DUST FRONT RTS - DEMO TODAY

DEMO DUST FRONT RTS

You can find the intro and trailer in the previous post about the announcement of the demo version.: view

There are minor problems with the time display, but everything else is normal.

The demo will be available from June 15th (today), 7–8 PM Moscow time.

Gameplay tips that may help you get through the demo:

• This game isn’t about squads, it’s about battalions. Companies of tanks and the thunder of artillery. Build lots of units and lead them into battle. But whether you want to trade armies or fight with elite veterans, that decision is up to you.

• Economy is everything. If you’re short on resources, move your base, develop a passive economy, and set production to run continuously.

• Control the frontline. If you’re holding too narrow a front, the enemy can easily strike you with their entire army, and your resources may run out before you can benefit from a passive economy.

What should you know about this demo?

1. This is not early access, nor the full game. This is a finished demo, except for some aspects of localization, voiceover, and ability icons.

2. Localization into other languages is in development. Unfortunately, by the time of the demo’s release, I couldn’t prepare a sufficiently high-quality and well-tested translation into other languages.

3. The game’s text is fully localized into English. Voiceover will be included in the release version.

A small feature of the demo:

Chevrons and stars are awarded for the enemy base multiplier, and the numbers represent the maximum difficulty multiplier you have on the corresponding enemy base size.

What QoL demo can offer?

Some of them are quite unique to the genre, but overall, the set is pretty ordinary.

That doesn't mean there will be different ones in the full game later. It means that these specific ones exist and they are the way they are.

Repositioning phantom placement projection on the run.

You've already marked where to deploy the "heavy vehicle", but don't want to search for the exact one or drag the camera far away? No problem! Select the phantom itself and move it.

Bomber flight correction.

When you select a tactical ability from the left panel, you call in a bomber. After you set the bombing direction, you can adjust the bomber's flight path post-targeting.

Setting attack priorities.

This one fairly common, in my opinion. Units have preferred target types. If a tank spots a priority target within its line of sight, it will switch to that target.

Drag movement.

Movement with direction by pressing rmb creates a formation in which units are automatically distributed in rows and in a line. To arrange them in rows, you need a lot of them.

Screen select same type limiter.

When you double click on an object, you select all objects of that type on the screen. But in Dust Front, you can disable a screen limiter and select objects this way across the entire map. It really helps when you don't have a control group and don't feel like searching for buildings all over the map.

You also can create control groups by pressing a "T + number", not only left control.

Buildings in offscreen is selecting when toggle is off.

Generally. The game has a basic tutorial that you can go through and always check the basic mechanics. I don't want to deprive you of the feeling of first discovery.

But I can share what other mechanics I have developed for the demo to concept prove it.

Building connections.

Buildings can be connected to each other and grant bonuses. In the GIF above, the factories are connected by a pipe, they receive a production discount if placed in a row like that. This helps a lot with macro gameplay.

By the way, this is the "Complector" — a macro building of the Fourth Industrial Empire. It produces free infantry called "Brutes." In the image, a power plant is connected to it, which speeds up unit production.

This is one of three macro buildings that combine both quantitative upgrades and tech tree unlocks (in RTS mode).

Macro mechanics.

Each faction has its own macro buildings. These buildings unlock technologies and upgrade all units on the battlefield. The faction you play as has three of them.

And they have thematic additional functionality similar to progressive upgrades from starcraft (like tier 1 armor and tier 1 damage).

But they are combined together with the building to reduce unnecessary buttons and increase using of base building mechanic.

1. Foundry - upgrades vehicles toughness.

2. Arsenal - upgrades units damage.

3. Complector - semantically, this structure should upgrade infantry health, but that would be out of style for the faction. Therefore, it provides free infantry, the 'Brutes'."

And finally, one last thing. A lot of people have been asking. Yes, you will be able to build trenches and other defensive structures in this demo.

Now about feedback.

The game has been in development for a very long time. Over this period, I’ve come to fully understand the danger of bending the chosen course or using an ochlocratic approach to problem solving.

For me things fall into two categories.

• Bugs range from minor to major and game breaking. I try to fix those as quickly as possible. The demo does not suffer from many bugs in my opinion. Everything has been tested. Bugs can be considered objective and I welcome and respect assistance on this matter.

• Everything else is subjective. I rely on my own vision and on the fact that vision has led to you sitting here right now reading this post.

The best kind of feedback is a recording of the gameplay. Not commentary showing what you do not like but the gameplay itself. The content is reviewed as needed and the actions are analyzed.

You need to understand that this is not a live service game, not an MMO or anything of that sort. I make games that I myself would play and all the games I played were as they with all their dichotomies. There are no bad things without good things.

My approach is a bit more complicated than I would like to describe it here, but this does not mean I do not listen to criticism, project just has its own approach to processing it. This is done to preserve the original vision and to stay the intended course.

I'm being honest, and so far this approach looks successful.

This project may be tired, but it's still dear to me. I hope for your understanding.

In the future, forms for sending bug reports are likely to appear.

Discord: https://discord.gg/Xhe4dT3

VK: https://vk.com/dustfront

Dust Front RTS Demo