The Sand Dunes

The Sand Dunes is a third person brawler with a supernatural/magic spell theme as you use a complex array of spells alternative fire modes to kill a variety of enemies, choosing the right spells to get past the resistances of the various enemies. Environments are fairly simple, sometimes minimalist/low poly. There's also third person 3D platformer gameplay required to negotiate some levels. This seems very much like a genuine indie/amateur game rather than an asset flip or a cash grab. Significant thought has gone into the different spells/weapons and secondary effects. The technical implementation is quite good for what it is, gameplay is fairly smooth and comes across generally well polished for an indie/amateur game. While somewhat spartan, the visuals are also very good for an indie/amateur game. I'm a little on the fence on this one because it is free and it's a genuinely developed game, but I also found some elements of the gameplay to be more frustrating than fun, for example, you need to switch between abilities and spam secondary fire modes at the same time just to get through the tutorial level. This is only fun insofar as having a migraine is fun, and that's the kind of problem you see throughout the rest of the game... where's the fun in all of this? The game is completely free. Nothing speaks more to a developers belief in themselves and their product than making their game available for everyone without remuneration. This is certainly a gesture that shows dedication to the gaming industry. It's a shame in this case that the implementation is below the minimum standards a dedicated PC game should offer to enthusiasts. There's no "maybe" option in Steam, unfortunately, but I hope to see more work from this developer, perhaps as part of a professional game development company that can make full use of their obvious and considerable talents, so they could potentially work on a much deeper, more ambitious game.