Dust to the End

[The_Proletarian]

I just found a new post-apocalyptic game on Steam, currently in early access. It looks really cool, anyone played it yet?

Spoiler: Features

● The semi-open world map will encounter various monsters and beasts, bandit robbers, emergencies, and harsh natural environments when moving on the big map.

● There are more than 50 cities and towns of different sizes and more than 100 kinds of trading goods in the game for players to find out the property and demand, run business transactions, and earn the difference.

● There are 9 categories of weapons. Different weapons can release different fighting skills in battle. Reasonable and skillful skill matching can make fighting more effective.

●Each recruited mercenary has his own personality, which determines the mercenary’s mood and team status, which in turn affects the team’s combat effectiveness and attitude.

●Inquire about informations, explore ruins, establish and operate underground bases, and gain output.

●Interface design in waste soil style, with more than 40 exquisite character drawings.

● Multiple ending plots, different dialogue choices will affect the plot trend and the final ending.

 

[The_Proletarian]

It has now been reviewed on RPG Watch: https://rpgwatch.com/articles/dust-to-the-end-review--535.html

Summary
Dust to the End has a lot of elements which bother me in other games. Its grindy at times. You need ever more money to upgrade your equipment as well as your vehicles and to pay your salaries. This means running through your trade routes multiple times. Combat is also grindy and too long with far too little variety in the enemies you face. Luckily once you have established yourself in a new area, it drops off as enemies will begin to shy away from combat. How some things work in the game sometime don’t seem to scale well. For example, taking over bunkers is very profitable early on in the game, but later in the game seems hardly worth the effort. Also, some of the systems are illogical and not well explained. Still, I kept on sinking hours into Dust to the End. I liked that the game moves at my pace. I also enjoyed the myriad of different things I can do in Dust to the End. Though trading is your primary activity, upgrading your group, fighting, buying guild shares, gambling, upgrading towns, and conquering bunkers give you a lot of other things to do. Most importantly I found the central trading mechanics enjoyable. I think the game is visually appealing and love the atmosphere the art conveys.
Dust to the End reminds me the most of trading games with some RPG elements like the Port Royale series as well as the Merchant Prince series and its successor The Rise of Venice. However, it is definitely more of an RPG than any of those games are. There are a very small number of games like these, and most of the ones I have tried (in contrast to all of the aforementioned ones) aren’t particularly good. Dust to the End fills a niche where there is very little good competition, but in a very different world and in a very unique way.

And it's currently 50% off on Steam:

 

[jamotide]

I really like the game, played though it 5 times in a row. It is a mix of The Patrician games and a Fallout RPG. If the economic system was more dynamic, or dynamic at all, this could be endless fun. But unfortunately, as it is, the fun ends as soon as you have too much money.