The Stillness of the Wind

I got it working on my Linux (Ubuntu 20.04) desktop, but had to change a monitor setting to fix a serious playability glitch. I don’t know whether it’s specific to running it under Wine (other Unity/Windows games have worked fine for me on this machine without adjustment), or if it could happen on any dual-monitor setup. In either case, here’s the problem description and the fix.

Problem: The game has a horrible flicker, starting at the title screen. There’s no settings menu I can find to change refresh rate, and the flickering is so bad I can’t look at the screen for more than a couple of minutes without eyestrain.

Fix: In system settings, set both monitors to 59.95fps refresh rate.

One of the most stunning and unique game I've ever played. I've rarely felt what this game's made me feel : emptyness, being lost in the void, feeling the world come to an end, but not in an apocalyptic way ; in a simple, calm and lonely way. On that aspect it reminds me of the animated movie Dragons Hunter, it has a similar feeling of void and emptyness. Amazing job.

I was expecting a simple simulation game where I go everyday doing simple activities, taking care of animals, farming, etc, but it's so much more.

The first dream made me realise that. I won't spoil much more for future players, but truly, it's amazing.

10/10

 Aún no lo he completado, pero tengo que decir que: es maravilloso. El ritmo, que para algunxs se puede hacer pesado, realmente esta muy bien medido y sin dar muchas indicaciones las mecánicas son sencillas, y muy intuitivas. Se trata de una pieza que buscar contar, y hasta el momento con dos horas metido (a fondo), lo consigue. Es una obra "de nicho",  y no es un juego nuevo ya hay información de sobra, quien ha llegado a esto creo que sabe lo que busca.  
  Gracias, hacer un videojuego es complicado, pero hacer una obra tierna y que invite a la reflexión aún más, Desde luego voy a seguir con interés cualquier futuro proyecto.

left me feeling immensely empty. i loved it

This game is amazing! Interesting visual choice and good story is really compelling here! :D Nice work dev!:D

Damn, I better be an emotional wreck once I'm done with game or I'm going to dissapointed in myself.

I have very ambivalent feelings. While I don't think I would not recommend this to someone, I can't overlook these issues that give it a 2★/5:

• +1★ for amazing media (graphics & audio/presentation)
• +1★ for decent unfolding story
• -1★ for overpricing (this isn't worth >$10 due to the UI issues)
• -1★ for clunky UI
• -1★ for bugs/typos

What would raise my rating to 5★ (and for people who have never played, there are spoilers present):

• Make it clearer (on any level at all!) how much food you should feed Talma, even just a stomach-growling sound, before you actually need it. Someone in a Steam review said that Talma can't die from starvation, which seems unfair to players trying to actually survive as opposed to those just trolling around and still getting to see the same ending (I'm guessing).
• Add a "Click to open" instruction for at least the first unopened letter that you check. It was not clear that you have to click any space in letter addresses to read them; I ended up with 3 unopened letters until I finally decided to click around in my confusion. Players' understanding shouldn't be neglected like this.
• Give a settings option to highlight whatever-thing-you-clicked-that-Talma-is-currently-going-to-interact-with, including movement spots, and keep it lit until Talma reaches the spot.
• Be able to queue at least one action ahead of time, while midway through passive actions (for example, if you click a gate while Talma's filling a watering can, she should go to interact with the gate next; as it is, your click is wasted and you have to manually wait until the can is done watering). I know that this can be easily done because the gate-swinging already queues clicks, and it's important because there is idle time that can be used more efficiently (for example, the well cover actually closes itself; Talma can start walking while it's closing, but people might not know that).
• Fix the bug that causes a goat to occasionally "skate" with no walking animation while you try to milk it, which currently breaks your milking and forces you to re-milk. I also encountered other goat-interaction issues (not being able to milk nor pet with no dialogue as to why).
• Fix the mid-action mouse-over icon bug:

1. Water a plant, or plant a seed
2. Put the cursor over the next plant-to-water/seed-to-plant while Talma is performing the first action, above
3. The water/seed icon should appear once Talma is done and ready for another action, but it doesn't show.

• Give a settings option to invert the inverted scroll wheel when reading letters, and make it scroll faster.
• While milking a goat, it doesn't visually make sense why you have to milk one more time even when the white progress bar is already full.
• It was confusing to see mail disappear out of your hands if you took it from Laszlo and proceeded to grab something else without reading it. It would help to have a brief text notice saying that you pocket the letter to read in the house.
• It was super-awkward to see a wolf get stuck and glitch its movement behind the tree stump behind your house.
• When conversing, I would put Laszlo's mail icon in the front or middle, because it could get forgotten due to bartering.
• One-time text that pops up saying that your watering can can keep watering plants until it's empty would be really helpful.
• It was really awkward to see the billy goat teleport instantly to Laszlo's side instead of it walking over to him (even if it'd have to walk through the gates)...
• Fix the numerical count typo "These 1 cheeses..."
• Fix the clicking issue when you click to fully read something that Talma comments on: gamers typically do this to read the full batch of text at once instead of waiting for it to spill out, but Stillness causes the commentary to re-spill itself.
• Talma began to awkwardly laugh randomly the night after the takeover dream... is that intentional?
• Fix Laszlo's footstep sound (he once came from the right side, but the footstep audio came from my left speaker).
• Be able to count somewhere how many shotshells you have left. There is literally no way to know apart from memorization or discovering that you've run out.
• Be able to see an overview of your letters. If I want to check through them to see if I got any from Eimi, I don't want to have to keep click-dragging down to click the "previous mail" back arrow one at a time per letter.
• Make it clearer that the bucket can hold multiple goats' worth of milk at a time; it takes on the same graphical appearance of fullness, which is deceiving.
• Add a muzzle flash to firearm use.
• "Reset item positions" shouldn't take at least your currently held item out of your hands!
• It would be a nice touch if the sound of rain was muffled whenever Talma is indoors.
• The credits for Laszlo's voice actor incorrectly doubles the word "by."
• It would be nice if holding left-click would scroll through the credits faster instead of immediately exit the game.

It was also never explained why the chickens gradually disappear: old age? Wolves weren't always present...

Loved this. It was almost boring to play but I kept thinking about it and coming back, and it left quite an impression. I don't think I got the right ending though, heh.

My full review and the other most special games from The Bundle here: https://notlikeothergames.wordpress.com/

Another fantastic game that crept up on me out of nowhere. Your family has left and you are the last one in your old family home, passing your time and tending to your animals and farming your land, eagerly awaiting news from your family by the postman. Or do you not care and just wander out into the desert? Its an absolutely gorgeous and lovely tale of loneliness, happiness, loving the small things in life and also... the curse of frailty. I was expecting this game to be more of a simple ponderous affair, but there is much more to this blend of pondering and small, but fitting gameplay mechanics. I highly recommend exploring what this game offers and guiding this person along her path, whatever it may bring. Its guaranteed to affect you. Very life, very good. 5/5

More Racial Justice bundle impressions and ranking:
https://itch.io/c/915453/quick-impressions-bundle-for-racial-justice

I get the same problem.

I've bought this on both Switch and Steam, so I'm delighted to see this game in the Racial Equality Bundle! It's gorgeous, emotional, and has very well-designed mechanics. It is, however, slow. Which is the point. As an old woman, you can't very well sprint everywhere all the day, right? I enjoyed slowing down and calmly considering each new letter I got from my grandkids.....which hit harder in this current political climate then it did when I first bought the game a while ago.

If you have the time, I strongly, strongly reccomend this game. It's worth the full price.

God, that was a beautiful and utterly devastating game.

That creep toward the ending was just... flawless.

Man, i never know what these games mean but I liked it. It's kind of the perfect game for quarantine

All i can really say is thank you. this game reminds me of my own great aunt in UA and idk it just hit close with me. this game is beautiful. thank you.

I wish I could erase memory of this game so I could experience it again

The Stillness of the Wind shows that video games can be so much more than fun. (If your bucket gets stuck in the fence, reset item positions)

I've been playing this game and I made a big mistake so I want to start over (or at least restart from the beginning of the day before). How can I do that?

I played this on Game Pass some time ago, but I just wanted to leave a comment saying how phenomenal it is. Absolutely play this game. 

My heart is broken.



I want to cry.



Please play it.



And find out why.

Thank you so much dev <3

A very beautiful and peaceful game. As someone who keeps searching for no-combat games, this is a gem.

A really beautiful game thank you! I've been closely following your steam page to get an idea on how well it was selling ... very happy to see such games succeed. Good luck for the future!

Des traces d’EHPAD sur le sable

Quand j’étais gamin, j’allais acheter des œufs chez “Milie”, la voisine. A 75 ans bien tassés, elle fauchait toujours son foin, qu’elle montait au grenier à la fourche, sur une échelle en bois. Elle était veuve depuis bien avant la retraite, sans enfants. Le sol de sa maison était en terre battue. Je me souviens de ses mains, quand j'y posais la pièce de 10 francs. A 8 ans, je savais déjà que jamais je n’aurais sa poigne. Quand elle ne s’est plus sentie capable de s'occuper des lapins, des poules et du potager, elle a déménagé à deux kilomètres, dans une maison avec du carrelage. Quelques années après, la maison de retraite a suivi. Elle est repassée par le village pour son enterrement, et est repartie en emportant un bout de la campagne avec elle.

The Stillness of the Wind est la suite de Where the Goats Are, ou plutôt, selon son créateur Coyan Cardenas, sa version complète. On incarne Talma, une vieille femme seule en milieu rural, et on s’occupe des chèvres et du potager. Le facteur, un ami d’enfance, sera votre seul contact humain direct. Au fil des lettres reçues, on prend conscience de qui est notre héroïne. L’exode rural a dilué sa fratrie. Pour des emplois prestigieux, pour les études...Tous ont quitté le village. Elle suit ses frères, sœurs, enfants et petits-enfants de manière épistolaire. Traire les chèvres, faire du fromage, aller au puits, semer des graines...le jeu est une routine dont l’arrivée du courrier constitue le temps fort.

Alors qu’on se croyait au départ dans un coin de désert maghrébin, la prose de nos correspondants nous fait entrevoir un monde semi-fantastique : le vocabulaire mystique, la mention de colonies sur la lune et la poésie dans chaque nom d'objet. Le lecteur de SF y trouvera sans doute un peu de Damasio, notamment par la présence constante du vent, et la mention d’un “part-delà” évoquant forcément la “Zone du dehors” ou “L’extrême Amont”. Le fin lettré y verra  l’influence du classique de la littérature espagnole 100 ans de solitude, de Gabriel García Márquez. L'auteur dit s’être inspiré de cette pierre angulaire du “réalisme magique”.

Le rendement du lopin de terre de mamie a de quoi faire pleurer la FNSEA. Ici, on ne ramasse pas les radis à la remorque comme dans Stardew Valley, et la vieille cabane des chèvres restera décrépie jusqu’au bout. Il s’agit simplement de (sur) vivre, d’assurer aux chèvres leur dose vitale de foin. L’existence consiste à attendre l’avancée de l’histoire, coupé du monde, par les mots de nos proches. La ville, au loin, s’obscurcit peu à peu, dans un crépuscule qui coïncide avec celui de la vie de l’héroïne. The Stillness of the Wind est un concentré qui parvient à faire frissonner avec un environnement réduit et 10 pages de texte, sur des thématiques originales.

https://lagazettedugame.com/2019/03/13/the-stillness-of-the-wind/

Drunk gameplay and thoughts on the game here:

So moderately put, this game is pretty... i can see that there is a lot of story to uncover still but right off the bat i noticed that there is no direction on what to do. I'm pretty sure that my goat milking bucket got glitched, either that or my goats nips were chaffed and wasn't having it anymore. It is also a very slow paced game so keep that in mind, this is a game for easy Sunday mornings when you have nothing to do, the main mechanic of the game is literally just farming. I actually found it quit pleasant but i could see other hardcore gamers wanting something more fast paced. All in all i give this a 6 out of 10 goat nip.

This game was gorgeous!