Dust And Neon Demo - Them's Mighty Fine Fluorescents, Partner
Doesn’t the Wild West need a little bit of an ideas injection? We’ve tried aliens and even got a little evil, but Rogue Games’ latest twin-stick shooter, Dust and Neon, introduces some well-deserved fluorescent lighting. You’re not having it all, cyberpunk.
In this rogue-lite developed by David Marquardt Studios, you play a gun slingin’ cowboy huntin’ down robots who be a-rootin’ and a tootin’. That’s the last overuse of apostrophes. My apologies.
As a cover-based game, you have to sneak around the environment using the objects to protect against enemy attacks while blasting them back with your pistol. Even though robots are on the menu, the gun tech is old school as you have to manually reload each time you fire a slug in Dust and Neon, so make sure of the cover, won’t you?
Taking down the ‘bots (sorry, more apostrophes) rewards our stranger with money, plus they’re usually guarding a few lootable areas with better weapons to swap out. Don’t like the guns on offer? Scrap ’em, and you can earn even more dollar. Who says you can’t be an entrepreneur in this day and age?
Visually it’s a cell-shade affair with some cool music and sound FX. My only gripe other than having to reload so often is the camera, as you can’t see that far ahead of you, nor can you swing the camera about. Unless I’ve missed something. I cleared an area at one point but had to backtrack as I missed some enemies. Heading back, I saw (and received) the bullets right on the kisser before seeing the thing that fired them. A little annoying as if there was the option to either swing the camera about or even zoom out, a strategy could have been enforced. Admittedly that would have been cover, rapidly shoot, dodge a bit while reloading, then rinse and repeat.
In short, Dust and Neon is cool. I’m not sure where it’ll take us as the story progresses, but no doubt the loot element will play a more prominent role. You ain’t got to wait either – Dust and Neon releases on Steam on the 16th of February 2023.