The Stillness of the Wind review – window on a solitary life among goats and chickens

iOS, PC, Nintendo Switch; Memory of God/Fellow Traveller
An elderly empty-nester whistles as she maintains her smallholding with calm and dignity in this slow-paced, meditative game

The Stillness of the Wind puts you in charge of a tiny farm in a desert, where you can set about building an arable or dairy empire. Feed the chickens and goats, churn milk to make cheese, plant and tend various crops. But, as one day bleeds into the next, with only lengthening shadows to indicate the movement of time, it quickly becomes apparent that this a game not about economic production, but about Talma, the old woman who has been left to manage this small farm alone.

Talma moves slowly, hunched over, from one chore to the next. As she does so, you uncover, through notes and delivered letters, her memories of the once vibrant farm and the relatives who used to live there with her, now either dead or living in a distant city. But Talma challenges assumptions about her frailty or neediness. She nobly carries on with her daily life without bitterness. She seems largely unaffected by the ups and downs of your efforts to make the farm prosper, whistling as she milks or laughing as she makes patterns in the ground with a stick.