Valley 1:Fast Facts

Fast Facts: A Crash Course On A Valley Without Wind

Want to get up to speed quickly? This list is aimed to help you do just that (and will be refined over time).

1. This is a side-scrolling Action-Adventure with bits of Strategy, Shmup, Platforming, and Citybuilding

You run around in a 2D side view and shoot stuff with magic spells. The combat is shmup-like, and the platforming can be hardcore or completely tame. Where other games are linear, here we have long-term goal-setting that you have to manage in an open-ended environment: you start out pitifully underpowered, and it's your job to figure out how to improve both yourself and your settlement so that you can take down the overlord. For details, see What Genre Is This, Anyway?

2. Missions are the crux of how you advance in the game.

The only way to get the best spells and ultimately be able to defeat the overlord is to do a goodly number of missions. Most are quick to complete, and you get to choose which ones you want to do (hint: that's where a lot of the long-form strategy of this game lies).

3. It's dangerous to go alone. Looting abandoned stashes for supplies is critical.

If you don't prepare well enough, the missions will kill you. You'll want to explore the countryside for buildings, locate stash rooms (marked in yellow on your dungeon map), grab what you need, and get on with your questing.

4. Being a "completionist" in an infinite world is futile and boring.

You cannot explore every room, every cave, or even every region. The game really is infinite, and you have bigger in-game fish to fry. We've compiled a handy reference on efficient exploration, although most players naturally figure that out with a little experience.

5. Using and understanding the four kinds of maps is vital for effective play.

Those maps being world, region, dungeon, and chunk/minimap. The game itself explains all of these, and frankly if you just look at them (and maybe hover your mouse over the dungeon/region map in particular), you'll get most of the information. But we did compile a guide for the detail-oriented.

6. Take any advantage you can get against your enemies.

Find some awesome enchant that makes you feel a bit overpowered for a while? Savor that feeling, because it won't last. Similarly, try to get some higher-tier spells before the enemies reach that tier, and then have fun smiting them for a while. That, too, won't last. And frankly, this is a brutal-hard game if you're playing on an appropriate difficulty level for your skill. You will need the advantages to take out the harder bosses and missions.

7. Seriously, use the difficulty levels.

You can change the difficulty any time you like from your settlement, as well as right when you create your world. There are two: platforming and combat. The default for both is pretty low-key, to make sure that your average semi-gamer isn't overwhelmed right away. The difficulty dropdowns note what experienced gamers are likely to prefer in terms of combat difficulty.

8. Procedural generation techniques have been combined with hand-crafting throughout this game.

Terrain and caves are procedural, as are enemy/object placement, and enchants. Character names are procedurally combined from lists of first and last names. There are over a million possible character names, there are hundreds of thousands (and growing) of unique enchants, and there are billions of unique terrain/enemy/object combinations. Even the structures of the insides of buildings are hugely procedural.

Hand-crafted elements include the spells and enemies themselves, most of the individual interior room floorplans (or at least floorplan-components), and the overall balance and progression of the game. This is why you don't just get lost in a soupy mess of genericness. There are billions of possibilities to explore, but those hand-crafted bits make a lot of difference.

Each Continent Is A "Game" In Itself

Like a linear title, there is a logical flow to how things progress in this game. You grow in power, so do your enemies, and you must ultimately defeat the Big Bad Guy. In this case, the randomly-generated Overlord of your continent. To complete a single continent takes anywhere from 4-20 hours, depending on how you play and how much of a hurry you're in. The earlier continents are easier and thus go faster, but even there 4 hours is practically a speed run.

Many Things Reset When You Move Between Continents, But Some Carry Forward

Think of your second continent like a "New Game+" option in another game. You're "starting over" in the sense that the monster tier has reverted to 1, you've lost all your spells, and so on. However, all of your unlockables carry forward, as do your enchants, and your other non-spell equipment. This means that there are really two progressions: your overall world progression, and your progression on whatever continent you are currently at. Thus each continent you face is more complicated and more challenging than the last, because you've unlocked more dangerous enemies as well as more interesting tools to fight them with.

This Game Evolves Through Continual Updates

After version 1.0 of this game comes out, we've committed ourselves to at least three months of free updates. That said, if the game does at all well, we plan to continue such updates indefinitely, alongside the occasional optional paid expansion pack. Look at AI War -- three years on, and it's still getting this treatment. For a game about adventure and exploration, this means that there will always be new stuff to find.

A Valley Without Wind

Further Reading

• Getting started with A Valley Without Wind
• What Is The General Game Flow?
• What are all of these maps for?
• How Do I Know If I'm Prepared For An Expedition?
• How Does Multiplayer Work?
• What Genre Is This, Anyway?