Dustbowl - A Post Apocalyptic Adventure

[pixelincognito]

Welcome to the Dustbowl

The world is a desolate place, humanity is in a transition from life to extinction as those that lived through the events cling onto the threads of survival. The world is a dead, dusty landscape filled with ghosts and spectres, of smashed cities and dried oceans. The surface is a symbol of what has been lost.

What is the Dustbowl?

The dustbowl is an 6-mile crater surrounded by earth the size of mountains, legend has circulated around this strange place that a great treasure is in it's centre or an abandoned alien weapon. Many have tried to reach the dustbowl but none have succeeded. It is not just the impassable terrain that makes it impossible to reach but a strange radiation that boils anything it touches.

Features

• A unique turn based combat system - Get ready for fast paced retro combat like you've never seen before. Use special items to change the odds and equip powerful weapons to get the upper-hand. %90 Complete
• Full inventory management - stackable items and a full .Kg weight system. %100 complete
• Hunger and Thirst system - Keep your stomach full with food and drink adding depth to your wasteland survival. %100 Complete
• Armour up! - Armour updates your look in game!
• Poin'n'Click! - It wouldn't be an AGS experience without the solid point & Click system with dialogue trees and solve puzzles out in the field and also in the underbelly of your home.


• Status Effects - Get sick! Bleed out! Get Poisoned! Suffer fatigue! Combat and the environment are both deadly things: from radioactive dust to brutal combat damage; make sure you have the gear to survive! %30 Complete
• Rogue Trader - Find items, and buy, sell and search the wastes for fortune and glory! Or die trying %50 Complete
• Assignments, Sidequests & puzzles - deal with characters that live in the shadows as a mercenary and complete assignments for the Hub as a militia member.
• Hardcore enough? - Play the game with a permadeath option.

(A panel from the intro sequence)

We appreciate the time you've taken in looking at this thread and we hope to be posting many more in the near future! You can also find us on IndieDB.

Thank you!

[arj0n]

Lovely. Can't wait to see more!

[CaptainD]

This looks fantastic!

Also love the way that you've included "Get Sick" as an in-game option to look forward to

[Fitz]

Looks great: the huge pixels, the limited color palette... That screenshot from the intro itself had me nodding in approval I'm not an RPG guy, nor a manical fan of post-apo -- but I like the aesthetic, and I'm definitely looking forward to it!

[shaun9991]

This looks really interesting, has some similar elements to a game we are working on. I like the art and palette, and the RPG influence looks cool. I'll follow this one closely, best of luck with development!

[Monsieur OUXX]

Looks very interesting indeed. I hope you will take advatnage of the fact that the character sprite is so small to make some larger backgrounds from time to time.

[AprilSkies]

Oh it's wonderful!

[Lasca]

Exciting!!

[pixelincognito]

Thanks for the positive reaction

It's all very pre-alpha, lots of missing character animations here and there but its getting better every day.

(unpopulated canteen area)

[/i]

We plan to post weekly updates (if it isn't too annoying ) and expect some regular development videos too. To answer a question the game environment will be displayed in the upper portion of the screen but room shapes will change to mix things up a little.

Cheers guys!
Pixel Incognito.

[amateurhour]

This looks gorgeous! I can't wait for a demo.

[selmiak]

this looks very cool, I want it now! The colorscheme is very well chosen!

[Trapezoid]

I love the look of this! The dither pattern in the borders is a little hard on the eyes, though.

[Dualnames]

Is this referencing Idiocracy?

[SilverSpook]

Looks fantastic!  Sign me up for this Apocalypse, now!  I also admire your gumption in attempting to mold AGS into an RPG.  The art is crisp, the idea refreshing; like a well-preserved, newly-opened bottle of Nukacola.

BTW I'm sure the second coming of Wasteland (II) had absolutely nothing to do with the posting date...

[pixelincognito]

Alot has happened in the space of a week, more features are getting added every day and progress has been amazing; the game just keeps getting bigger and better. One of the big visual updates is the player creation screen where you can enter a custom character name and choose from a selection of starting items. We've also been working really hard in getting more of the functions in from finalizing the tiredness system and cleaning up the hunger/thirst systems (which are fully complete ).

More custom character animations have also been added to the intro scene, more sound effects have been added and the HUB (player base) has been reworked a little, with an elevator that the player can use to access a number of different floors. It really gives the base more verticality and space, feeling larger than it actually is.

Weapons, armour and a helmet slots are now functional, items can now be picked up and slotted into the correct gear slots which feels excellent and instantly gives it that cool RPG feel! For more information please watch the development video that shows off some of the spoken features and the combat system.

To view our latest developer video that shows off some of the spoken features and combat head over to our IndieDB page, and if you want to give us an extra pat on the back why not follow the game there too

To Dustbowl Video!

Thanks again for the support and we appreciate the time you take in reading the post.
PI

[pixelincognito]

Hi Folks!

Big things happening deep in the dustbowl, we've been really working hard in turning AGS into quite the powerful RPG system and it really hasn't been hard. Environments are coming on nicely and your underground home is now flooded with NPCs. We're starting to design some of the mission environments, specifically the subway as this is the first area you must explore from leaving your home.

The player can now wear armour which changes the look of your character - all armour will update the player's sprite, this will be alot of work but the effect is worth it and every player likes seeing new armour on their characters.

We have a really nice quest system now that lists tasks you must complete and of course rewards for doing it all! So expect lots of side quests that will have you wandering the wasteland.

Day and Night cycles now work and we have a nifty timetrack that displays where you are in the day or night, this just means we can have more dynamic elements to the world like shops that only open at night (Black market) or NPCs that the player may need to speak to that only appear at night.

Combat has also had some work, if the player has no weapon equipped then they'll go fisticuffs and have to punch their way out of danger. You can also try and escape combat, the run feature now works but the more dangerous the creature the harder it is to escape and trying to run will use your vital turn.

Enemies in combat also now have idle animations so they bob about as they wait to get punched in the face.

The Loot system is now complete too, every enemy type in the game has it's very own loot table and upto 3 items can drop after combat, these can be quite common trash objects you can sell to extremely rare artefacts.

We have a nifty "The Sims" style Status effect bar where icons will display how the player is feeling, from: Hungry, thirsty, tired, bleeding and poisoned.

I'm sure I've missed out more things but I should shut up and just post the darn screenshots, as you can see we're keeping that C64 colour range, just love that retro look and I cant wait to show you some of the subway areas and they'll be quite unique looking in comparison to the rooms of the Hub. So enjoy.

(The Waypoint bar in the HUB)

(The hydroponics bay of the hub - a boy's gotta eat.)

(Feral mutant placeholder - one of the new enemies in the game)

Why don't you also see our second Dev blog video which really is just all the above but moving...in a video

To Dustbowl Videos

We appreciate you taking the time to look at this thread, and we hope to have more to show you asap.
Cheers guys and gals.
PI

[selmiak]

this getting better an better with every update! Keep it up!

[Armageddon]

Please stop saving the images as jpegs. I want to see the pixels and the colors.

[Kasander]

I like your idea of a combat system, that hit/miss bar reminds me of penalty/free kick shooting in some football games, but I don't remember I've seen that being used in RPG. That seems refreshing I love oldschool proper RPGs and being sentimental towards all things post-apocalyptic I'll make sure to play DB demo. Seems quite a challenge by the way, to make a RPG with AGS. I can only imagine it needs some serious counting and coding skills. A rocket science to me

[Atavismus]

Seems quite a challenge by the way, to make a RPG with AGS. I can only imagine it needs some serious counting and coding skills. A rocket science to me

Thx for your words Kasander.
It's not that a big challenge imo.
Although, some AGSers already made what we are doing.
It's a fact, AGS is made for point'n'click, but we can code almost every kind of games.
Ofc there are some limitations and you sometimes need to find some workarounds, but AGS is far more powerful than some ppl think (even in the AGS community).
Moreover, with the dedicated dev team constantly improving it, I have no doubt AGS will become what we could call "a modern engine".