Dustbowl Reviews

Dustbowl is basically [not]Fallout done as a graphic adventure title. A neat idea in theory. While not a terrible game, the execution stands in your way at every turn. Probably 20% of event flags trigger improperly, many objects don't work (several doors that allowed you to click on them just made a noise and did nothing else), the map was changed without NPC dialogue changing ...and I haven't even touched on the frustrating play balance issues. Also, the only way to walk faster is to boost the "speed" slider in the options... but this increases ALL game speeds, making combat more difficult and the ending occurs too quickly to read. I played it through with ample save scumming, and was amused by the effort enough that I don't regret paying the $5 I did, but I would not recommend it for others. Save yourself the aggrivation and just go buy an actual Fallout game.

I have a weak spot for new released games that try to look like our beloved classic games. Dustbowl feels like one of those games you can say "I played this a lot when I was a kid". It's like a great 90th game that was never released up until now. Sure some might not enjoy the minimalistic art, animation, combat and survival mechanic, but I did. The story is nice and interesting, it makes you want to play the game until the end. http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=624269345 http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=621801521 Unlocked all achievements!

If you enjoy old school adventure games I think you can get behind this title. I myself enjoy the retro visual style and throwback interface to older adventure games. The story and writing are ok, nothing spectacular but it’s far from dreadful. The post-apocalyptic setting and story are interesting and different enough from the rest to keep me intrigued on what happens next. The game world and quests are fairly large and so far I have had an abundance of objectives and missions to keep me busy. My biggest complaint is how combat works and plays out. Most if not all encounters are random and combat is turn based. When you enter combat, it randomly (?) decides who has initiative, to attack you simply hit your attack button, a bar will fly across a multicolored slider bar, and you hit the attack button again to stop it. Based on where it stops and lands, it calculates the damage. It’s not horrible, but more often than not it just feels cheap and cheated. Despite the combat, this game offers a fairly rich and expansive adventure for the low cost of $9 usd. The old school interface, vfx and pacing will turn off some, but for those who grew up or enjoy that era of gaming, you will love this. You can tell the developers put their heart and soul into it and are influenced by many awesome games and movies like Fallout, Mad Max, Metro 2033, Stalker, Defiance, A Roadside Picnic.....the list goes on and on. I highly recommend it, easily one of my favorite indie titles of this year to date.

I really want to enjoy this game. This game is basically a different take on Fallout but instead of a turn/grid-based strategy RPG it's more based around point-and-click style wandering and a minigame of a combat system. The game looks great in terms of pixel art. The intro and the characters are interesting. The game is a huge homage to Fallout in my opinion but I Can Not Stand the combat. The Only problem I have with this game and the Only reason I haven't played more than two hours is the combat system. The entirety of combat is just a slow-paced meter minigame where a line slides across a bar and you have to stop the line as close as possible to the center to get a hit in. And enemies will randomly spawn in rooms that you've already gone through so if want to backtrack to another room because you found a fuse for a generator you have to shoot down new enemies. And it's not like you get experience or anything from killing enemies. All you get is some random drops and the Priviledge to continue playing the game. It's terrible. If the combat is updated to be quicker or something is changed then Stellar, I'm gonna not stop playing this game. But right now this second I can not recommend this game unless you're an ace at the game's minigame combat system. That's the Only thing wrong with this game.

This is a first impression. I'll update it as I get further into the game. The game is a weird mixture of King's Quest, Wasteland (bit of Fallout in there too), Metro, etc but does a good job of being its own thing. Combat is simple but works well and actually involves a sense of timing. You can target different parts of the body but unfortunately unlike Fallout you cannot kick a rat in the groin. There's a somewhat Stalker-esque feel to scavenging. There's even a decent crafting system. I don't know what the depth of it is yet but I was able to make some extra survival gear pretty early on. Playing with permadeath on i made it almost an hour in and was killed by a beetle in a subway office complex. I should have turned back but decided to press on knowing what the consequences could be. The game is not easy and so far seems to make you think about what supplies you have and how far you can go with them. There's nothing I haven't seen before, but it's not about the ingredients, it's how you put them together. So far i definitely like the recipe.

Long story short: Really cool retro aesthetic, good atmosphere. Really trash balance in regards to RNG for encounters, loot, and poor combat. It wasn't worth my time, and it's probably not worth yours. My biggest issue is a game that doesn't respect the player's time, and this is one of them. Time well spent is one thing, playing the savescum and slave to RNG to create an artificial sense of "difficulty" is another.

Short version: I got my time and entertainment out of this game. I liked the story, I liked the combat system well enough: simple, not hard to understand, functional, and I even got very skilled at timing my critical hits. I recommend it for what it is, an enjoyable few hours of story for what I paid ($8.00 if that matters). Long version: I've beaten the game and I can say that I enjoyed the story and the exploration. I do however feel the need to make some things clear. If they can be fixed I think that it will help in the long run. Very minor spoiler chances. [list] [*]Typos- Gonna start small here and, while it may seem petty to point them out, I was very impressed with how few misspellings I found. The only glaring ones were Captain Moore's dialogue. A misspelled 'usually' in the beginning and a 'theres' that should have been a 'there's'. [*]"I have already backache."- This is the message you see when you open a chest that contains items your character will automatically pick up. Typically you open a box and see what's inside and can take what you want (anything you don't take is lost. You cannot store things other than in your sleeping quarter's storage chest, nor can you even reopen a box if you've closed it.) In the case of certain containers, such as ones with new guns and ammo, if your encumbrance is high and it would overload you, you do not pick the items up and some of them may be lost. Obviously it should be, "I already have a backache." [*]Quests: All the quests seem to work and I was only unable to complete one, the Blood quest. While it's possible I just never encountered any more, I have never found a single Blood Bag in an location or container other than in the Blood Bank at the hospital where the quest tells you to go. The problem is that you likely find the hospital well before the quest-giver and have already looted the Blood Bags. Since encumbrance is a huge part of the game and storage space is at a premium, it's likely that a player (like myself) will have used the Blood Bags to make Med-kits and find themselves unable to ever complete the quest, at least during that run. (I will restart a game and take care of that for the achievement.) [*]Phantom NPCs- Many NPCs can be spotted if you mouse over a location where they either were or will be. Two examples: The Engineer in front of the subway train, who can be spoken to and even given Machine Tools to complete his section of the Subway quest, even before placing the Automated Weapons Platform into position. Also, Gordie and Rocksteady at the Gas Station. They both can be spoken to even after freeing Luke and being constantly asked to pay a toll to pass even after doing so can be annoying. [*]Graphic Glitches- Only a few places had glaring problems. The hospital reception at St. Eligius, where the reception desk refuses to move above the avatar (also it's one of the first 'labeled' doors that doesn't actually go to another room, which was also confusing at first. On the upper floor of the hospital, returning to the elevator the avatar refuses to move anywhere in the room (though clicking the elevator allows acces so it isn't game-breaking.) The other glitch was in the Epicenter of the Dustbowl in one of the Straights rooms. If you encounter an enemy there (a Hanging Cirrus in both cases for me where I encountered the glitch) you avatar ends up under the room and the enemy above. The fight proceeds as normal and you can move on after winning, which shouldn't be that tough be the time you're that far in the game. [*]Merchants-This game features a vendor system that randomizes item prices for merchants. Unfortunately this system is of little value to the game. Say you want to buy a Canteen of Water. The vendor wants 50 dollars, Exit, re-click the vendor, now she wants 52. Exit, re-click, now she wants 45. Items seem to have an 8 to 10 dollar variance range. Not much when they're asking 150 for a Med-kit but very noticable when you're buying Ball Bearing for ammo and one second they cost 1 dollar and then next they cost 8 dollars. It need to either be fixed at flat rates universally or have the prices set for some amount of time (even then I would just Save and Reload before checking vendor). Otherwise I just click and exit until I see the Ball Bearing at 1 dollar before buying them. [*]Item prices-You will find yourself selling a good many items. Typically, when you select an item and hover it over the 'Sell' area of a vendor you will see the item's value. A few items are listed as having an incorrect value, typically in the player's favor. Notable items are: Ball Bearings/Pneumatic Ammo (sell value 2, actual 4), Tourniquet (sell value 1, actual 2), and Crow Feathers (sell value 1, actual 2). Not a huge deal for the most part except see below. [*]Unlimited Money-Woo hoo! Here's the thing, when you combine the fact that you can buy Ball Bearings for 1 dollar easily enough and then sell them for 4 dollars (even though they're listed as selling for 2) then you get unlimited money limited only to how many times you want to click the mouse button. Spend $100 on 100 Bearings, Sell them and have $400, Buy 100 more Bearings, etc. Then buy 5 Multitools with the money and you're all set. (You might need more than 5 for the whole game, but barely and never for more than one outing from the base, so for Encumbrance purposes, 5 is enough.) I went out with 10 myself, but now we both know. I think with a patch of a few things, it can be a little better but, in conclusion, this game is simple, it's fun, and the story is done well enough for what it is. Save early, save often and things like random encounters and weird containers shouldn't trouble you overly much.

I didn't expect much from this game to be honest. I'd had my eye on it for a few months and decided to pick it up when it was on sale. Holy crap I fell in love with it the first time I played it. A post-apocalyptic setting with tons of room to explore. I like the art, I like the sound design and I like the story. At first I was put off by the combat mechanics, but I adjusted pretty quickly. Money seems like it's hard to make at first but once you get rolling, you end up not hurting for it anymore. I honestly could have played 10+ more hours in this game and I still wouldn't be tired of it. It also doesn't hold your hand which I really appreciate. This is one of my favorite games that I have played in the past two years. I'd definitely play a sequel.

A very cool little indie game which revealed a sprawling world once reaching the wastelands. Its actually a lot more indepth than the visuals suggest, with a questing system and fairly elaborate range of items to loot. A must for fans of the old school. Quite challenging but thats the way they used to make them! Three mutant thumbs up!!!

[H1]When the dust falls, great stories are told...[/H1] Dustbowl appeared silently on Steam a few days ago. No fanfare, no publicity, one moment silence and the next. *poof* It's here. A little slice of retro-apocalypse goodness. The brainchild of two developers, Dustbowl is set after the visitations of an alien race who covered the land in a biochemical dust that quite literally rendered the surface of the planet unlivable. A toxic, barren wasteland (drawing inspiration from the UFO afterlight storyline) where what remains of humanity gathers together in small underground shelters, away from danger, away from the light. Technology has fallen apart, and humanity lives precariously on the cusp of extinction, this is very much the death throes of society, with people still struggling to come to terms with what has happened. Worse, your shelter seems to be suffering a major case of the shakes, prompting the leader of the shelter to call two of the most experienced surface scavengers to a meeting, and to plea to them for assistance. One, your father, reluctantly volunteers to see what is causing the tremors, leaving you alone in the shelter to find your way, and find answers. [H1]Great Storytelling and an Intricate World...[/H1] The world of dustbowl is consistent, and very quickly shows itself to be deep, full of characters suffering and broken by the very events that have driven them underground, the survivors in the HUB feel just like that, survivors by necessity. Some showing clear signs of depression, others panicking and more concerned about their own skin, others yet just getting slam drunk because "who cares, the world is going to hell" And this is just the first area, once you get out into the game overworld, it's not going to get any more cute and cuddly either, I can assure you of that much. The game overworld is meaty, sporting multiple locations that will require you to either talk, shoot or puzzle your way through them. The game falls somewhere between a Role Playing Game and a point and click adventure, and even borrows some elements from survival sandbox games with thirst, hunger and tiredness being perennial beasts that stalk you every step of the way. In case you're feeling particularly masochistic, the developers even put in a hardcore mode, which yes, will delete your save file when you die. You will die. This game does not pull punches. [H1]The ambition of the game fights against the engine, which creaks at times...[/H1] If there is one criticism I could, and should level at this game, it's that the game engine (Adventure Game Maker) is almost certainly running at the absolute roof of it's capability here. The developer has crafted a masterpiece in Dustbowl, but make no mistake, AGM is bursting at the seams to contain this world, every trick and optimisation to cram the content in has been done, and you can almost hear the engine screaming in agony in the background as it works tirelessly to make this thing happen. In a sense this would be akin to the times when games like Driller came out on the spectrum. Yes, you could push polygons and 3D rendering out on a computer with 128K of memory, but the poor thing creaked, and you could -hear- it creaking. People have asked if more content will be added, it might happen, but the engine is really being pushed here, so it'll be a case of hammering it in with a wedge in small chunks at a time I think. This game almost certainly deserves to be a success beyond the developers most optimistic expectations, such that a sequel can happen, but it needs to happen in the same style, just in an engine that won't beg for mercy when they create this wonderful, vast canvas. [H1]A fine time to run out of ammo...[/H1] The combat deserves specific mention. I always felt games like Fallout 3 strayed too far towards "real time" combat, Dustbowl strikes a brilliant balance by being turn based with a reaction-ish based timing sequence for determining if you hit, crit, or miss. Weapons have their own distinct damage ranges, and your power in the game is strictly gear dependent (which means that progressing through the story will directly improve your ability to fight and also to defend yourself against the horrible nasty mutant things). The range of weapons is diverse, even at the early stages you'll find a goodly selection of pistols and assorted BB based weaponry, I can only assume it will escalate from there. [H1]A fine time to bleed pixels...[/H1] The art style is -very- retro. Going right back to VGA style RPG's of yore, but it works, evoking memories of Wasteland (the original, not even the remade original) and of similar games in that era. It's a very consistent art style, and the eye to design has been thoughtful and considered. The Subway (your first 'dungeon' area) is dingy and foreboding, and even though it's never explicitly threatening, there's always that nasty feeling you may be going a little too far from safety. [H1]Final Thoughts...[/H1] Dustbowl came literally out of nowhere, and it's possibly been the most pleasant surprise this year to date. It's had no press, and no hype, and that's one of the greatest injustices I could possibly think of, because this is a terrible disservice to what is possibly one of the best RPG's outside of the AAA releases. Verdict : [b]Essential.[/b]