The Dust of the Violet Crystals

The Dust of the Violet Crystals

Corvaena Games LLC · April 23, 2024 · RPG, Choose Your Own Adventure, Interactive Fiction, Visual Novel, Female Protagonist

The Dust of the Violet Crystals is free to play — no purchase needed. We track it so you know if that ever changes.

PC
Positive95% · 20
This game is free to play. Get it on Steam →

Screenshots

The Dust of the Violet Crystals price

The Dust of the Violet Crystals is free to play — there is no purchase price, on Steam or anywhere else we track. We keep watching it, so if it ever stops being free the price history on this page will show when that happened and what it changed to.

About The Dust of the Violet Crystals

The Story:
After a flesh-eating dust blows through your small town you are left trying to survive alone against hordes of Listless humans. Starved for social interaction you find yourself questioning your sanity when a voice speaks directly into your mind begging for your help.

Game Features:
Navigate an apocalyptic world full of Listless humans while managing your health and toxin levels. Collect items and choose travel locations that you feel will most aid in your survival. Can you choose correctly and survive until you solve the mystery of the anonymous voice? Or will you fail and drag others down with you when you die?

Multiple endings, and almost every choice will have some impact, sometimes immediately. Good luck!

Excerpt:
NARRATOR
Huddling in the corner of our modest shop I can see them.
I can see them through the glass, weaving to and fro as if only held upright by the merest of threads invisibly dangling from the hazy sky.
The light that had previously consumed their retinas has faded to a dull glow.
For hours I have hovered inside my shop. Waiting. Watching.
My wife and I had chosen the reflective lettering on the glass of our shop in an attempt to catch the eyes of passerby to peruse our wares.
I do not understand why, but it seems to confuse them.
Almost immediately on turning to the glass the light in their eyes will fade, and they will either stand idly, waiting, or join the ranks of the others.
A sudden scream shatters my thoughts and I slowly stand and walk toward the glass pane.
A lone woman runs screaming through the street.

YOU (horrified)
No…No!

NARRATOR
As soon as I speak one of the Listless turns toward the window and I press myself against the wall in terror.
It weaves to and fro in indecisive consternation, its ears aware of sound but the mirrored letters confusing its vision.
After a few moments it turns back towards the woman.
By the time I work up enough nerve to return to the glass and try to help, it is too late.
But the Listless aren’t even the worst part.
The dust.
The dust is always worse.

The Dust of the Violet Crystals — game info

Platforms
Windows, macOS
Steam Deck
Unsupported
Player modes
Single-player
PC Game Pass
Not included
More games like this:Mac games

What Steam players say

Recent verbatim reviews from Steam — separate from playze.io community reviews below.

Recommended Aug 15, 2024
⠀
8 found this helpful
Recommended Sep 16, 2024
A nice little visual novel game that's well made and decently written with a nice visual design. There are multiple endings, but the path feels rather forced, and some things aren't really a choice because you'll just insta-lose. But still, it's free, it's enjoyable, and it's easy to get all the different endings and achievements. A nice game.
3 found this helpful
Recommended Aug 16, 2024
Such a good story, and lots of potential replays to get all of the achievements! I really liked how each choice affected the story. All of the characters are great and believable for this world. I must play again and again!
2 found this helpful
Recommended Jul 8, 2025
A very cool take on the zombie genre! Really love the the artstyle, especially for the backgrounds!
1 found this helpful
Recommended Jan 25, 2026
Positive: 📖 The Dust of the Violet Crystals is an engaging interactive narrative where you survive in a world overrun by mysterious dust and Listless humans. Choices matter, multiple endings give real impact to your decisions, and the tense atmosphere keeps you invested throughout the short story. 🧠 RPG and choose‑your‑own‑adventure elements blend with exploration and survival decisions, giving depth to a narrative that feels bigger than its playtime. 🏆 Achievements are tied to story outcomes like endings, key discoveries, and companion survival. Negative: 🔁 Gameplay is heavily narrative-driven with limited mechanics beyond choices and exploration — it’s essentially interactive fiction rather than traditional action or RPG systems. ⚙️ The experience is short, and while choices affect outcomes, the core loop is simple. 🏆 Completionists & Achievement Hunters: There are 8 Steam achievements to unlock. ⏱️ All achievements can be completed in ≈5 minutes on average, making this a very quick run for completionists. Overall: The Dust of the Violet Crystals delivers a concise and atmospheric interactive story with meaningful choices. Quick achievements and engaging narrative make it…
Not recommended Feb 24, 2025
The Dust of the Violet Crystals is not a game, it's an e-book that's been dumped on Steam masquerading as a game. As a visual/interactive novel, this doesn't feature any notable gameplay, it's just a lot of clicking through badly written dialogue that would never have been accepted or published in print, which poses the question, "How did something this badly written end up on Steam?". When someone hoping to become an author is unable to get published in print, they spend $100 and dump their high school fan-fiction onto Steam, under the guise of a game. This Choose-Your-Own-Adventure Ren'Py construction kit job at least has a slightly novel idea coupled with the usual high school anime club dropout fan-fiction writing. There's some dust and it turns everyone into "listless" shadow zombies... whatever. But at the end of the day, it's just the usual cringe fan-fiction from an unpublishable "author". Visual novels/e-books are tedious at best... imagine the best novel you ever read, be that Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy or 2001: A Space Odyssey or Twilight (if you have terrible taste in literature), but then translate that to a format where the words dribble out and you have t…

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