Wood & Weather Preview

Wood & Weather is a charming puzzle god game title created and published by Paper House; it was showcased during this year's Wholesome Direct. In it, you take control of a ginormous blue hand that goes around a small town, helping its denizens solve their life issues with weather-controlled powers.

As you explore the area and complete missions, you'll get a currency called Inspiration. With it, you can unlock even more weather effects that give you more and more tasks and puzzles to complete. Although the demo only had a handful of interactions to finish, there was a very nice variety of things to do: from helping a man fish out something from the river to helping someone by dragging their van from one side of town to the other. They are humorous, inventive, and fun.

Additionally, the Compendium feature allows you to collect info on people and items that you discover around the town, and every time you find a new one, you can collect it to gain even more Inspiration; this gameplay loop makes it pretty easy to get distracted grabbing at items and chatting with people to get to know them. 

Aside from filling up your collection and helping quirky citizens with their struggles, you'll probably spend a lot of time walking around the city (and I mean WALKING with your index and middle finger; it's hilarious) as a ginormous hand and causing absolute chaos. The controls are a bit wobbly and odd sometimes, but it doesn't get in the way of gameplay; contrariwise, I felt like it added a lot of humour to the movement and stopped the tasks from being bland and straightforward. There is definitely charm in the clunk!

What little I got to play in the demo certainly charmed me: it's a nice and unique idea to have god powers but be a helper. Anyone who likes puzzles — and titles such as Scribblenauts — can head over to the game's Steam page and try out the demo! I highly recommend it.