Castle in the Sands

I'm a little conflicted on whether I like this game or not. The art and design of the game is very well done, and reminds me a bit of the PC-98 era of games. I particularly like how intricate and on theme the UI and border are. The music is also great, though at some parts the volume feels either too loud or too quiet. The Main issue for me is the story. To put bluntly, the writing just isn't very good, and that's the most important part of a visual novel. Some parts feel way too long, and other parts too short. The dialogue felt unnatural, and there was too much tell, not enough show in descriptions. The game is also very short, but it does have multiple endings and is very inexpensive, so I'm not too mad about that. I think there's a lot of potential here, and I originally had this as a positive review, but after reconsidering I don't think that non-visual novel fans would be wanting to play this game, and people who do play visual novels would probably be disappointed in the quality of writing. I'm sorry to the creator for leaving a negative review, but as I said, I can see so much potential and I will be sure to play any future games made by them.

really beautiful game with some nice characters and nice representation :)). i love the artstyle, soundtrack and story!!!

A very nice visual novel. I loved its atmosphere and the setting is not one we often see in video games. It also looks beautiful if you're into pixel art. The presentation reminded me of these old Lankhor games I used to play on Amstrad CPC (with quite more pixels though :-D) Also, it's pretty short. It took me 90 minutes to reach the best ending (the choices to reach it are quite obvious) and 30 minutes more to reach the other 2 endings.

Castle in the Sands is a very short visual novel about a man who ends up in a magic desert castle while traveling with his sick brother. It describes itself as being inspired by North African culture and by the style of Arabian Nights. I can't speak to how accurate the cultural details are, but it does at least do a good job of capturing the atmosphere you'd expect and it taught me a few new terms. You should know going in that you're unlikely to get much more than an hour out of this game even if you try to get all four endings (the game says three, but there is at least one more minor variant that doesn't give an achievement) and that the story is pretty generic. Gameplay consists entirely of picking one of two options at four or five points in the story. There are a few good moments and it's not like it can outstay its welcome at this length, but it's all pretty standard stuff from the desert area stories you'd get in any other game. The English text is always easily readable, but frequently has missing punctuation or awkward phrases that suggest the text wasn't checked by a native speaker. All that said, Castle in the Sands is a $4 game with fantastic retro art and a couple…

I bought this mostly for the aesthetics and atmosphere, and it delivered well on both points. The pixel art is beautifully done, with a nice limited color palettes, and I liked that the UI shifts depending on the state of the castle and the time of day in story, with the lantern lighting up at night. Everything is customized to fit the theme as well, like the buttons being tiles. There are also a few portions where another character tells a short story, and the main character's portrait changes to reflect that. Overall, the presentation of the game was quite charming. I am not super familiar with the cultures of North Africa, but there's an encyclopedia explaining some aspects (always a nice bonus), and my impression at least was that the author was familiar/did research rather than relying on stereotypes. The runtime is rather short (about an hour), though at least the price reflects that. Some aspects also could have used more work. First, the actual writing needed a lot more polishing - many lines have awkward flow and grammar mistakes, and the 'castle crumbles to nothing' ending is extremely short with very little emotional reaction from the characters. It was very, "Hey, my h…

My first review lol The game has beautiful visuals and an excellent soundtrack. It's incredibly atmospheric, and I really enjoyed that aspect of it. The story itself, though... it's very simple, and the writing feels equally simplistic. The endings were the biggest disappointment for me. The good ending is by far the strongest, but the neutral and bad endings feel rushed and unfinished. The castle is destroyed, and... that's all. The characters are left standing in the middle of the desert, yet there's almost no emotional impact. It feels as though Tiziri doesn't care at all, which comes across as illogical. On top of that, there are barely any differences between the bad and neutral endings. In the end, I was left wondering what I had spent my time on. The game is not bad, but idk if i can recommend it