Aeon of Sands - The Trail

Very simplified Dungeon Master gameplay, dungeon a bit empty and lacking of good tricks or problems to solve, single character only for more simplificaiton, similar real time combat mode that has hard time to bring anything new on the table, even less this game. The writing seems not bad and even good for an indie game, but it's not worth it with the weak gameplay.

A solid, old-school grid-based dungeon crawler with a unique atmosphere made by someone who clearly knows and loves the genre. Humorous and fourth-wall-breaking dialogues are mostly fun, but sometimes immersion breaking. A sequel would be greatly appreciated.

Aoens of Sands is an old school realtime dungeon crawler. Combat is in real time, you and the enemies move while in combat. That makes the combat rather easy as long as you do not get flanked. There a boss encounters, there a easy mechanic puzzles, many illusionary walls. The story seems a little straight forward, not really that engaging but good enough. The main pro points for the game are the art style, dungeon textures, enemy design and world building. It is a fun and strange world to explore. You explore dungeons in 3d and a 2d overworld with points of interest, you can not move freely around the overworld. You have to follow certain paths between the points of interest. There are little text adventures to have at certain points, followed by 3d fights or dungeon exploration. My main critic point is that the dungeon exploration is somewhat samey and uninteresting. There is only one hard dungeon in the game, and it is only hard because there tons of stairs and you can not access all areas of the dungeons from all directions, you have to circle completely through it to advance. That can be very frustrating. It is a very good game, a casual dungeon romp like Eye of the Beholder, with awesome artstyle and a fun little story and interesting world to explore.

A fun dungeon crawler that feels like a journey and trek through desert lands. It promises to be a funny game, but I didn't really enjoy the humor much myself. I thought the world itself was very interesting so I was kinda bummed out that it tried to make jokes at the games expense much of the time. The art and mood otherwise is top notch! Unlike other oldschool dungeon crawlers, this game is pretty much devoid of nasty traps, insane puzzles or crazy teleporter shenanigans. All the challenge feels fair, as long as you are on your toes and keep a backup save handy. There are also a ton of story moments and characters you can meet while travelling. Feels like a lot of cool stuff can happen depending on where you go and who is in your party. It all makes for a unique and pleasant experience. I'd recommended this to grid-based dungeon crawling fans. People looking for a traditional first person RPG might be dissapointed by the lack of leveling since character growth comes from using weapons/spells and getting better gear. There is plenty of gear and items tho! Still, if you go in with an open mind that this is an indie game made by a very small team, I think you'll enjoy it as well.

To any and all nerds of Dungeons and Dragons, this is a work of passion and a letter of love to our childhoods. For those of us who grew up on floppy disks, and super nintendo and sega genesis. This is a throwback to the days of warriors of the eternal sun from sega. The system is hit and run based in the beginning, you can choose the build of your characters based more on gear than on stats. (There are stats, but you don't have access to them. Extra str helps you lvl up melee build, int spells, dex ranged. Based on number of uses from what I can tell.) The dungeons are what keep you coming back, frustrating as they can be at times. They have secret doors, that lead to more secret switches, that open a door back where you came, that has another switch. Suffice to say, for those of us who love to explore, they leave it up to you to find all the fun secrets. And the built in map tracker is much better than the grid paper we bought from the store and had to keep track by hand exactly where those traps were! The dialogue is very tongue in cheek, meant to feel like what our actual thoughts would be during a D&D campaign. The dialogue also changes the ending, so their are multiple play through options. Last main thing to note, the spell system has you attune to an element through eating something, and then cast spells using a focus in your offhand. (The spells show what you can cast when hovering over the item equipped.) Final thoughts, I'm in the middle of my first playthrough. For anyone who enjoys dungeons and dragons or wants to dip their toes into possibly running a campaign, this will get thoughts spinning and possibilities emerging. Well worth the money, please support the things you want to see come back! Cheers!

Short Review: A good dungeon crawler, with very interesting world. Characters (people you meet or party members) feel unigue and clearly have personalities. It choices at least seem to really matter. The world is really nice I have to highlight it again! (Hope there will be more of it) Some times combat feels a bit simple and repetitive. There are puzzles but "mostly" feel like fetch key to fit this. Some parts felt like the game is not serious aka very lame jokes and silly stuff. In Dungeon master scale it being 10 this is about 8-/10. If you want to explore something unique and love old school dungeon crawlers I recommend getting this. If nothing else just to experience the world.

Without being a dungeon crawler fanatic, I've still got a few favourites such as Wizardry 8. Aeon of Sands obviously springs from DOS-era titles and manages to ooze atmosphere like the best of 'em. Not without some nice modernizations like an annotable automap. The post-apoc theme I haven't seen in the genre before and the soundtrack is a perfect fit, especially when you hit any of the rather artistic images that accompany text based events. These lead to some striking moments. Moving between locations is done on an overworld map with diverging paths so it's pretty non-linear. It's not exactly a big world, but there are some complex dungeons in there and since you can lock yourself out of content the game is good for a replay or two. The quirky writing adds some flavor and charm. I didn't find it jarring like some seem to. It's a bit odd that a new game doesn't take advantage of widescreen. Could've allowed for a larger view window or being able to have multiple inventories open, but I suppose there are old-school points for staying retro. I was intrigued by Aeon of Sands first time I saw it, so definitely the theme is a big selling point and what ultimately sets it apart. Highly recommended if you like what you see in the trailer, even if you're not a dungeon crawling die-hard.

Love the game for the most parts. The story was simple yet interesting enough to keep me going, length of the game was perfect so it didn't feel boring by the end. Replay value was clearly there but I'm more into plots so replaying the game when the entire plot has been revealed doesn't make sense to me, and the other details don't matter that much. The best part other than the autosaves and quicksaves would be the map functions including writing, ie labelling, and symbol placements. As for the other parts that weren't as great, the top of the list would be the writing. The writer was trying to write in an elaborate, flippant, and sometimes dry style, but ultimately came across as long-winded and roundabout. The other would be the puzzles which consisted of 90% hidden buttons/levers and fake walls, making the dungeons tedious to go through, or worse if you're some kind of perfectionist - have fun testing every single wall block in every dungeon you encounter. To be fair, it can feel therapeutic in doing something repetitive and mundane like that, so it's not always bad, only during those times when you're trying to get to the next part of the story but you just can't find whatever it is that opens the next door. All in all, a good indie game for the price. Hoping for a sequel.

A fun dungeon crawler with great aesthetics and art and a good number of maps to explore. It's not the deepest game mechanically, and there are some awkward bits to the combat, but it makes up for it with heart and personality, as well as a large degree of variety in encounters and choices. It's impossible to see everything in a single playthrough, and while any given dialogue choice may close one path, it will open another elsewhere. The writing is deliberately very goofy and for some players that will be a turn-off. It's a fine line, but to me it came across as earnest and as a result I found it endearing rather than annoying. There's no real depth to the story or characters, but the game's more about the setting and choices anyway. Some of the maps are a little too sprawling, perhaps, so if you try to fully map them and find all the secrets they can turn into a bit of a slog. There's a very nice variety in environments, though. The game is designed to keep you moving forward. Rather than look back at the path you may have missed, it asks you to look ahead. If you accept that and roll with the punches there's good fun to be had here.