Dust and Salt Reviews

This is basically a poorly written visual novel, albeit with decent artwork and music that gets old fairly quickly. You're presented with options, where you need to make the correct choice every time in order to have a chance at completing the game. However many are confusing and give results you weren't expecting, or don't properly detail what in fact the action is. Battles play out, but you can't let any troops die because they don't get replaced and you won't be able to win the battles towards the end. Waste of time, not even worth the 5 bucks I paid to get it on sale.

Short, simple and fun. Decent replayability with few choices and stats having some major changes in how the game plays out. Could have more text and lore to make it less rushed experience, but it's still not that big of a downside given the general focus seems to be on decisions and the whole "puzzle" which to make where to get the different outcome later.

Excellent game for all fans of gamebooks or just curious players. I am most impressed with the music and the art of the game. Besides its text-based adventure there are a numerous tactical battles as part of the story. I have very few critiques, but nothing major, really. I would give it a 5/5.

[h1]Dust and Salt[/h1] may very well be a title you haven't heard of, but in my estimation, if you are an old school tabletop gamer or just enjoy a more, choose your own adventure type approach to gaming, then you really should take a look. [h1]Story[/h1] The story of Dust and Salt is nothing new. One nation rises to prominence and begins subjugating its neighbors. The nation in question being [i]Murk[/i]. Your people were one of their neighbors. Murk is going around conscripting children into their army. You are one of those children. Your father stops them at the cost of his own life. You escape and join a mercenary troop. From their, your mission for revenge against Murk and the elevation of your people, begins. You will have an impact on the story based on your morality decisions and such, and as such, the story itself provides a lot of replay value. It is worth noting that there were enough typos to make me wonder if a final edit wasn't rushed. It doesn't actually take away from the story, which was decent, but was still noticeable. [h1]Gameplay[/h1] Most of the gameplay is of the storybook variety, but with an overland map AND turn based grid style combat. The storybook part is as expected. You read through a little to a lot of dialogue and make a decision. Rinse and repeat. Your choices can lead you to combat of course, which is resolved as.... tactical turn based combat on simple grid maps. Honestly, this part of the game was not very good at all. It really plays out more like checkers, where whoever can force their opponent to move close first will win the individual battles, albeit with positioning ultimately being a secondary concern beyond that. As long as you do some aspect of all the various alliance building quests, you will acquire enough troops to easily overcome your enemies, and since you can literally just pass your turn until the enemies are within move and strike range, it's pretty difficult to really lose a battle. The overland map is nice enough, and the quest variety was fun. This was really staged in that classic, tabletop gaming way. The game is the DM and you are running your party, and an adventure ensues lol. [h1]Graphics[/h1] The graphics are sparse overall. This game is more about dialogue than graphics, but the overland map was nice. The avatars look convincingly like miniatures you would use during a tabletop session, which was nice. The combat terrains were not very nice however. Those were pretty dull, washed out terrain maps that I could take or leave. [h1]Audio[/h1] Similarly, the audio tracks were sparse. That said, I did enjoy the kind of tribalistic soundtrack they had working. Gives the game a cool vibe. [h1]Verdict[/h1] If you are a fan of the genre or tabletop gaming in general, I would say [b]this is an easy recommendation at its asking price[/b]. It's not mind blowing material, but it was a decent couple hours, and there are a few more hours to be had when I'm ready. [code]If you found this review helpful and would be interested in supporting my Curator group, it would be appreciated. Cheers. https://store.steampowered.com/curator/32549618/[/code]

This is a choose-your-adventure visual novel with the emphasis on storytelling. You can play the game through a couple of times roleplaying a different personality to see different endings. It's still short, but not unreasonably priced, providing a couple of hours of entertainment for less than going to the movies. This game is for roleplaying a short story, not tactical combat. The "tactical" combat should have been left out of the game. There are certain areas where you are given text-based options for how to fight (like Narrowbreeze and Coalhorn) and the game would have been better utilizing that system for all of the battles. If you are looking for storytelling games with more emphasis on tactical combat, pick up Banner Saga or Age of Decadence.

Beat it in 2.5 hours. Beautiful, well written, interesting game that is WAAAAY over-priced. Nice little book, no strategic depth at all. It's not quite a point and click, but it's the closest thing to it. Also, balance on troops is insanely favored towards a certain type - I didn't even use 4 of my troops in the final battle and I didn't lose a single troop in that battle.

TL;DR: recommended for all CYOA lovers ++ Beatiful world map ++ Tactical hex-grid battles + Replayability +/- Text - First checkpoint too far away from the beginning Basically this is CYOA with tactical hex-grid battles (what it says on the tin) and really beautiful world map. To be honest, it's the world map that sold me the game, but I enjoyed every aspect. Tactical battles are nice addition to text adventure, they are not too hard and add variety to gameplay. Text pacing is a bit weird sometimes especially early in the game, where one passage just skips several years and suddenly describes you as perfect warrior. Overall story is not too exciting, but totally ok, with meaningful choices and branches. If some dialog options are locked, you will see it and know what to look for in next replay. Music is fine, though maybe little bit repetative sometimes. First checkpoint is very far away from game beginning; also there are no checkpoints after some battles/decisions. It's bit too short, but on the other hand there's enough replayability to last you for another run or two.

A short, railroaded tale. It feels like it has potential - but the writing is a little clumsy, dialogue choices can be unclear - and the forgiveness vs vengeance messaging is forced and comes off preachy. It doesn't inspire me to complete it a second time.

First of all, this is a gamebook, so you should be in the mood for reading when you start playing this. It offers few hours of gameplay for one read-through and most players will probably end up playing it at least 2-3 times, since it is rather hard. For a gamebook, it is pretty awesome - the story and the decisions are interesting and those are most important for me. The UI I find to be rather polished, compared to other similar games. The music is catchy, the artwork style is nice and works well, though some drawings might have been better, e.g. the units in battle. Regarding the combat system, it is the right amount of simple; if the game was too long, it would have grown thin - don't expect heroes 3 here :) It is still interesting and adds to the gameplay experience, but the core of the game is making the right decisions outside the battles and reading an immersive story.

Ode for a quicksave button to save me from unforeseeable failure conditions. In terms of it's presentation I would give this game a thumbs up, it's style is consistent and the creator didn't try to overreach, instead playing to their strengths. I can't recommend the sound as it's the equivalent of the loading screen music from Witcher 3 and entirely innocuous. The Writing is solid and in line with the style of Choose your own adventure books which brings us to the crux of this review. Whether or not you will like this game comes down to what you think of old Choose your own adventure books like Lone Wolf and Fighting Fantasy. Myself I cannot stand them, and this game shows absolutely why. There is a right and wrong choice to every situation which you cannot foresee unless you have played through the game before, experimenting with other options does not net you new experiences in most cases but instead punishes you for making a wrong choice that you could not have known was wrong till you took it. This can also lock you out of content because you tried to attempt something before other 'flags' had been activated, removing the option from the game. This trial and error style of game only works for me if it's not too tedious to start over, but here you will have to click through screen after screen of slowly animated text to reach the same point. There is no manual save and load system to prevent save scumming but there is also no skip to the next choice function to bypass content you have seen dozens of times. About an hour of my playtime is the result of having to repeat the first few scenes over and over again because I'd not activated a specific 'flag' and so ended up in unforeseen failure. While the checkpoint system which allows you to roll back to the central hub does alleviate this problem for immediate issues, it does nothing for gated content meaning you will need to start again from scratch to get certain options. The description for the game says the turn based combat is “just a pinch” but in reality it is required to progress, which is a shame because it is so overly simplistic that it probably should have been omitted in favour of a quick stat check and a text option for how you wish to use your forces. I have also ran into combat where it was impossible to win with the soldiers I had chosen and was committed to combat at that point, forcing me to start from the beginning again. Advice for people who want to try this title, when you are asked to pick your forces, be aware that the number of a specific troop you choose only effects their health, not their number or combat ability, a little clarity on this would have been helpful. This may sound entirely negative and that's because this was not the genre for me, if you enjoy Choose your own adventure game books and are willing to replay events multiple times to systematicaly improve your run then you will have a much better time with it. While I will put in another hour to this title at least, I cannot say I’m looking forward to it.