Veil of Dust: A Homesteading Game

This is a farming sim first, a story about your relationship with your sibling second, and a romantic visual novel third. I don't say that to imply I'm unhappy- I specifically bought the game for the grumpy brother energy and the hugs. It's to set your expectations about what you'll be doing most of your time in this game. I played the sister, Aine, and romanced Prince Laan and he was a tall beautiful blushing cutie. The romance felt very natural. BIG TIP: As soon as chapter 3 hits, focus on your love interest and get that completed before completing the mystery, as it is all wrapped up by ch 5** I liked my brother experience, and I appreciated that their story had a lot to do with processing grief while simultaneously being very loving. The story is gated behind your brother's affection and your ability to leave the farm and move it forward. Which means there isn't a lot of rush, you are completely in control. There isn't an arbitrary date to complete everything by .You have to feed yourself, your sibling and take care of yourself. And that takes a lot of your focus. At least for me, I finished this game in 22.5 hours, and then played another hour to make sure I really had played to the end of all possible story. That was 142 in game days. And I didn't leave the farm much until day 30. The only tweaks I would make is having Arthur available sooner. He didn't stand a chance when I'd already advanced the other two options far enough along that trying to bring him to the same level as the other two just sounded like work.. ** Another minor complaint is that completing the story breaks the brother. He no longer slept at night in his bed for me, and the stamina drain on him was huge. The beasts still show up even though they shouldn't anymore, which is another good reason to get your romance settled before end game. That way you feel a satisfactory end and feel no urge to play after story completion. You can smooch your LI, hug your sibling, and close it out on a high note. And then move on to another play through with all the things you learned! I am curious to see what it plays like from the brother's perspective. More practical tips: The money maker is pickled black eyed peas. They take two days to grow. If you have the crafting station (not the loom) you can make every 3 black eyed peas into a pickled jar. Then sell for 0.08- 50c every two days if you do your whole patch in black eyed peas. Barley feeds everyone: as feed for the animals, and to make flour for small cakes. That and egg custard are mostly gonna be what you live on for the stamina buffs. But the real star of the stamina show is Dandelion tea. You can drink as much as you want, never get full. Onions are a waste. They take a really long time to grow, they sell for pennies. After your house upgrades, the only thing you really need is stamina-and the recipes onions are in don't contribute to stamina. They also only satisfy 3 hunger as feed for the animals, when they lose hunger in increments of five. Boo. Cows are for making money (cheese wheels sell well) and Chickens are for making Egg Custard and Small Cake (the best bang on stamina that exists in game). I considered having 3 cows but the burden of feeding them would have been far too high (30 food a day, when you already have your brother and possibly your LI to feed.) And if you switch the brother from water duty by 10am, he should go to town right after. So you get him doing two jobs instead of just one per day. I didn't find it that useful to use him to hunt hares or materials. Wish list: 1. I would have liked to have had friendship paths with the remaining LIs, they seemed to freeze narrative wise as soon as I locked in the LI I wanted. 2. It would have been nice to see Shane attempting a romance on his own. Maybe it could be randomly selected so no canon was implied, but I'm bummed out that he stays lonely. And then thinking that Aine won't find a love of her own when I play Shane is a bit sad too. Another reviewer mentioned how mouse heavy it is. I agree, it is mouse and keyboard heavy. I recommend keybinding the run key to a different one right off the bat. I recommend the game! :) But there isn't a story mode.

I essentially played this for 8hrs straight. This is a project that is very obviously created by a small team, so expectations must be tempered. However, this is not a critique, just a reality. And undeniably, Veil of Dust oozes with love. You can see it in the writing. Each line, each relationship, each dynamic is explored with a level of care and devotion, to make the characters feel human, rather than just spamming gifts to your chosen spouse to make them love you. In all honesty, the true pull of the game isn't the potential sweethearts, but the love between a sister and a brother who have been profoundly shaped by trauma. Don't get me wrong, I loved getting the wives together, but you cannot beat a hug mechanic between family members who truly love each other. As for gameplay, I am legitimately impressed by how much content there is. Of course, some of it is repetitive, but no other farming game has made me actually take care of my crops or my animals quite as much as Veil of Dust has. They know thie genre, they know you're gonna be gunning to get married, but you need money to do so. And the stamina debuffs from not eating, while not unfair, will end up punishing you. Not by making you lose progress, but by making you lose time. Which is effective. I'm an impatient person. If I lost my items, I would have gotten frustrated. Forcing me to slow down however? Worked much better. My biggest critique is that Veil of Dust will leave you wanting more. There's plot points I would like to see expanded upon, relationships and dialogues I'd want to see deepened. This is not because the game is shallow, it is just VERY obvious that these devs are passionate and had an awful lot ot ambition for the game. Killing your darlings has to be done during a project on a limited budget. My hope is that this game gets the attention it deserves, so the devs can expand more on their vision. Writing that can make you feel very emotional and then in the next line of dialogue make you laugh is something special. TL;DR This is worth your time if you want a narrative based game that's full of love, but also forces you to obey mechanics in a fair way.

Overall, an interesting story to follow with good cutscene dialogues, but not good enough to overcome its shortcomings. However it has too many gripes to recommend: - the game encourages you to talk often to characters, yet almost all day to day dialogues are repeated since game start with no regard to story events. This ensures that any new interesting dialogues you get every 20 days (rough count) gets buried under repeated dialogues. This is my main gripe. - Movement controls is very clunky. You will get stuck on things. You will need to restart the day at multiple points in the game if you choose the wrong spot to talk to characters. - Combat controls is also clunky. The peak of my frustration is hunting elks with Shane. Shane's main attack is shotgun, which only "fires" if you click on the elk. However, there's a 1-second delay between your click and the shotgun's "firing", which is really bad when the bullet isn't guaranteed to hit. To kill an elk you need to corner it in repeated encounters until you get lucky and the elk AI gets stuck on sth long enough for enough bullets to hit. - Some placeable furnitures (end tables in my case) aren't placed in the correct "image layer", if that makes sense. End tables that're supposed to be physically in front of a shelf is in the image layer under the shelf. Same issue when placing end tables near the kitchen wall. In conclusion, it's a narrative-heavy game that buries its interesting dialogues under boring grind, with resource management aspects that's bogged down by clunky controls.

Well this was fun. It's a slightly different "farming game" -> Here you don't manage a bunch of crops, but rather focus on stats and survival and hunting too. You can either play as Aine (sister) or Shane (brother) character and each of them has their own thing. But let's face it... If you want to do magic/speed up plant growth and want Laan? You gotta go with Aine. XD So for now I can only tell you stuff from the perspective of the Sister character. If you aren't good at these games... There is "Casual Mode". Especially for fighting: since it wont refill the monster's HP if your characters happen to fall. There is also lots of walking and gathering. If you like desert areas with minimal growth? You'll like this. The game explains stuff and gives you a "Hints" box in game on how to push the Main Story line, so I wont spend time on it. Love Interests: Arthur (the one who talks a lot of boring science stuff...), The Blue Girl (she is adorable, but...!)... When Laan appears on the screen? He steals the show. And not because he is a supernatural being... (Who is also male... With horns...) He is damn charming and majority of the time I tried to do duties in the FASTEST way possible... Just so my MC can spend time with him. I honestly didn't expect a fluffy story, but damn..! Talking about two particular events (and not just with Laan). Kudos on all of that. Getting to the part where you are together was wild and worth it. Heck, I even build all I could! Just so they could be together. >I had a little issue with a "zombie brother" (no stats went up for him whilst he slept or rather... Didn't) bug in the end... Which the Developers helped me fix rather quickly. So I went and finished the game and... It certainly wasn't what I expected!< However despite the already intriguing story... The best part of it all? Was the relationship between the brother and the sister, as well as the lessons. The lessons should be read/heard and taken to heart... And for those... I dearly thank you... :') Thank ya and super good work! I look forward to more of your projects in the future!! :> :D :3

A game I couldn’t put down!! I enjoyed just about every part of it, from the storyline to the farming mechanics, to the cooking, and most of all, the dialogue and romances. I had such a blast getting to enjoy such great dialogue. Dialogue is usually a make or break for me and this was definitely a make. Please play this game! You won’t regret it!

讲诉的是魔法妹妹和她的麻瓜哥哥在奇幻风格的美国旧西部种田安家[strike] 挨饿 [/strike]的故事。 强烈建议先通关一次妹妹的线，然后再尝试哥哥的视角，因为哥哥看不见超自然现象，第一次玩很容易对主线剧情一头雾水[spoiler] 比如整天看着妹妹跟空气谈笑风生 [/spoiler]。当然，如果你喜欢那种事后恍然大悟的体验也不是不行。 对于生命、饥饿与体力的管理是我很喜欢的部分，这套机制很好地让人体会到农场生活的艰辛，毕竟当一个人不用吃饭或者不会累的时候，很难感受到劳动所得的回报。[spoiler] 以及你的老哥进城打工一整天，累得要死要活只能赚4美分。 [/spoiler] 诡异的碰撞体积让战斗和行走非常蛋疼，但是剧本好到足以弥补这些缺陷，很高兴看到一个种田游戏愿意讨论一些深刻的剧情，而人物说话不像大部分同类型游戏那样故意降智以显得“幽默”。 to developers: 1. hope the game settings can be maintained. I like to play game of window, but every time restar the game, it always turns to full screen, which is a bit troublesome. 2. It is recommended to adjust the BGM volume separately from the sound effect volume, as bees always make too loudly. anyway, this is a very excellent story. In addition, the meeting of Chinese businessmen is very interesting. I really have a headache about English name like him, lol

A fun story-driven game. There is no timeline to follow so you can focus on farming/homesteading or in the very engaging story. So far, i've only played with one of the main chars, but the fact that you can re-play it from another perspective it's an awsome concept. Totally recomendable!

I had an enjoyable experience that I would definitely recommend. The feeling of satisfaction that comes from turning a ramshackle homestead into a comfortable dwelling is a highlight. The story itself is engaging, although the differences between the two character routes are mostly limited to exploring different romantic options. Aside from a handful of the same story beats you get to see from each persons unique perspective, that is. Speaking of romance, the relationships are well-written, but I did feel that marriage comes too late in the game. By the time you have a third helping hand, you've essentially completed the game, and your partner's contribution is mainly limited to helping with chores and providing a unique ability. While there is a fair amount of grinding involved, particularly when it comes to making money, I believe that the game is still worth playing. It offers a compelling perspective on the themes of trauma, loss, and adversity, and the relatively low price point makes it a solid investment in terms of entertainment value.

I get such a warming fulfilling feeling from this game. I played a lot of the demo and definitely worth a try. I love the art and the feel of the game world and there's so much more i haven't explored yet!

This game is simplistic on the surface, but underneath the sepia-toned hood, the writing for the characters, the storyline, the crafting mechanics and the homesteading experience are really well-done. The music is very calming when things are good, and that makes the darkness that creeps in around the corners that much more foreboding when it hits. Great replayability and looking forward to any future updates/dlc in the future!