Passing By - A Tailwind Journey Review - Up, Up And... Survival!

What a delightful game Passing By – A Tailwind Journey appears to be. High up in the sky, you play Little Red Riding Hood, minding her own business doing… not much. All of a sudden, the mailman arrives – a real one! – and they’ve tasked you with delivering a mysterious letter. Best of all, they’re leaving you their mode of transport: a hot air balloon!

Postman Pat makes Cato(?) the mailman look like Knight Rider. This mysterious gent shows up unannounced, then in a New York Minute, tasks our hero, Curly, with delivering a letter. Where to? Nobody knows! All that matters is you leave the struggle of doing nothing and shoot off on an adventure.

Initially an indie released by Studio Windsocke on Itch.io, we have a more complete adventure here, published by Dear Villagers. After a pretty vague tutorial (it’s okay; there’s a scrapbook left behind with pointers), Curly learns how to pilot a hot air balloon, source supplies, and feel the wind in her locks. Watch out: Passing By – A Tailwind Journey isn’t a cosy casual, no, no, no… it’s a survival adventure.

Passing By – A Tailwind Journey Review

Passing By – A Tailwind Journey is like Sea of Thieves. Wow! That sounds swell! Hold on a minute—this isn’t sea-based or a multiplayer, and where are the pirates? No, the comparison here is the piloting aspect with flakes of Overcooked. Curly will need to dash up and down the balloon to monitor speed and altitude, man the anchor, and arguably just as important: look where they’re going.

The balloon respects physics, so if you unleash hellfire, it’ll rocket up into the sky with some ferocity, and unless you’re running back and forth to all stations, it’s very easy to stray off course. This is a side-scrolling game, and there’s no turning back: if you miss an island to explore, tough. What we have here is not necessarily a free-flowing game of exploration to do you as you please, rather, one of planning. 

Looking through the onboard telescope allows you to plan where you’ll stop. Zoom out with the mouse wheel or something similar, and Curly can shift the balloon through multiple ‘depths’ and aim to land on one of the floating islands. There’s not much to see on these mini Laputas, so why even bother?

There’s A Rumbly In My Tumbly

As an assumed human, Curly needs food, drink, and rest. Besides the exciting adventure of flight and a delivery to an unknown address, she needs to be watered and fed—from random puddles, apple trees, or larger feasts left around the floating lands of Passing By – A Tailwind Journey. This mechanic adds a bit of pressure as you have to maintain resources for the balloon; otherwise, you aren’t going anywhere.

What entails is stopping and starting on various islands, searching for snacks and secrets (yay—you can customise Curly and her ship!) for a blend of survival and discovery. If you ask my opinion, that’s what this Passing By – A Tailwind Journey review is – I’d rather have it dumbed down with fewer worries about resources, as controlling the balloon is tricky enough.

The art style is lovely, but the transition to animation and gameplay is mildly choppy. Curly is a cumbersome cut out in the platforming sections, so the ‘tutorial’ was a bit drawn out as it wasn’t clear what her repertoire was. The show’s star is naturally the balloon, but it darts around so quickly at times that I grew somewhat frustrated. Not an impatient ‘make haste and sail the winds’ attitude, but rapid-fire sighs when I missed another island or had to put her to bed because she needed another nap.

Passing By – A Tailwind Journey Review Summary

Passing By – A Tailwind Journey is a nice-looking game that gives the impression of relaxing exploration. Sure, you’re not going to be pulling out your own curly hairs through over-demanding gameplay, though it might not be what you were expecting. When in doubt, check out the other reviews.