Joefeesh: Can you briefly explain what LostWinds is about for the readers who haven‘t played the first game?

Frontier: LostWinds is a game that was designed specifically to take advantage of the Wii’s controller and offer fresh new gameplay ideas.

With the Nunchuck you control Toku, a young buy who is relatively powerless. With the Wii Remote you play Enril, a once powerful Wind Spirit who needs Toku’s help to gather back her amazing powers in order to save the magical land of Mistralis Balasar, one of Enril’s fellow Spirits who has decided he wants to rule the whole lot for himself.

It feels very natural to play as two characters – as Enril you have to power Toku’s jumps and glides through Mistralis, and bash enemies. Although the Wind Spirit has all the power, she needs the physical presence of the young boy Toku in order to be carried around and interact with the physical world. So the symbiosis works very well for them both.

Joefeesh: At Newbreview we aim to cater for every audience, assuming nothing about the readers inside gaming knowledge. How does LostWinds appeal to the expanding and more varied games market?

Frontier: At Frontier we don’t see there is any difference between a good casual game and a good ‘hardcore’ game – they are both good games, and that is what people really want – a good game. We’ve had a ton of experience with very high selling games aimed at a family audience (RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 and Thrillville to name two) and in our opinion the trick is to make sure the game is *accessible*, so it can be enjoyed by all.

So we hope LostWinds is regarded as a very high quality game, which has some innovative ideas and looks beautiful, has enchanting characters, a magical game world and is able to be enjoyed by a wide range of people.

Joefeesh: Are there any particular stories or mythology that inspired the world of Mistralis and it’s spirits?

Frontier: The game idea came from Steven Burgess, one of Frontier’s designers, who was watching the trees and leaves from the window on a windy day. He remembers thinking about how many ways the wind shapes and manipulates different things within the world, and if only there was some way to become the wind in game. He then applied this train of thought to the Wii controller.

Joefeesh: Enril is the spirit of the wind. In the story of LostWinds Enril says “we” tried to seal Balasar in a stone and there is artwork of other elements in the battle. Can we expect to see more spirits in Lost Winds 2?

Frontier: Yes! In Winter of the Melodias Toku and Enril meet Sonte, Spirit of Seasons. She gives them the power to change betweens Summer and Winter at will, in order to help them in their quest to save Toku’s mother, Magdi.

Joefeesh: The environments in LostWinds are beautiful. From the media released it looks like you are expanding to a snowy landscape for the second game. Will this weather change be built into the gameplay at all?

Frontier: Absolutely. We have tried with Winter of the Melodias to have just as many gameplay innovations as we had in the the first LostWinds game rather than just churn out more levels – the ability to switch between Summer and Winter is a key new feature, and it is completely integrated into the gameplay (ie you won’t be able to solve some puzzles without using it) . Whether it’s summer or winter also alters how some powers work, too – for example in Winter if you draw a vortex in the air you can form a snowball to throw at enemies, and in summer all the ice turns to pools of water in which you can swim. You can change seasons as many times as you like, to experiment with puzzle solutions.

Joefeesh: As Enril, the wind spirit, you could use your power to help Toku solve puzzles in the environment by floating, moving and throwing rocks, spreading fire etc. Will there be more powers and ways of solving puzzles in part 2?

Frontier: Definitely. One of the major new wind powers is cyclone, which can be used in a number of different ways in both Summer and Winter. You can transport Toku to otherwise inaccessible areas, battle enemies, move water around the landscape in the form of clouds, make it rain, and even drill through the rock around you!

As well as that you can freeze enemies in Winter by gusting wind at them (like wind chill!), and there are many other new things to enjoy. Plus you still have all the powers from the first game, so the game is bursting with great ways to put the power of the wind in the palm of your hand!

Joefeesh: The sound in LostWinds play a massive part in making the player (me) fall in love with the game and really empathize. Was it planned to make the sounds of the game a real focus?

Frontier: Thank you! We have a talented audio team at Frontier and we like them to push and excel just as much as the artists, animators, programmers and designers. I suspect that in common with the rest of the team they find the world of Mistralis inspires them to be creative.

Joefeesh: Wind instruments were an obvious choice but what were the inspirations for the music of LostWinds?

Frontier: In common with the rest of the art direction, we took our themes from ‘high altitude’ cultures who live with the wind as fact of their lives on a day to day basis, so Tibetan, Andean and even some Greek influences are in there.

The music is constructed using a combination of midi instruments and recordings of real musicians playing a variety of ethnic instruments.

What makes the compositional style so very different from a lot of games’ music is that Quantisation was banned completely. Quantisation is a process by which midi notes that have been played into sequencing software (usually via a midi keyboard) are ‘forced’ to play back in perfect timing. This is actually very unnatural and quite unlike how human beings actually play. Furthermore, the LostWinds music deliberately speeds up and slows down. This gives the compositional style a sense of ‘breathing’ in much the same way that orchestral pieces work.

So by putting all the above together we were able to use recordings of real world musical instrumentalists, around which we then embroidered with midi instrumentation, made sure we did not use any quantisation to keep it ‘human’ ,and allowed the tempo of the music to ebb and flow.

Joefeesh: Have you thought of releasing a LostWinds relaxation album? I would at least love some of the sounds available as a ring tone. Any chance of the music/samples being made available to download?

Frontier: You can download the theme tune from our website in MP3 format.

Joefeesh: There seems to be a large push to market this game, more than most have had on the Nintendo Wii-ware platform. I had a newsletter from Nintendo featuring LostWinds. Do you feel that LostWinds can be a showcase for how good Wii-ware can be?

Frontier: I certainly think that it matches the very best Wii disc games for quality, so it both shows how good the Wii can be and illustrates that the distribution mechanism is just that – a mechanism for getting the game onto your console – and there should be no difference between the quality of a disc or downloaded game.

Joefeesh: I used to have a LostWinds background on my laptop. I think the artwork is great. Will there be more backgrounds and artwork available from your website?

Frontier: Yes, definitely – keep checking http://lostwinds.frontier.co.uk/ !

Joefeesh: Finally, will there be a part 3 to LostWinds. I sincerely hope there will.

Frontier: After the first game, the team went to work on different projects in Frontier and it took us longer than we’d have liked to get them back together again. There is HUGE enthusiasm within Frontier for the game and certainly no shortage of ideas, so when Winter of the Melodias is safely launched, we’ll be keeping the team together and sit down to prioritize the many opportunities we have to continue telling stories from the enchanting world of Mistralis.

Joefeesh: Thanks so much for the answers and I wish you all the success with the release of LostWinds: Winter of the Melodias.

Frontier: Its been a pleasure, thanks for the opportunity to communicate with your readers – we appreciate your kind wishes, and hope people have as much fun playing Winter of the Melodias as we have had making it!

Joefeesh: Thanks again. Hope to hear from you soon.

About LostWinds: Winter of the Melodias

LostWinds: Winter of the Melodias had its European Release Set on Friday 9th October 2009 and became the 100th game released for WiiWare by Nintendo of Europe.

Developed by Frontier Developments Ltd. (‘Frontier’) David Braben, Frontier’s Chairman and Founder, said:

“We launched the original LostWinds game on WiiWare with much anticipation, as it was such an exciting and new way to access games. We are now thrilled to be able to mark the 100th game launch on WiiWare with LostWinds: Winter of the Melodias.”

The eagerly awaited follow-up to last year’s best selling, award-winning WiiWare launch title once again puts the power of the wind in the palm of your hand, as you experience Toku and Enril’s new adventure to save Toku’s mother, lift an ancient curse and thwart the evil Balasar. The elemental powers of Enril the Wind Spirit are used to protect and guide the young boy Toku – power his jumps and glides, suspend and smash new enemies, and explore all-new expanses of the stunningly presented, magical land of Mistralis.

Players can instantly transform Mistralis between Summer and Winter, harnessing the brilliance of nature: frozen Winter ponds and waterfalls become deep, teeming Summer pools and chambers in which to dive and unlock secrets, enemies can be frozen or doused, and the very air itself used to form snowballs or moisture-laden clouds. Other amazing new abilities include the cyclone, which can be used to transport Toku, smash powerful enemies and even drill through the rock of Mistralis’ diverse, richly interactive Chilling Peaks and Melodia City areas.

With production values to match the very best Wii disc titles, LostWinds: Winter of the Melodias will be available to download directly to the living rooms of millions of families in Europe exclusively via Nintendo’s WiiWare service at a price of 1000 Wii Points. See http://lostwinds.frontier.co.uk for more details including video footage, screenshots and registration for priority information on the game’s launch and exclusive content