A Handful of Dust
A downloadable game for Windows
A Handful of Dust is a 2d side-scrolling, metroidvania, action-adventure game with a touch of RPG systems, that is focused around combat and exploration and is heavily inspired and influenced by games like Castlevania and Salt and Sanctuary, The game is currently in active development.
Gameplay
Gameplay is classic modern 2d metroidvania action/adventure with a light touch of soulslike. Explore a vast, open, interconnected, immersive landscape with 19 distinct and varied regions, combating hordes of enemies, engaging in tough boss battles, acquiring, upgrading and mastering new equipment, items and abilities to open up new combat and traversal options and discovering the various shortcuts and secrets hidden in this dark world.
Story
The main focus of this game is combat and exploration focused gameplay and a strong linear narrative is not a design goal. However taking queues from games like Dark Souls, the world is dark, mysterious and filled with rich lore.
Little of this lore is discoverable in the demo, but is planned to be included in a full release.
Development & Progress
The game is currently in active development as hobby project and is my first attempt at designing and developing a game. The coding and design of the game is the work of a single person (me) using the FNA framework as the base technology layer. The main character is custom and mostly animated by myself, with a few outsource animations, but most of the other artwork and assets have been sourced from various other creators. The engine, tooling, systems and processes are all complete, or very nearly complete, and about 75% of the game's planned content exists in various stages of polish and iteration.
Upcoming additions:
- Story - There is virtually no story present in the demo, NPC interactions, cutscenes and dialog and story need to be added
- Map Improvements - I currently have a temporary, but functional dynamic map system in place that simply renders a scaled down version of the level "on the fly", which results in some very badly scaled map imaging. Once I've finalized level layouts I will revamp the map system using actual mini-map art.
- Content Generation - The demo content represents slightly more than 25% of the content planned for the full and is in a reasonably polished and playable state. A good deal of additional content exists, but in an unpolished state. The majority of the remaining development time will be spent adding and polishing content.
- Optimization - Performance improvements, removal of cut assets, better asset organization, etc..
- Additional Weapon Classes - 3 more weapon types are planned
About the Demo
The demo showcases 4 full areas from the game, includes 7 bosses, represents about half of what I have in a fully playable state so far and roughly 25% of the planned content for the final game and is 2-4 hours of playtime depending on player speed and skill.
The demo is an in progress "alpha" build and should be considered as "early access". There are some bugs and additional polish and balance passes are needed, but it is in a fully playable state. The primary motivation for packaging and releasing this demo is to solicit feedback on the current state of the game that I can use as I apply additional polish to the systems and content as well as build out the remaining content for the game. So constructive feedback, thoughts and impressions are extremely welcome.
Note that the demo/game is (currently) only available in English. Basic configurations for screen size and sound volume exist, but no accessibility options are present.
A keyboard and mouse control scheme exists, but it is highly recommended that the game be played with a controller.
Changelog
- v1.01 - Initial release
- v1.02 - Fixed crash in inventory when equipping projectile into an empty slot
- v1.03 - Enemy AI attack speed tweaks. Increased attack delays for Ogre boss. Prevent Shaman boss from respawning after defeat
- v1.04 - Updates to movement and jump controls (based on feedback received so far) Fixed crash when hitting the restart button multiple times on death
- v1.05 - Additional Enemy AI and animation timing tweaks based on feedback
- v2.0 - Major Update!
- Keyboard/Mouse controls are now fully supported
- Numerous improvements to AI, Enemy and item balance
- Reworked equipment upgrade resource requirements and level statistics
- Reworked item placement in levels
- Addition of combat and exploration statistic tracking
- Fixed several crash to desktop issues
- Fixed a few issues with saves not restoring data correctly
- A large number of presentation, gameplay and overall polish improvements
- v2.1 - Fixed potential crash on first enemy, improved tutorial messaging, added sound fade-out for ambient sounds as they move off screen
- v2.5 - Semi Major Update!
- A large number of presentation, gameplay and overall polish improvements
- Significant changes to early level geometry, enemy placement and boss encounters.
- Significant progress on character leveling and equipment upgrade systems.
- Several changes to enemy AI and combat.
- Framework for NPC interactions and quest systems (not demonstrated in demo)
- Significant reduction in game size
- v2.5.1
- Fixed reported crash in options menu
- v2.5.2
- Fixed additional crash bugs reported in menu screens
- Fixed additional crash bugs reported in menu screens
- v3.0 - Major Update!
- Replaced the initial main character with an all new design with over 600 hand drawn frames of pixel art animation.
- Dramatically expanded combat options.
- The old character had 2 weapon types/movesets, while the new character has 5 present in this demo and 3 more in progress. This expands the number of attack moveset options, as well as the number of weapons that can be found in the game world.
- Enhanced stamina system - weapons now have weight, which affects the amount of stamina consumed by attacks
- Weapon scaling added - weapons now scale with character attributes
- New boss added in demo levels
- Addition of a vendor selling ranged projectiles
- Enemy loot drops added for ranged projectiles and upgrade materials
- Numerous changes and tweaks to enemy design, AI, level design and UI
- Numerous changes and addition to later game areas not accessible in demo
- NOTE: Previous savegames are incompatible with this update and will fail to load and I think the game crashes if they are present, so extracting this build to a new directory is recommended.
- v3.1
- Fixed crash issue on starting game
- Updated to .netcore8
- Selfcontained distributions which run with no dependencies on the user machine and should help improve compatibility for multiple systems at the cost of a slightly larger size on disk
- Linux version!
- v3.2
- Various stability and crash fixes
- Removed enemy "leap" feature to enter combat as it was buggy
- Adjusted damage and stamina for fist attacks.
- Corrected crash issue related to culture when game was run outside of US (reported from South Africa)
- Minor AI and stat adjustments.
- v3.3
- Fixed bug with new games carrying over game state from previous play session
- Fixed minor movement bug when first loading into a scene
- Decreased difficulty of first boss slightly
- Trailer added to itch page!
- v3.4 - Technical update!
- Drastically reduced level load times.
- Changed lighting to a deferred rendering based model. This is experimental and can be enabled/disabled in the options menu, but only from the options menu on the MAIN screen, not in game.
- v3.5
- Added additional instructional content to tutorial section
- Added a bestiary section in pause menu (in progress feature!)
- Added additional weapons and weapon types to demo content
- Changes to item placements in demo content
- Hitbox adjustments to several enemy attacks
- Improvements to in game map
- Fixed lighting bugs with expanding ladders when deferred lighting is enabled
- Fixed bug with status effects that deal damage over time stacking if applied twice to the same entity
- Several minor fixes, tweaks, difficulty/balance adjustments, additions and improvements
- v3.6
- Fixed an issue with "The Highwayman" boss fight that prevented the fight from being completed.
- Minor adjustments to level layouts to make traversal easier in some areas
- v3.7
- Fixed crash in bestiary menu screen
- Fixed crash when picking up specific loot item
- Minor adjustments to level traversal and enemy AI
- v3.8
- Fixed bug introduced with last build that caused UI to not update when using projectiles or consumables
- v3.9
- Numerous bugfixes, tweaks and changes based on feedback from testers and review of video playthroughs
- v3.91
- Fixed inventory issue introduced in last build
- Added XP bar on UI
- Removed "invisible" blocks in early levels
- v3.92
- Fixes issues with picking up thrown projectiles and arrows that were noted by multiple testers. It was previously possible to duplicate the pickup input resulting in picking up the objects twice.
- Also fixed an issue with the interaction icon on the pickups not displaying in some cases.
- v3.93
- Made first tutorial level brighter
- Color coded damage numbers to distinguish between damage to player and damage to enemies
- Fixed map icons not respecting map scale and being drawn outside of map window when scrolled
- Adjusted item placement in "The Mire" level to make health upgrade harder to miss
- Characters now start new games with an attribute point so they are immediately able to level up upon reaching the first save point
- Fixes typos in tutorial text when picking up bow
- v4.05
- Adds brightness option to Main Menu Options screen (not in game options menu) which gives the option to adjust the brightness to normal, one level darker or up to two levels brighter than the default.
- COMBAT UPDATE - Adds increased damage for heavy attacks (at the cost of additional stamina usage) and increased damage for combo finishers
- Increases starting stamina by 20% and reduces stamina recharge delay if bar is not fully depleted.
- Numerous AI tweaks to encourage use of attack combos
- Fixes issue with projectile counts not updating correctly when thrown at certain points while jumping
- Adjustment to map screen to keep the map (more) centered while zooming
- Numerous other small tweaks, fixes and adjustments
- v4.17
- Fixed issues with enemy AI
- Fixed issue with bosses becoming active before player has entered arena
- Fixed several edge case issues with movement abilities
- Several tweaks to combat and enemy AI
- Numerous other small improvements and bugfixes
- Note: "Description" toggle in inventory screen is not completed, and does not as of yet do anything.
- v4.22
- Bugfixes
- Added preview feature when warping
- v4.25
- Bugfixes and difficulty tweaks
- v4.27
- Fixed UI bug with inventory items remaining in equipped state sometimes
- Bugfixes and difficulty tweaks
- v5.17
- Numerous changes, new system, new enemies, bugfixes, tweaks and content, including opening up of later game areas beyond what was accessible in the previous demo
Keep in mind that while effort has been made to polish the demo experience, this game is very much in development and may contain bugs and issues as well as placeholder art/features/gameplay functionality/difficulty balancing which will be added, changed or improved as development progresses.
Download
Install instructions
Unzip the download and run the AHOD.exe file to start the game.
To update the game, just unzip and overwrite the previous install. Save files should be preserved.
Development log
- Linux Version and Packaging ImprovementsJun 27, 2024
- Main Character Updated!Jun 26, 2024
Comments
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Hey! Just finished beating the troll! Figure I give some initial thoughts and some potential glitches. I'll make another post once I get to the end of the demo.
Thanks so much for checking it out and taking the time to give some feedback!
Some responses:
1) Were you running windowed at the resolution of your monitor and seeing the game be wider than it should have been? What resolution?
2) Thanks for the report, will take a look.
3) Awesome to hear! Since you've beaten the troll I hope you'll move at least to the next area, I think the presentation takes a pretty big step up there personally. The moving foliage isn't a animated or a shader, it's a rendering trick where the vertices of the sprites are pulled when an object is in contact with them.
4) This is actually a... feature. Some enemies have the ability to leap long distances to the player to engage in combat and when they do so they ignore level geometry. But It definitely presents as a bug a lot of time (I didn't say it was a GOOD feature) so I'll need to revisit this and either make it more polished or remove it.
5) Again, awesome to hear!
6) Understandable, especially since stamina is so low to start! Character leveling and attributes is a fairly new addition and I need to think more about how that curve will work. Consider that "in progress"
7) Good suggestion!
Hello there, I tried your demo and let me tell you I just loved the art, particularly the Gorgon so congrats on the work!
I'd like to offer you some of my impressions, and suggestions:
1. I found the mapping somewhat odd, I get it that the area isn't added until it has been fully explored but these huge vacant rectangles seemed ugly for lack of a better word. Personally I think that a heavily shaded preview of a visited area or smaller rectangles would look better.
2. Given how huge the map is (despite it being just a demo, its breath really surprised me) the character indicator is rather hard to see at times.
3. I found a bug in one of the slopes, it's next to some stones of The Mire, I think, since the game doesn't allow you to walk off ledges the animation kept clipping until I jumped off it, in my whole playthrough this was the only instance of this that I found.
4. The lightning that begins in The Mire is rather jarring, having the whole screen turn white also hampers the combat and platforming, perhaps doing it only once or twice and then just a slight flash?
5. I didn't like the vibration on grabbing ledges.
6. I found that if I jumped and the character was spinning it would fall through the ledges despite having clearly jumped high enough.
7. I'd like it if you were able to pick up thrown axes that hit nothing to recover them.
8. There is a transission of areas, I think it was from The Hollow to the next one were the whole screen has some fog and then abruptly it's gone.
9. After beating the Highway Man I came to a sign and when I tried to read it it caused the game to abruptly close.
10. Consider adding the chance to change the direction of an attack, I had to do a full stop before being able to change the side, this made dodging and then attacking or attacking multiple targets much harder
11. Lastly, perhaps ease a bit on the damage done by those flying water spirits? Those felt unfair rather than challenging.
Hope seeing of your game soon!
Thanks so much for giving the demo a shot and giving so much feedback! That's really helpful.
I'm curious how far you got into the demo?
Some quick responses
1) the map is very much "placeholder" it's awful and needs a complete rework :)
2) I really like the lightning personally, I find it very impactful... but it's a pretty common thread in feedback that people find it jarring, so I have a few ideas I'm playing around with tone it WAY down. I hope to have a much more "friendly" implementation in the next update!
3) Thanks for pointing out the bugs! I fixed the sign/crash bug already and will try to hunt down the level bug and jumping bug you mentioned. Being my own QA rough :(
4) Will be taking a look at the rest of your suggestions and feedback as well.
friend, I tried your game and I am aware that it is not a final product but you should consider the weight of the game, almost 350mb, considering that it is a pixel art game. the weight should be on the music, you should consider converting one music format to another.
Yep. 319 of the 354 MB are .wav files. That could be knocked down to 32MB if it were all oggs (it's SDL, so you get ogg for free). Smaller, if you drop stereo for the sound effects. Everything else appears to be pretty tight.
Still, like you said, this ain't final. I'm sure it's already on the dev's radar.
Yes, it's on my radar.
Being in active development the assets are a bit unorganized and are definitely not optimized. I have quite a bit of sound and art that is included in the game that will wind up not being used I will need to remove in the final version and the audio will all need to be optimized and renamed.
It's not a big priority for me to optimize the content size at the moment, but I can probably cut a good chunk off the install size without too much effort by just removing unused music and optimizing the tracks that are left as well as some of the larger sound effect files. I'll work this into a future patch release.
Probably won't be swapping to .ogg for sound effects, but definitely something I'd investigate for music and longer ambient soundscape tracks.
Hey again, here is another episode since you asked for it! I will be making more probably soon, hope to have time for it. Just be sure to take a look to your game name Playlist on my channel in the future, I will not be able to post here with each episode I do. Hope this helps on general.
Hi there, I am a YouTuber focusing on Indie Games and I also do other things! Been testing your game for a while now and I have also started recording some Gameplay Walkthrough:
Here is some of my feedback for now, contact me for a faster way for communications, I would like to help you and test the game further more:
♦ Game Idea: The idea is not eniterly new but from what I am able to play right now it looks like you have put the idea of 2D side-scrolling games into a good use! Would love to see more from you for sure!
♦ Gameplay: The game runs smoothly and had fun actually playing the game, having that double jump is nice! I also would like to know if it is possible to play this game using Keyboard, some inputs are not supported and I have explained one of them in this video (related to changing the weapons).
♦ Story: I know you have that written above, and I know this is still early in developement, but it does not hurt to let you know that the story side (in-game) is missing, the focus in on the gameplay which is really fun, you can add up some story elements to the game through certain notes with items that tells the story or parts of it.
♦ Artwork: The artwork of the game is a style that my little brother loves! It has that pixel art style which is very common and loved by most players nowadays! I also like the characters design! However, the items have only one color and shape to be picked up, even though that they are different when collecting!
♦ Audio: I love that thunder and lighting going on, having the sound effects early done in the game is always a plus! The game could use some background music, I see that you have it during the boss fights so far!
♦ Bugs & Constructive Criticism: I believe the video and what is written above is what I have for now! I would like to add also that the boss fight with the Ogre was pretty easy! Some other enemies were harder than him to be honest (I will have more footages soon as I have played more than it is shown on this Gameplay video).
♦ Things to Double Down on: What you have here is a very good game and I would love to support those who work hard or have a talent! This is what I am capable of doing as a show of support, hope this gelps! You should really make the demo shorter though, around an hour! The full game can have the best of what you have planned! I would love to see more of this content, keep it up sir!
Hey, thanks for checking this out! I *really* enjoyed your video, your enthusiasm is awesome and really sets your content apart. I'll be keeping an eye on your channel! I'd love for you to play further into the demo to see what you think of some of the other areas.
Thanks for the feedback as well, lots of good stuff there. Full support for keyboard controls has been a common request, so I've moved that up in my list of features to add in the near future.
Glad that this up to help for you! That enthuisasm is not stable though haha, sometimes I get tired for having too much work outside in my job but will sure to try out more of your game! I still have some footages left for the same version that I have played! Will try to edit and upload that soon! Your game is really good, for sure I would like to play more of it.
Hey I tried this, over all pretty good for what I tried, although the game quits on the screen transition after the first checkpoint, so I only played around 3 min.
I prefer moving in air while attacking.
Also health bar on enemies.
Oh, so sorry it crashed on you! I'm not sure what would have happened there and I don't seem to be able to reproduce it :(
Thanks so much for giving it a shot!
Hey, this is really nice for a first attempt at developing a game.
UI is very good. I was able to figure out what all the buttons did and how to play just on the first screen, which is great.
The movement feels a little janky. Hard to describe specifically why, but I did notice that releasing horizontal movement buttons don't slow the player down in mid-air, which felt odd. Also at the beginning of the game I would always jump at max height for some reason, but I think this stopped once I got the double jump.
The ogre boss felt a little strange too. Getting knocked away by the boss's attacks looked awkward, and sometimes the player's damaged animation would play inside the ground. And for a game that's clearly inspired by a lot of souls design discussion I'm surprised the boss didn't have better tells for attacks. Personally I'd prefer checkpoints next to bosses, a shorter input buffer duration, no fall damage, actual background music, etc. but that's just me.
I think I heard the music transition into an "ending" theme when the boss died? If so that's a cool touch, I really like when the music changes like that.
I used the "dive" attack a bunch after discovering it because I thought it was fun to use. I'd talk about combat more but I honestly found myself jumping and ignoring over a bunch of enemies. Once the game said I levelled up, but I checked the menu and couldn't find a level or exp listed? I think it could be more satisfying to have a meter or something displayed.
This was pretty cool, I just think that movement and some enemy behavior could be more polished. I recommend closely watching someone play A Handful of Dust if you can, you may be able to pick up on issues better that way because I'm having difficulty describing them. Good luck!
That is extremely helpful feedback! Thanks so much for taking the time to check the demo out and give me your impressions.