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Windward Sets Sail on Android TV

Tasharen Entertainment’s Windward makes the most of NVIDIA Tegra X1 technology on Shield Android TV. Let's learn more about the game as we chat with Michael Lyashenko, who is the only developer of Windward.

Shack Staff

January 12, 2016 10:00 AM

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Tasharen Entertainment’s Windward makes the most of NVIDIA Tegra X1 technology on Shield Android TV. The high-seas simulator offers an endless ocean of procedurally generated adventure filled with maritime action/exploration, combat, trading, and diplomacy/questing.

The entire game was developed by one person, Michael Lyashenko, using Unity technology. He wanted to make a cooperative game to play with his friends.

“The game was designed mainly for co-op,” Lyashenko said. “It offers single player, experience but it's ideal to play at LAN parties with friends. You start with a small ship, do tasks for towns, find booty, defeat pirates, get gold, and upgrade your ship and your cannons, etc. It's an RPG-like system where your character is your ship.”

The game offers four unique factions with specialties like trading and diplomacy that the player can build upon as they set sail to new islands and towns. The deeper into the adventure one sails, the more riches there are to add to your cargo hold and bank account. Over time as the game becomes more challenging, players must contend with pirates who want to steal the treasures that have been collected.

Lyashenko said the game was designed for full cross-platform multiplayer support, so a mobile player can play with someone on PC, Mac, or Linux.

“Team up with other players to tackle difficult challenges together, conquer regions together, or even take on heroic instances for an even greater challenge and rewards,” Lyashenko said.

Lyashenko worked with NVIDIA to make the most of the cross-platform game. “NVIDIA helped me out with console and tablet hardware to test the game on, as well as performance optimizations for the game itself,” Lyashenko said. “NVIDIA Shield devices have been very surprising in terms of power. I was used to low-performance Android devices, but NVIDIA Shield are anything but.”

When it comes to Android TV, Lyashenko comes from a PC gaming background. But he spent time enhancing Windward for full controller support so it runs seamlessly on NVIDIA Shield Android TV.

“I am not a console player myself, but it's nice to be able to use a tiny device to play console-grade games,” Lyashenko said. “The best part is the ability to create and publish your own games easily for a console -- something that was previously much more difficult through Xbox and PlayStation consoles.”

Lyashenko said NVIDIA Shield Android TV makes console gaming much more accessible.

Shack Staff

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