Video Game / Windswept

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Windswept is an indie 2D collectathon buddy platform game developed by WeatherFell and published by Top Hat Studios, Inc. It was released on Steam, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S on November 11th, 2025. It is strongly inspired by the Donkey Kong Country games, most prominently Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest.

In Windswept, you play as a duck named Marbles and turtle named Checkers who work as a tag team to find their way home after getting blown away in a storm.

Windswept contains examples of the following tropes:

• Abnormal Ammo:
  • The "P. Shooter" Pips are mice using cannons to shoot corks on strings, before pulling them back in.
  • Skree throws cassette tapes as projectiles.
• Absurdly Short Level:
  • In "Magmaw Well", the goal is on a cliff above the start, just out of reach... unless you use some Advanced Movement Techniques: a midair team-up to throw Checkers upward, followed by a midair Dropdash into a jump, will get you there in three seconds or less.
  • In "Bells End", the game falsely gives you the impression that the stage is a subversion of When All Else Fails, Go Right by starting you near the right side of the screen. If you just walk right at the very beginning of the stage anyway, the goal is right there. Resultantly, the individual level speedrun's world record is a multi-way tie for 1.116 seconds.
  • "Cirra's Strife" is set up as the Final Boss level, but Cirra just runs away once you get close to her, so the level is essentially just a hallway with two short cutscenes that can be cleared in under a minute. The actual final boss stage is a bit later.
  • "Home" is little more than the nest and pond that Marbles was blown away from at the start of the game. The only hazards are easily-avoidable fish in the water, and you can finish the level in a few seconds by walking off of either edge of the stage.
• Advanced Movement Technique:
  • Similar to Donkey Kong Country, rolling off a ledge allows you to maintain the momentum and Double Jump afterwards.
  • Marbles can jump and throw Checkers at the wall or an enemy and bounce off the rebounding shell ala Super Mario World's shell-jumps.
  • Normally, you can only do one Dropdash per jump unless you defeat an enemy, and attempting a second Dropdash will result in it failing. The failed Dropdash actually gains a bit of height, and it's possible to cancel it into itself, letting you slowly gain extra height with it.
  • As taught in the third world's Laamp's Shade level "Dizzying Descent", Checkers can cancel a Ground Pound midair into a Dropdash into a jump (or another Ground Pound) which allows for astonishing mobility. If Checkers knocks out an enemy, then the Dropdash is refreshed allowing for the sequence to be repeated. The postgame goes even further with it by teaching that the Dropdash can also cancel into the tag-team and/or partner swap into the jump. As an example, Checkers can tag team throw Marbles upward and Ground Pound Dropdash cancel into a partner swap with Marbles and jump into a shell-jump.
• Air-Dashing: Checkers can cancel their Ground Pound into the "Dropdash", a move that lets them launch forward both on the ground and in mid-air.
• All There in the Script: None of the worlds are given a name ingame, but their map themes in the official soundtrack releases have titles for each: Forest, Floral Canyon, Snowy Mountain, Lava Field, Ruins, Cloudy Lake, Cloudy Sky, and Space.
• And Now for Someone Completely Different:
  • Out of the five minigames, only the last one actually has you play as Marbles and Checkers. The other four star one of the game's many Mooks: in order, a Hoppet, a Pip, a Slicko, and a Firanha.
  • "Cirra Superstorm" puts you in control of Octulent, Capt. Pipt., and Lunosa as they help Marbles and Checkers fight off Cirra.
• Antepiece: All throughout the game, things are explained wordlessly via giving you safe environments to mess around with them, before ramping up what's done with them later on.
  We take the tried-and-true approach of exposing you to game elements in a relatively safe environment, it's on you to engage with something new and understand it [safely] so you don't get blindsided by it later when stakes are higher.
• Anti-Frustration Features:
  • The game will retain your last checkpoint in a level even if you exit it, quit to the file select, or close the game entirely.
  • Unlike bonus stages in the DKC games, where you have to manually return to the entrance to try again, Windswept allows you to retry them indefinitely as long as you don't leave.
  • You don't have to clear a level to save any collectibles you've earned in it; as long as it's been registered as collected, you can leave the level afterwards. That said, if you missed any C-O-M-E-T coins, you will still have to reach the end to claim the comet after getting all five.
  • Once you get access to the interior of any Laamp's Shade, you can pay some of the coins you've collected at Laamp's Bulb to have Laamp show you the location of any of the collectibles in a level except Records or Cartridges, helping you find the ones you missed.
  • Normally, getting hit causes you to lose the currently-controlled character between Marbles and Checkers. However, if you die within a short window after getting hit, you'll respawn with both Marbles and Checkers instead of just one of them.
• Artsy Beret: Hue wears a blue beret and carries a paintbrush in their tail, and can paint various portraits of themselves, Marbles, Checkers, and the other Animal Buddies with it.
• Ascended Glitch:
  • You can get lots of speed from being on a moving platform, then jumping in the direction it's going in. WeatherFell admitted that this could be easily fixed, but that'd be no fun.
  • Speedrunners found a glitch to clip through walls by abusing the game's method of checking if the player characters would enter collision when doing a partner swap; WeatherFell declared it wouldn't be patched because it's fun for speedruns and doesn't ruin casual play.
• Attract Mode: When idling in the main menu, the game switches to gameplay footage.
• Balloonacy: Some of the Pips float in the air using a single balloon.
• Berserk Button: Octulent loves his top hat, and gets mad when it's removed—such as when Cirra blows it off of his head, prompting the Boss Battle between him and Marbles and Checkers. In fact, the fight ends when his hat falls from the sky and lands back on his head, cheering him up and prompting him to happily let the duo pass.
• Big Creepy-Crawlies:
  • Several of the enemies are bugs, including Beevy (bees) and Draggard (dragonflies).
  • Laamp and Lunosa are anthro moths that are larger than Marbles and Checkers. Fortunately, they're both friendly.
• Big Damn Heroes: In "Cirra Superstorm", the eponymous enemy zaps Marbles and Checkers with lightning, leading them to sink into water. After a few seconds, Octulent rises out of the water, carrying the player characters on his tentacles, and begins fighting Cirra. This is followed by Capt. Pipt. and Lunosa also taking up the fight against her when Octulent and Pipt. respectively run out of health.
• Bottomless Pits: Falling off screen results in death.
• Brutal Bonus Level:
  • All of the Laamp's Shade levels are noticeably harder than those of the world they're found in. Furthermore, you become a One-Hit-Point Wonder in all of them.
  • The last world of the game ends on a difficult Marathon Level simply titled "Windswept". Moreover, collecting the Sun Coin in it grants you access to an even harder version of the stage dubbed "Windswept EX".
• Charged Attack:
  • Marbles can charge up their spin before launching forward at high speed.
  • Bluppo the Dolphin has a corkscrew attack that can be charged, which will make them go further upon unleashing it.
• Checkpoint: Touching a floating bubble-orb with a star in it will cause you to respawn from that location if you die.
• Colour-Coded for Your Convenience: Conveyor belts that go to the right are colored brown, while ones that go left are gray.
• Company Cameo: Every secret exit in the game (as well as the hidden room with Skree in Frigid Flurry) has a stash of coins in the shape of WeatherFell's logo.
• Cosmic Motifs: The small coins are shaped like stars in normal levels and crescent moons in bonus stages, clearing a bonus stage awards a large crescent moon-shaped coin, and collecting the five C-O-M-E-T coins will spawn a large comet-shaped coin at the end of the level. The Brutal Bonus Level also contains the sole Sun Coin.
• Crossover Cameo: Bread & Fred appear early on in Aucora's Abyss, as a unique variant of the Pen and Gwen enemies.
• Cross-Popping Veins: When angry, such as when seeing Marbles and Checkers, Cirra sports the red, four-sided vein atop her head.
• Directionally Solid Platforms: Some platforms are solid from above. This includes temporary wooden platforms.
• Disproportionate Retribution: At the start of Octulent's Onslaught, Marbles and Checkers accidentally startle Cirra, causing her to fall into a pool of inky water. After that, Cirra basically declares that it's on sight with the duo.
• Double Jump: Checkers has a roundabout double jump, in that they can perform a jump out of a midair Dropdash.
• Easter Egg:
  • As early as the game's file select, holding right against the right wall will reveal three more files, then three Chaos Mode files, then three randomizer files. If you continue holding right even more, you'll walk onto a fifth screen which has nothing but Bluppo the Dolphin and a No Animal Buddy whirlwind. Taking Bluppo to it awards you a singular coin.
  • Much like Stone's transformations in Kirby, Hue's painting-hide ability can paint several different paintings, some rarer than others. Among others, this includes all of the Animal Buddies, Laamp, and a smiling human with the text "OK!".
  • In Calamitous Chasm, you normally enter a warp to a Bonus Stage, then are deposited at the Level Goal when you exit. If you instead make your way across the massive gap between the two locations (possible to do by chaining failed Dropdashes or using the Infinite Jumps modifier), you'll eventually stumble upon a deposit of coins that spells out "WOW!!".
  • If you jump all the way to the right in the first section of Temporal Railroad, you can spot Lunosa hanging out next to the fog wall. Once you get too close, they fly into it and vanish.
  • At the start of Lunosa's Library, Cirra can be seen flying to the left. If you're fast enough, you can bonk into her and she'll tumble forward and fall down.
• Equippable Ally: When using a tag-team throw as Marbles, you can throw Checkers at enemies.
• Expy: Three of the Power-Up Mount animals are carbon copies of the Animal Buddies from DKC2. Bluppo the Dolphin plays very similarly to Enguarde the Swordfish, Nippa the Crab is this game's equivalent to Squitter the Spider, and Skree the Bat is identical to Squawks the Parrot.
• Fade to Black: Losing in a bonus stage will prompt the game to freeze-frame, then fade to black.
• Fastball Special: Marbles and Checkers have a team-up throw ability that depends on who you're currently controlling. When you're Checkers, Marbles throws Checkers upwards to get more height; when you're Marbles, they throw Checkers forward to spin through enemies and collect items.
• Final Death Mode: The hidden Hero Mode is accessed by skipping Checkers in Guiding Glade and beating the level, then pressing the down direction on the subsequent mode select screen. Hero Mode ends the game after a single death, booting you back to the title screen and replacing the Marbles and Checkers atop the file in the file select screen with two gravestones, one with Marbles' cap and one with Checkers' shades.
• Flipping Helpless: When Marbles first finds Checkers in the tutorial level, the turtle is stuck on their back. Touching Checkers flips them over and prompts them to join Marbles.
• Floating in a Bubble: When you're controlling solo Marbles or Checkers, the floating bubbles found throughout the level will contain the other character. Popping the bubble frees them and makes them begin following you.
• Follow the Money: The small star coins are placed throughout the levels, with many giving hints on where to find hidden areas or how to progress.
• Goomba Springboard:
  • Stomping on enemies makes the player bounce upward.
  • In a friendly variant, Marbles can use Checkers' shell to bounce up high.
• Goomba Stomp: Many non-spiky enemies can be defeated by jumping on them.
• Grimy Water: Purple water hurts upon contact. Activating a Salamancer temporarily turns the water safe.
• Ground Pound: Checkers can perform a ground pound in mid-air, which can be used to pound through flippable panels.
• Hailfire Peaks: Spicy Ice Speedway is the first level of Lava Field, with its main mechanic being ice platforms standing in the lava that begin to sink once you land on them.
• Hint System: Laamp operates a service at Laamp's Shade where you can pay coins to have them show you the location of any Comet, Moon, or Cloud Coins in a level, including ones you've missed.
• Hit Stop: Hitting enemies causes a brief freeze-frame.
• The Homeward Journey: The game begins with Marbles getting blown away from their nest, with the main goal being to get back to it.
• Human Cannonball: Barrel cannons are used to shoot out Marbles and Checkers, should they enter it. Some enemy types can also use barrel cannons.
• Idle Animation: Both Marbles and Checkers will do things if you idle as them. Marbles will drink a juice box (a reference to one of Dixie Kong's idle animations), while Checkers will pull out a pencil and paper and draw something.
• Inconveniently-Placed Conveyor Belt: A few levels (such as "Sawmill Thrill") have conveyor belts that serve no function other than to hinder the player. The conveyor belts are powered by running mice.
• Instructive Level Design: The Thrillneck enemies demonstrate the ability to jump in midair after spinning off of a ledge—just like you can do with Marbles' and Checkers' spin attacks. The very first one is even positioned immediately next to a location you can only access if you learn the move for yourself.
• Invincible Minor Minion:
  • Red Beevies are completely invincible. While you can safely Goomba Springboard off of helmetless ones, all the others are purely obstacles.
  • Staunchins are sea urchin enemies that can't be hurt. Blue ones orbit or patrol an area, red ones actively chase you, and gray ones are idle but will turn into red ones if hit by some of the Animal Buddies' moves.
• Iris Out: Death causes a black screen that irises in on the position where Marbles and/or Checkers died.
• Level in Reverse: Magmaw Well has you ride a bucket down into lava-filled tunnels, then trigger the lava to begin rising, leading you to return up the path you entered from.
• Level Goal: The level goal is a different spin on the End of Level Target from Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest. It's a rainbow-colored tower with a pinwheel on it and a pump you can jump on: hit the pump from high enough and you'll knock the pinwheel into the light bulb at the top, lighting it up and prompting Marbles or Checkers to dance.
• Life Meter: During the Final Boss battle against Cirra Superstorm, both the playable bosses and Cirra have Mega Man-style vertical health bars on each side of the screen.
• Minigame Zone: Laamp's Shade features five arcade machines that let you play different minigames, once you find the Cartridges for them hidden in each world. All of them center around using different characters with different mechanics to collect coins and reach the goal.
  • Hop Prince is a jumping-based minigame where you control a Hoppit who can only move around using a chargeable jump.
  • Quick Pip Runner is an automatic runner starring a Pip who only turns around when running into walls or shield-carrying Beevies, with you controlling its jumps.
  • Slicko, My Beloved is a climbing game centered around a Slicko scaling an ice wall. The only controls you have are pressing up, which makes Slicko climb while decaying its stamina, forcing it to eventually slide downwards slightly when you let go after it runs out, and pressing down, which decays its stamina without climbing. Moving to the side is handled by getting bumped by shield-carrying Beevies.
  • Ready, Aim, Firanha is a platformer featuring a Firanha who can swim in lava and jump high, but will instantly die if it lands on normal ground.
  • Chime Runners is the only minigame to star Marbles and Checkers, and is a time trial where you keep your timer and multiplier up by hitting bell-shaped flowers found throughout the level.
• One-Hit-Point Wonder:
  • Normally, if you have both Marbles and Checkers, getting hit causes your current character to run away. In special stages, however, the characters are soul-linked, with the ingame result being that any hit that would normally defeat one of them will defeat both of them instead.
  • The hidden Hard Mode and Super Hard Mode respectively force you to use only Marbles and only Checkers, thus meaning a single hit takes you out.
• Pacifist Run: Beating a level without defeating any enemies will prop a white flag on its level icon on the world map. Beating 40 levels pacifist earns you an achievement.
• Perpetual Molt: Marbles sheds one or two feathers every time they jump, and drops them en masse whenever they're gliding.
• Placeholder Repeat Collectible: Collected items are replaced by translucent versions of themselves that award nothing, though they'll still play their normal collection sound when touched.
• Play as a Boss: During the final boss battle, you get to control the game's first three bosses (Octulent, Capt. Pipt., and Lunosa) to battle Cirra Superstorm after she strikes Marbles and Checkers with lightning.
• Power-Up Mount: There are several animals that Marbles and Checkers can ride on for assistance.
  • Bluppo the Dolphin provides better underwater mobility and a lunging corkscrew spin attack that can be charged, making them similar to Enguarde the Swordfish.
  • Hue the Chameleon can use their tongue to attack from a distance and defeat tougher enemies that Marbles and Checkers can't on their own. They can also use it to latch onto floating flowers and reel towards them or jump out of the grab, giving them significant air mobility as long as there are flowers to grab. Aside from that, Hue can also paint a painting and take cover behind it to avoid taking damage.
  • Nippa the Crab is a dead ringer for Squitter the Spider. They can shoot two different types of water projectiles that can be aimed up or down: one that can defeat enemies, and one that forms a water pillar to use as a temporary platform. The main difference is that unlike Squitter, Nippa can Goomba Stomp enemies.
  • Skree the Bat combines Squawks the Parrot's functions from both DKC2 and Donkey Kong Country Returns: they provide flight and a projectile attack via thrown casette tapes like Squawks' DKC2 appearance, and their headphones pulse when a collectible is nearby, like how Squawks can be bought as an item to alert you to Puzzle Pieces in Returns.
  • Nugget the Dog automatically runs forward and can charge through enemies and plow through walls of snow and ash, making him something of a combination of Rambi the Rhino's offense and Ellie the Elephant's behavior in Stampede Sprint.
  • In "Cirra Superstorm", former bosses Octulent and Lunosa serve as mounts for the unconscious Marbles and Checkers. Octulent can shoot ink projectiles and duck underwater to avoid attacks, while Lunosa can fly in a manner similar to Skree, but can't shoot projectiles.
• Post-End Game Content: After completing the Final Boss stage, new worlds with extra levels are made available. First, you need enough Cloud Coins to reach the cloud world, then enough Comet Coins to reach space, then enough Moon Coins to reach Windswept, then the singular Sun Coin from Windswept to reach Windswept EX.
• Projectile Pocketing:
  • Once you kick a Taptap, it'll pick up any coins or collectibles it rolls into.
  • Checkers can grab any pickups they're thrown at, and can also pick things up when called back to Marbles.
• Saw Blades of Death: One of the common stage hazards are saw blades that rotate around. Most stay in place but a few move back and forth or move in a circular path.
• Shield-Bearing Mook: Some Beevies are equipped with shields, making attacks from the front bounce off. They are vulnerable from the back, though.
• Ship Level: World 2's boss stage, "The Pip Ship", takes place on an airship.
• Shout-Out:
  • Several of the achievement names are references:
    • The five achievements for getting all of a particular collectible are named after songs from Shovel Knight: "Strike The Earth", "Watch Me Dance!", "Courage Under Fire", "High Above The Land", and "End Of Days".
    • Hitting Lunosa nets you an achievement simply named "Oh My!", after the infamous line Kamek says in Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island if you throw an egg at the Piranha Plant in Naval Piranha's Castle before Kamek can turn it into Naval Piranha. You can get this achievement after the fight, but keeping with the reference, you can also earn it before the battle begins, and in an identical manner: throw Checkers at Lunosa and you'll KO them.
    • Finding a cartridge earns you "It's A Secret To Everybody".
  • When Marbles gets the pinwheel to the top of the goal at the end of a level, they put on a baseball cap backwards and do the Shuba Duck Dance.
  • According to Dev Log #2, it's entirely intentional that the game's Animal Buddies include a purple bat and a green chameleon.
  • One of Hue's paintings has Marbles and Checkers imitating the pointing Soyjaks meme.
  • The Hop Prince minigame is based on Jump King.
  • Bread & Fred appear right next to the first bonus in Aucora's Abyss.
  • The third world's boss is a moth named Lunosa, who resembles a Palette Swap of the friendly moth Laamp who grants you access to secret levels when given bonus Moon Coins. This is a deliberate reference to the third world's boss in Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest being a Kremling named Kudgel, who is a Palette Swap of the (relatively) friendly Kremling Klubba who grants you access to the Lost World's secret levels when given bonus Kremcoins.
  • Lunosa's boss battle is one long series of Super Smash Bros. references. Three of Lunosa's attacks are based on Meta Knight's Mach Tornado, Drill Rush, and Dimensional Cape, the arena is in the shape of Final Destination, and the bonus rounds they send you to are based on minigames throughout the series: Target Test, a giant enemy battle, Board the Platforms, Race to the Finish, and finally a Multi-Man Melee on a Battlefield-shaped stage.
  • The minigame Chime Runners derives its name from Mario Kart DS's Shine Runners Vs. Mode.
  • One of the level names plays on Dire, Dire Docks from Super Mario 64, being titled "Dire Dire Ducts".
  • Cyclonic Skyway is a subtle nod to Mario Kart: the stage layout is repeated in a manner that makes it seem as though you're completing five laps around it, while the sole bonus room of the stage repeats the layout again but has you go right to left in reference to Mario Kart's signature Mirror Mode.
• Silence Is Golden: The game contains no dialogue, just the characters' actions.
• Skippable Boss:
  • The world 3 boss, Lunosa, can be skipped by combining midair team-up upward throws and Checkers' Dropdash to leap under the boss arena.
  • In "B.V. Broadcast Tower", you can skip B.V. by having Marbles throw Checkers upward in midair, doing a Dropdash canceled into a team-up into a jump into an upward team throw, then doing failed Dropdashes to jump over the cutscene trigger and reach the goal.
• Solid Clouds: A few stages have clouds that behave as Directionally Solid Platforms.
• Sound of No Damage: Hitting a shielded enemy's shield plays a small "clink" sound.
• Sound Test: Several of the game's levels have vinyl records as collectibles in them. If you successfully collect one, you'll unlock one of the game's songs for listening at the jukebox in Laamp's Shade.
• Spelling Bonus: Every stage has five large gold coins spread throughout, each with a letter to spell out "COMET". Once you get all five, the comet-shaped Comet Coin becomes available somewhere near the end of the level.
• Spikes of Doom: Spread throughout various levels are all sorts of spikes that deal damage on contact. Thorny brambles are the most common, but there are others like crystalline protrusions in caves.
• Spin Attack:
  • Both Marbles and Checkers can use dashing spin attacks to defeat enemies, with Marbles spinning with their wings out and Checkers ducking into their shell.
  • Bluppo the Dolphin has two corkscrew spin attacks: a short, short-ranged one and a chargeable one that lasts until you manually end it.
• The Spiny: Many enemies are partially or completely covered in spikes, making them unable to be damaged directly.
• Tag Team: Marbles and Checkers work together to get through levels, and are capable of swapping who's leading the duo in the event something requires one of their abilities.
• Temporary Platform:
  • Any platforms with a propeller will fall down shortly after you land on them.
  • Nippa can shoot out water pillars that can be stood on, which disappear after several seconds.
• Thinking Up Portals: Lunosa has the ability to summon the portals that warp you to Bonus Stages on a whim, and uses this throughout their boss battle to forcibly send Marbles and Checkers away after teleporting out of the way of enough of their hits.
• Timed Mission: Bonus Areas need to be completed within a time limit. If time runs out, you fail and are given the chance to try again.
• Title Drop: The Brutal Bonus Level at the end of the space world is simply named "Windswept".
• Variable Mix: Laamp's Shade plays a quiet, slow song when outside, and transitions to a faster-paced, arcadey version of it when you enter.
• Video Game Caring Potential: You can pet some of the Animal Buddies, with the input varying depending on which one it is.
• Video Game Cruelty Potential: In Laamp's Shade, Laamp mans both Laamp's Stand and Laamp's Bulb, and has to manually fly between them to service you. You can tire them out by making them fly back and forth between the two without stopping, which causes them to noticeably slow down and nets you the "Sleepies" achievement.
• Wrap Around: In Vexatious Vents and Dire Dire Ducts, objects and characters that exit off one side of the screen reappear on the other side.