Castle in the Sands

Beautiful little adventure on the sands of the Sahara. In an age where even many visual novels are suffering from overfilling, it's refreshing to find a story that goes straight to the point, capable of depicting attractive characters and worlds with just the necessary scenes. The visuals are also soothingly colourful, reminiscent of that flavour from the narrative games of the 90s. Will be awaiting your next game!

I bought this mostly for the aesthetics and atmosphere, and it delivered well on both points. The pixel art is beautifully done, with a nice limited color palettes, and I liked that the UI shifts depending on the state of the castle and the time of day in story, with the lantern lighting up at night. Everything is customized to fit the theme as well, like the buttons being tiles. There are also a few portions where another character tells a short story, and the main character's portrait changes to reflect that. Overall, the presentation of the game was quite charming. I am not super familiar with the cultures of North Africa, but there's an encyclopedia explaining some aspects (always a nice bonus), and my impression at least was that the author was familiar/did research rather than relying on stereotypes. The runtime is rather short (about an hour), though at least the price reflects that. Some aspects also could have used more work. First, the actual writing needed a lot more polishing - many lines have awkward flow and grammar mistakes, and the 'castle crumbles to nothing' ending is extremely short with very little emotional reaction from the characters. It was very, "Hey, my home crumbled to nothing and someone I deeply respect is probably dead, but I needed to get out anyway, want to have another adventure?" Not exactly satisfying. Also, there is no option to change the text speed or get rid of the delay, so if you read quickly you'll be double-clicking/tapping through much of the game, and the skip text option is rather slow.

I really enjoyed the game - the art, atmosphere, and overall premise are pretty nice (despite I'm not a big fan of scuh settings) My main issue is that the story feels too short and more like a prologue to a larger adventure. The characters are interesting but I'd love to see more development and backstory. Some plot points were a bit predictable and I found myself wanting to spend much more time exploring the castle itself. Overall, it's a promising visual novel, and I'd love to see more of it in the future =)

Great visual novel, great atmosphere and story. It is really short as it took me around 50 minutes to get the best ending on my first playthrough but i would recommend it for a nice little break and immersion into the desert.

My first review lol The game has beautiful visuals and an excellent soundtrack. It's incredibly atmospheric, and I really enjoyed that aspect of it. The story itself, though... it's very simple, and the writing feels equally simplistic. The endings were the biggest disappointment for me. The good ending is by far the strongest, but the neutral and bad endings feel rushed and unfinished. The castle is destroyed, and... that's all. The characters are left standing in the middle of the desert, yet there's almost no emotional impact. It feels as though Tiziri doesn't care at all, which comes across as illogical. On top of that, there are barely any differences between the bad and neutral endings. In the end, I was left wondering what I had spent my time on. The game is not bad, but idk if i can recommend it

There are some misspelt letters in the English version near the end of the story, but the artwork is fantastic, and the story is a very engrossing tale about magic, infidelity and reconnecting with someone whom you've considered a waste of time, and expecting them to be thankful for that.

Ігра для 14 річних дєвачєк, яким нравляться арабскі мальчікі P.S. Арабскі дівчата теж непогані👍

游戏流程较短，但剧情尚可，游戏的美术风格别具一格，是比较原汁原味的北非故事，买来玩玩当甜点吃蛮不错的！

Мікро новела, в цілому непогана. Стиль написання іноді ріже очі, примітивні форми і прості формулювання але пиксельний дизайн мені сподовася, трек всередині палацу атмосферний ну і сам по собі сетінг доволі унікальний не арабський а скоріше берберський такий.