the moon around until you see the man in the balloon with the magnet and the cube.
Grab the cube and pull it to the hold above the door
Grab the magnet and use it to grab the car. let go and let it pick up the car, then drag the car over to the other side of the gap.
Scene 9
Drag the car to the middle guy, and let him pick it up.
Once he does pull off his hat and get the cube
Drop his hat and put the cube in the door and pull the car through as fast as you can. If you are too slow the dragon will get you.
If the dragon catches you, repeat the first step, and get through the door while the dragon is fetching the hat
Scene 10
You have to make a Rube Goldberg-esque machine to get the cube.
The cube comes out of the third from the right on the top row, bounces off the diving board on the third to the right on the second bottom row, gets kicked by the foot on the very right of the same row, into the cannon on the second from the right one row up, onto the cloud far right top row, into the umbrella two left from the cannon, in front of the fire in the very center, drips down into the pipe below the fire, and comes out the pipe one up and left from the fire, into the ladle one left and below the pipe it drains from, onto the cart one left from that, drops down into the tail below the cart, and onto the finger two right from the tail, then into the foreground.
Final Scene
Drag the car around the tower until it reaches the top.
When it gets to the very top a star will shine in the top right and a door will open.
Once it makes a path out of stars drag the car up and out to freedom!
Now play around with the stars that start glowing. After you play with each one for a bit a new one will appear and eventually you will see the car again, driving happily through space.
Posted by: Kero
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April 27, 2009 2:43 AM