A Valley Without Wind 50% off on Steam, headed for graphical overhaul

A Valley Without Wind is cheap as chips at the moment, and if you nab it now, you'll be ready for the huge graphical re-tool indie developer Arcen Games is planning on.

In a lengthy blog post, founder Chris Park revealed the company's plans to completely redo much of the game's much-criticised art.

The stylised graphics were a sore point among reviewers, and Park believes the art was a significant contributing factor to AVWW's lower sales. As a result, the team has put gameplay expansion plans on hold, and will instead release a major art redo by third-party Heavy Cat as update 1.3. The image above is more cartoony than the final result, but a far cry from the current stripped-back look.

Park admitted that Arcen is tightening its belt a little and has had to cut back other plans for AVWW in favour of other projects; although the game's sales broke company records at launch, following Diablo III's release and the Steam Summer Sales, new purchases have dropped off.

Hopefully today's Steam Daily Deal will address that a little; you can grab AVWW for just $7.50.

A Valley Without Wind is a very difficult game to describe; it combines side-scrolling action platforming, alá Metroid; strategic world map play; resource gathering and crafting; boss battles and raids; and expanding a home base. It also has a whole suite of super neat features like randomly generated landscapes, perma-death for characters resulting in graves in your village, and a constantly expanding line up of magic.