this is a pretty big update, so stick with me!

First and foremost - Duster has been selected to showcase at PAX West with Indiemegabooth!

How exciting!!  You’ll get a chance to play the latest version of Duster and I’m excited to be able to say hi to all the players. 

Now unto what’s new.

DUSTER is now at a point where it’s nearly to alpha 1. The first “basic” version of the game. In preparation for that I’ll be taking public builds down. Thank you to everyone who helped bring insight and bug fixes to the game during the early development of the game. Trust, every little bit helped and made the game what it is!

Moving forward I'd like to keep a tighter lid on what features are being put in game, what's awesome about the game, and even what bugs are going on. Many games would start off the wrong foot simply because all the reviews were based on an early bug ridden version! In order to keep a handle on things, I'll be limiting the keys to ~2000 at any given time. Once the keys run out, I'll evaluate the need for more testers (or simply where the game is at in development) and then open them back up again. Any money generated from these keys will help fund the development (which currently is out of pocket 100%).

Right now this is a sort of "soft launch" as I'm not quite at alpha yet. I'm looking to do an actual marketing push to get people to buy keys to fund dev sometime September or October - after both PAX and a Portland showcase XOXO

WHAT'S NEW

• MAP SYSTEM! A big issue with early playtesting was watching players traveling aimlessly along a map for a LONG Time. More time spent wandering than actually doing anything of meaning. I've decided instead to replace this with a map system. You select a destination, and your water drains as you travel there. The world map is still gigantic, but a lot easier to traverse.
• NEW AREA TYPES! Right now its a bit barebones, but the mountains, hills, and rivers now have different looks, feels, and enemies. Look to see this expand as time goes on.
• NEW UI! The UI has been dramatically overhauled to be a lot more user friendly and thematic. It also exposes more of the game screen allowing you to focus on playing and less on a big black bar. A lot more of the UI is animated now as well
• DUSTER SPIRIT! The spirit of the duster (before a generic green placeholder sprite) is now a crow! This bird will guide you through the game, but he's lost sight of what it feels like to be mortal. Be prepared for equal parts help, and insults.
• MODDING - all items, weapons, npcs, and factions are now accessible via XML for editing. I'll be slowly expanding this to give a set of full fledged modding tools! For now its still a bit of a manual process. There is also a "modfiles" folder. Any PNG placed in that folder is loaded at runtime into the game - allowing for custom sprites.
• UPGRADES! You now gain experience from defeating enemies. Once you have enough experience, you can level up various helpful stats like run speed or better accuracy. This persists through each playthrough - its the magic of the bird spirit!
• New Dialogue system! Gone is the overbearing "journal" and instead we have simple pop ups with a portrait. The portrait even works with the procedural NPCs
• Vultures can now be seen throughout the game, especially if there are skeletons
• Updated Title screen graphics and music
• DRAMATICALLY reduced lag
• Increased the size of dirt stacks
• Adjusted animation speeds
• Added a white hat, black hats only for enemies now. I wonder if there's a way to UNLOCK black hats....
• Death now is a bit more exciting looking
• Updated the the look of dirt cliffs slightly
• Lots of bug fixes - too many to list!