A turn-based game
The turn-based nature of Darkwind makes it a very unusual, tactical driving game. The concept of turn-based racing is well established in a number of excellent board games that have been made over the last 40 years or so. Darkwind combines accurate physics with turn- based play. The race becomes about the tactics of entering and exiting corners, overtaking, and generally breaking down the nuances of driving. By making the game turn based players battle it out tactically rather just seeing who is first to make some dumb mistake, which is what happens in many computer racing games. Each move in Darkwind represents one second of action, and is simulated using a bespoke physics engine, with rigid body physics as the core mechanism. Various terrain characteristics such as friction and softness are applied, and the tyre simulation involves static and kinetic friction, deformation and spring characteristics, as well as suspension settings. Another major reason for making Darkwind turn-based is to allow highly detailed rules and strategy: these things are not possible in real-time games. Players need time to assign orders to their characters, vehicles and weapons. It's a totally different experience to standard real-time car games. Players have time to chat, smack-talk, and time to watch each other's moves as well as their own. You win by having good strategy and tactics, not by having the best reactions.

A wargame
Darkwind is best described as a war-game due to its extremely detailed rules for combat, vehicle modifications, character injuries and morale, fame and reputation, as well as its detailed behind-the-scenes simulations which define the in-game trade economy and on-the-road piracy levels as a direct response to player actions.

In-town gameplay
The leagues and ladders that are staged in the town racing circuits and arenas form one of the main gameplay elements. In the leagues, you compete over a 12 week (one game year) period to win fame and fortune in races, death-races (racing with guns allowed) and arena combats. In the ladders, you challenge other players on specific racetracks using specific cars, and earn points for each victory.

Persistent world, real-world timescale
Many of the aspects of Darkwind run to a real-world timescale. It takes days or weeks for your characters to heal from their injuries; it takes hours or days to repair/upgrade your vehicles, and it takes hours to travel between towns. This makes your strategic decisions carry real importance, and gameplay aspects such as trading take real time and effort, which allows them to work properly as part of the dynamic economy. It also takes months of in-game training and use for a character to become an expert in any of the various character skills such as driving, gunnery, mechanic, or scouting. That is, assuming they manage to live that long.

Build your own combat vehicles
Using the town mechanic shops as well as the player-run marketplace, you buy and customise vehicles of various types: economy subcompacts, saloons, musclecars, trucks and vans. You define the armour, engine and weapons in them, and carry out repair work when they are damaged. The types of weapon include guns, missile launchers, ballistic weapons, melee weapons such as mounted spikes, and dropped weapons such as mine layers and smokescreens. The weapons have detailed statistics underlying them: recoil, close range and ranged accuracy, damage factors, psychological 'fear factors', ammunition, and so on. The availability of hardware in the markets is a carefully balanced gameplay factor - if wilderness pirates are not kept under control, for example, then rare chassis types and weapons will not be easy to find.

Wilderness gameplay
One of the main gameplay elements revolves around travel and combat in the wilderness between the towns. Here the stakes are raised: you risk your own vehicles, characters' lives, and any valuable trade or courier goods you may be carrying. But you can also rapidly gain fame and accumulate looted hardware from your defeated adversaries (who may be either computer-controlled or player-controlled). Wilderness actions are performed by multi-player squads: by joining together, you can greatly increase your chance of survival. Complex behind-the-scenes simulations A carefully developed economic model based on systems dynamic simulation ensures that the control and distribution of key resources underpins a realistic, dynamic economy. This provides real opportunities for trade to be used as a gameplay strategy, and control of key resources to be used as part of long term feuds and warfare. The actions of the player gangs and the victories and defeats of the computer-controlled pirate and trader gangs directly impacts the availability and cost of resources and vehicle hardware at each of the towns in the game. Lucrative trade routes are therefore not static but must be continually devised and modified.

Community
Darkwind has a great community whose main aim is to have fun in a friendly and pleasant atmosphere. The Darkwind Gazette is a community-driven newspaper running since 2007.

Continuous development
Darkwind is under continuous development and we are adding gameplay features all the time. The player community is actively involved in this process. DW-Tactical is a recently added feature. This is a sandbox version of the game targeted at those players who enjoy the challenge of PvP but wish to play combats without the requirement to build up their own resources in a persistent game-world.