Dustbowl

This game has a lot of minor technical issues, and they add up in annoyance!

1) It starts in a tiny window if you have a HiRes system. You can fix this by going to the game folder and running a separate exe - Winsetup.exe - but this should be properly incorporated into the initial startup (and I shouldn't need to research it to find out the solution! It should handle it properly or immediately tell me about that setup exe! This is basic setup stuff!)
2) It default runs in a mode that can cause flickering shadows and textures on HiRes/Modern system and needs to be forced out of it! Why? Again default to what works!
3) The mouse pointer seems to have some sort of acceleration built into the game so it is awkward (for me anyway) to use as it will suddenly zoom if I move too far and I feel my arm is tense moving slowly enough to avoid this issue. Why? That should be something that can be turned off or at least modified but it isn't! Why not use the systems native setting at least?
4) Some things I click on flicker the description on and off so fast I can barely see it (from reading the forum this may be because I have an old Deathadder mouse? Ironically said mouse dates from slightly before this game was released though!).
5) If you set the game speed to fast (which you probably want to as it takes ages for the character to plod across the screen otherwise) then if you practice in the shooting gallery it resets the speed on screen to 'plod' but not the actual setting - you need to turn speed low and then high to get it back up to well... speed. I did briefly do a fight or two and found that didn't occur so maybe it is a one off with the gallery. But the fights weren't fun anyway... So that's about as far as I got before deciding the game was too much hassle for not enough reward.

Bought it ages ago and had it in backlog, so I can't refund it. Oh well.

For how low fi it is, it gives me all the notes of a great apocalyptic rpg. Proof of concept that you don't need trip a graphics to have an excellent adventure.

I'm on the fence. I don't think any of my complaints will ever be rectified since the game's been out for a while now, but I'm still basically positive towards the game, even though it has some huge problems. The game is generally charming and soulful, and it contains an interesting little adventure. It's fun to poke about in the world, solving quests, and so on. The combat is unique, and it could be a plus or minus based or whether or not you like the little mini-game that controls the combat (I found it a bit tedious, but interesting to see a new attempt at combat that I haven't seen before).

The difficulty and balancing is where the problems come in. The game has a very random difficulty curve. You will, at least for as long as I have played, always be very low on supplies (healing items, food, ammo). Couple that with the fact that enemies pop up randomly (JRPG-style) and you will very often find yourself in situations where you are low on health or ammo and have to save-scum like a madman to be able to make your way out of sticky situations. I'm talking save --> walk to next room --> check if there's an enemy --> if no enemy then save and repeat, if enemy then try to die as quickly as possible in the fight so that you can reload (can't access menu during combat), and then repeat. It gets incredibly tedious. That's why I'm on the fence about this, if the game had slightly better balancing then it would be a clear recommend, as for now it will land on a recommend but with some reservations.

Sure, you can minimize these situations by careful planning and resource-scrounging, but especially at the start of the game that is pretty hard to do based on the general resource scarcity, so I'm certain most players will find themselves in this situation several times during the game.

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.

First and foremost, every quest through Oldman is a mess. The game straight up gives you the wrong directions for the signal repeaters, and I only found Desert Radio by walking the whole world map in a grid pattern, exhausting the map areas where I thought it could plausibly be, and eventually ran into it in a place I could *only* have found by doing that kind of grid search.

You won't run into this stuff until about five hours in, but here's what you need to know:

-To get to Desert Radio, walk west from Fort Union. You'll pass a lake surrounded by radiation, on the other side is the signal repeater. From there, continue west until you change screens, then walk north. You'll pass two brown dirt roads. At the second one, walk west. Desert Radio is in that area.

-After you get back to Oldman, you need to talk to him to finish the quest. Then he'll tell you to talk to Tully. But don't do that. Talk to Oldman *again* despite there being no prompting to do this, and then you'll be able to accept the quest that will let Tully talk to you. Tully is in Fort Union, in the room past the bunks with the sleeping man.

Both of these things are unintuitive AF, and again the game straight up gives you the wrong information about Desert Radio, so why am I recommending it despite that?

Basically, this is a surprisingly fun demake of Fallout 1 / Stalker / Metro / A Roadside Picnic.

It's a point-and-click adventure game meshed with a survival rpg using Atari-era graphics done by what I assume is a one-man team, and by some miracle it is mostly bug-free, atmospheric, and good.

It's got some jank to it, and you'll probably mulch your first 30 minutes of gameplay after realizing you screwed everything up and need to start over, but after one restart you'll be fine. In the very beginning, it's easy to use up all your resources and back yourself into a corner, but the further you get the more you're able to make mistakes and recover from them.

The game's setting is in the eponymous dustbowl, a radioactive alien-infested wasteland in middle america, and the game does a good job in not mirroring Fallout too closely. The whole setting turns around the aliens, even though actually running into one in the early game is rare, and the whole time I was playing I was genuinely unsure what I was going to encounter next.

Combat in Dustbowl is not super complex. You get a little active reload style QTE every time you attack, which determines how much damage you deal, and mostly you just shoot or occasionally spend a consumable grenade against your enemy until they fall down.

The game does *not* always keep encounters at your level, and you should be prepared to spend wads of resources on some fights, but glide through others with ease. Unfortunately, many of those wads-of-resources fights give you negligible exp and no items, so running is advised if you stumble into them on the world map, but if you find them in a dungeon, even if you run, they'll stay on their current screen until you've cleared them. For things like beetles (high hp, armor, hit like a tank, cause status ailments), this can really tax your early game if you have bad luck.

That said, the game is pretty generous with resources as long as you're exploring and pixel-hunting, so I never felt like the game was being unfair.

Overall, if you don't mind a sudden frustration spike when you get to Oldman's quests, and if you liked original Fallout or Wasteland or would be interested in a demake-style wasteland survival rpg, this is a surprisingly meaty game for its current price.

On the other hand, if you hate point-and-click adventure games or stuff with slower, more deliberate pacing, stay far away.

I'm really enjoying this little game.

Reminds me a lot of the world and premise for the Fallout series. As I near the end of the game I can't help but wish there were more. I'm really excited to see what else this developer makes, and I hope there's a Dustbowl sequel. This was exactly the type of retro nostalgia I was looking for.

Dustbowl is a postapocalyptic game driven by RNG mechanics while trying to tell a classical RPG story. The art design is actually quite nice, but the actual mechanics of the exploration, crafting and especially the combat system are severely lackluster, making it a game of chance more often than not. The difficulty curve is high, but the options to develop one's character are severely limited, as is crafting, as is the amount of different enemies.

While Dustbowl isn't a complete failure, there are far too many other games doing a far better job at being an indie-survival title than Dustbowl to be able to recommend it.

I bought this game for $2.50 during one of the steam sales. I don't think it is worth the normal price of $10 but if you can get it on sale, it is a fun little game.

There are some issues as described in other reviews. The biggest one being the resolution issue (even in fullscreen, it is still difficult to see things). The poor resolution is because of the artwork which is nice looking for a pixel game. I like how there are pixel items placed in the game to find and pick up, but sometimes you'll encounter pixel art which isn't interactable (ie. a bottle on a shelf) despite the previous room where the exact same art was interactable. These inconsistencies seem few and far between, but it is still annoying when they do appear.

The combat system is lackluster and isn't exciting in any way but the game excels in other game mechanics. There is a food/water/rest system that requires you to find food/water (which isn't easy to come by) to maintain a healthy character. Thus you are always considering if you want to buy more food/water or ammo/utility. The story is fine but sometimes feels like a chore (running back and forth between the same locations). The soundtrack is really nice but the sound effects get annoying after a while since characters don't talk. I mute the in-game sound and play the soundtrack in the background using my media player.

While I don't see this as occuring, it would be nice if the dev added modding to the game. This game could become really amazing if players could contribute art/mechanics/items/etc to the world. The UI could use some improvement and a map would help a lot, but it isn't needed since the map/rooms aren't too complex to navigate.

Overall, I'd give the game a 7/10 for fun/enjoyability. If you enjoy post-apocalyptic stories and pixel art, you'll enjoy this game for about 15 hours.

This is one of the best indie games I've played lately. It not only has a great art style that is reminiscent of classic PC games, but it effectively marries the point n' click genre with Fallout 1 and 2-like setting and systems, as in it has an overworld to explore a la Fallout 1 and 2, and is set in a post-apocalyptic world.

It's honestly worth it at any price, as you can get as much or as little out of as you want. It's got side quests, a main quest, areas to explore, and simple combat that is actually fun to master.

If I had to make any criticism it would be that the overworld could use a map, as it's sometimes confusing as to where you actually are or (due to loot respawning) which houses you've explored.

I highly recommend this game if you're looking for a post-apocalyptic adventure that scratches a similar itch to Fallout, albeit with less freedom with your character's build and choices.

As others have mentioned, the game plays in a small window with a fixed resolution. So those of us with high resolution screens get stuck staring at a tiny window when we want to play this game. This becomes problematic in a number of places, the first being a door handle in the beginning of the game as you end up slowly searching for what seems like the single pixel that can be interacted with when you need to open it.

I only spent maybe 30 minutes with the game as I attempted to play it in that tiny window before I requested a refund.

Other issues I encountered:

What seemed like a bug where I wasn't given an item as a quest reward. The lack of this item made combat extremely difficult.

Combat uses one of those click twice and land on the sweet spot in order to hit the enemy (you can see this bar in some of the screen captures). Due to the tiny window, this was somewhat annoying since it was hard to see the moving bar.

As already mentioned, some of the clickable objects seem to have single pixel detection boxes. This seems to be a bug, since other objects that are exactly the same have much larger detection boxes. If this was encountered in the first area of the game, I can only assume this type of issue will be more common further in the game.

Since it has been over a year since this game was last updated, I can only assume the resolution issue will never be fixed.

The game has an interesting concept, but it's held back by too many early on issues for me to attempt to get past the annoyances. If the Dev comes back and revamps these issues I would be willing to check the game out right now, but until then it seems like an interesting idea that was poorly implemented.

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.

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 over 600 games in my Steam account, and the vast majority of them are still unplayed. So now I'm dedicating an hour to each of these games and writing a series of One Hour Reviews. An hour isn't very long to judge a game on, so think of this as more of a first impression, and take this review in the spirit in which it's given. Be sure to read other reviews from players who have spent more time in the game.

One Hour Reviews #53 - Dustbowl

Dustbowl is an interesting mix of a point-and-click adventure game and an old-school RPG. I spent my first few minutes exploring my room and picking up various items left lying around. But the game quickly introduces it's first RPG elements as I encounter people and having conversations. Conversations are your classic multiple choice, without any fancy branching dialog options that I saw. It seems like most folks are there to hand out quests, so early on I ended up with quite a few tasks to help out with, on top of the main questline.

The graphics are very retro, which for the most part works just fine. But you may be disappointed by the complete lack of graphics options, as you are forced to play in a window at a locked resolution. That didn't really both me, but my main complaint is some of the fonts used in the game are pretty small and hard to read at times. Thankfully the small font isn't used in conversations, so it's not something you have to deal with frequently.

The interface is fairly basic. The screen is split into 2 major areas, with the top area rendering your character and surroundings. In the bottom area, you have 3 tabs that you can switch between your inventory, your characer status, and your list of jobs. It feels a little clunky but it works. Sometimes things aren't entirely intuitive. For instance, I tried to use a medpack by clicking on it, and then clicking on my character. That didn't work, and I figured out later I had to click on the hand icon to use it. It may take you a bit to pick up on how to do things. Also little things you might expect like hitting Escape to bring up the options menu don't work. Instead you have to click an icon at the top right that doesn't really look like something you'd expect to open a menu.

Combat is turn-based, but rather than using random numbers to determine if you hit or not, instead it plays out as a mini game. You have 3 zones representing a miss, a hit, or a critical hit. Depending on the timing of your click, your shot will end up in one of these 3 areas and do damage accordingly.

I wouldn't call the difficulty punishing, but Dustbowl does not do any hand holding for you either. You have 3 bars that you have to manage, one for health, one for food, and one for drink. You start out pretty much broke, so it's up to you to scavenge and manage your inventory well. Also, you don't automatically heal when you aren't in combat. You do get some health back after sleeping (once you are tired; it doesn't let you just randomly take a nap), but mostly you are relying on items to heal yourself. When you die, your only option is to reload your last save, which thankfully Dustbowl lets you save pretty much anytime.

I spent most of my first hour running around the starting area before I ended up outside for the first time. At this point I was presented with an overland map that felt right out of the original Wasteland game. So I spent the last little bit of my playthrough exploring the surrounding area and getting into a few random encounters (which aren't always fights).

I had fun with Dustbowl and like it for what it is. Some folks may be turned off by the old school gameplay, but I found it enjoyable and worth the price.

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!

Surprisingly good post-apo game. Created in AGS it suffers from the engine limitations (like map traveling) but it makes up for it in story and atmosphere. I was hooked on it. All the elements: quests, pixels and sounds are providing an authentic wasteland/fallout experience. I recommend this game to any post-apo afficionado.

Game play advice: You have to carefully plan your trips in the wasteland and this is awesome. Make sure you speak with everybody in each location and get all the available quests.

Fair warning: The game is combat heavy therefore make sure you get the best weapon available. Save often and try to hit that special spot.

Release quality: I've played version 1.3.1 and it was pretty polished. A couple of occasional bugs but nothing critical.

PS: First Steam review :)

I can't wax lyrical about this game like I have other indie games, I mean the gameplay is kind of slow, I doubt there is too much replay ability. Yet despite this I would class this 'fall out esque' game a ill steam gem, something which is undoubtable overlooked in favour of other games, yet still deserves the attention it can get.

Positives:
Interesting story,
Nice graphics
Decent text, none of that cheesy/poor grammar 'stuff' which can plague other indie games.
Awesome map, the way the character traverses the world and all the instances are pretty well managed.

Con:
Combat is repetitive, not really a way to change that, but then it does make the other gameplay more enjoyable.
Character walks slowly, however this is merely a petty comment which is also redundant as you can change character speed...


Conclusion:
Well worth a buy, if it’s in the sale, definitely get it, if not... then unless you want to write a positive review hold your horses and think before you buy... but as long as you think you do want to buy it. (It’s pretty damn fun!)

Edit: Spelling mistakes

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.

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]

When the dust falls, great stories are told...

Great Storytelling and an Intricate World...

The ambition of the game fights against the engine, which creaks at times...

A fine time to run out of ammo...

A fine time to bleed pixels...

Final Thoughts...

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.

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!!!

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.