Dust: An Elysian Tail – Trailer

By: Xander

On: August 6th, 2009

Dust is just one of a number of projects being created under the ‘Elysian Tail’ franchise, which includes an independent animated feature film and of course this very pretty game. Dean Dodrill is the man behind the animation, and the programming, and the sound and.. well everything except for the music.

There isn’t much to go on currently beyond this trailer, but it seems to divulge a fair amount of the gameplay, where the majority of the action is reminiscent of a side-scrolling beat’em up with a dash of platforming thrown in for good measure. So far it looks pretty damn exciting, with special note of course going towards the animation which just makes everthing look wonderful, even if you find the character designs a little offputting at first.

Definitely the biggest barrier the game will face will be trying to cross that strange ‘furry threshold’, as so long as the controls and hit-detection feel satisfying this could be the one of the best games to hit.. actually, what is it coming out on?

As it is being entered into the Dream Build Play competition it maybe a full Xbox Live Arcade title. If not though it may end up as an ‘Xbox Indie’ title. No official word, but expect more soon!

(Source: Destructoid.com)

Posted in Action, Games and Art?, Windows, Xbox 360 | Tags: DeanDodrill

http://0xdeadc0de.org Eclipse

the art is amazing, but it looks like another button breaker beat’em up, and it even features furries… this one is not on my radar
jeremy

anyone who doesn’t like a game cuz it has animals in it is a freakin idiot.
butr0s

Not “just” animals, but anthropomorphic animals. I’m not a huge fan either, despite having read tons of Brian Jacques books in my youth. The animation in the preview does look cool though.
Dinsdale

YIFF IN HELL FURFAGS [/b]

With that out of the way, let’s do something completely different; let’s not even as much as mention that strange furry aspect of the game for the rest of the… Thread.

This thing still looks so bloody awesome, I’ll definitely give it a try even if it is just a button breaker beat’em up. Something this pretty, I don’t care.
vb

The game looks brilliant, but the video editing and the logos are awful. They really should drop the bevel and emboss and Stop Capitalizing Every Single Fucking Word. I just wish it’ll come to the PC as well!
http://www.spookysquid.com Miguel S.

@vb I was thinking the same thing when I saw the trailer last night. It’s odd that a game with such pretty artwork has such comparatively terrible typography / logo design.

Still it looks fantastic. I’m still trying to get my head around the the fact that this is less then a years worth of work by one guy.
namuol

This looks amazing, but I can only hope that the gameplay gets deep enough to make it *play* amazing, too.

Side note: the internet needs to get over the whole furryphobia thing. This is a game. Is “Lion King” “furry” because it has walking and talking animals?
http://chaoseed.com/garden John Evans

Holy cow…I didn’t think it was possible, but I think this animation might be better than Odin Sphere’s.
Gix

So he’s remaking Odin Sphere except with furries.

It is odin sphere, there is nothing different. Sidescrolling beat em up with rpg elements in a beautiful anime world. Here’s a vid of odin sphere, tell me they’re not the same thing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmbEVHI5_MQ

I dunno, it just seems like the animal things here are very…furry. I mean, when I look at rachet and clank or sly cooper I don’t see furry. But here I get this strange furry vibe. I dunno.
gsm

What struck me is the beautiful, fluid animation in-game, and then the completely static character emotion portraits. It doesn’t bode well for the suggested level of detail that will be paid to the game’s story elements, if their focus and budget are on the game part alone…
Anthony

I’m not a fan of the character designs (especially those character portraits with the text), but everything else looks splendid. It reminds me of Odin Sphere and Muramasa, which is a great thing. A fun (hopefully) side scrolling beat ’em up with beautiful animation and art direction.
http://www.mile222.com aeiowu

as a friend of many a furry, a furry enthusiast, and being a furry myself i think i will enjoy this game.

but only because i’m a furry. in fact, anyone that’s not a furry will probably hate this game because it has a furry in it.
http://lumberingdream.com/ !CE-9

“Dust. Anybody? No?
Dust. Anybody? No?
Dust. Anybody? No?
Dust. Anybody? No?
Dust is actually very low on fat.”
comes to mind.

That main character has a really weird walk animation. Apart from that and the furryphobia which might or might not be of the internet, it looks promising, but I’m definitely not buying an xbox just for this.
Procyon

Oh, please. Sonic the Hedgehog was a great sidescroller/platformer and it featured an anthropomorphic animal. It’s a largely irrelevant style detail.
Anarkex

This actually looks pretty kickass. Reminds me of Odin Sphere…I just hope the combat is a little more nuanced.
http://blog.boogatech.com Markham

Is this “furry,” not just anthropomorphic? I thought “furry” just referred to a certain group of fan(atic)s and their varying levels of oddness? It’s kinda like calling Kung Fu Panda or Donald Duck or the Looney Tunes “furry.”
Extraordinary Gentleman

The waking/running animation seems a bit awkward IMHO, but the fight animation seems pretty cool.
Snow

The artwork, animations and effects are fantastic…. but it’s got furries in it.

Seriously though, the game looks well done and looks like it could be quite fun. However, since the furry fanbase is very small, I don’t know how profitable the game will be for the company on Xbox Live.
LordRolo

Dear god who gives a flying toss about what the art actualy is, as long as it is not explicit and it looks cool and fliud i don’t care.

Gameplay wise i am slightly worried though, i could only really see two strings of attackings being used, and that WTF PAWNED magic attack the little flying thing does, there did not seem to be much variaty.

i really hope there is a non XBL version comming out, i would like to see it on steam 8P

Another thing no ones mentioned is that the bosses look really fun and epic to fight.

Over all i am looking forwards to this game, and the moive that this game is based on looks quite interesting too.
Dinsdale

“However, since the furry fanbase is very small, I donâ€™t know how profitable the game will be”

Lion King did okay.
Dominic White

Seriously, the guys freaking out over the game having animal characters… insecure much? Has knowledge of the internet really scarred you so deeply that you can’t even look at an animal character without going nuts?

Sad. So very sad.

And as someone said, this looks about as ‘furry’ as Kung Fu Panda. Yes, there’s animal characters. Yes, they’re beating the fuck out of each other and going on magical adventures. That is cool.
http://www.mikeadev.net Mikea

OMG the game looks amazing!! I’ll be there for the release! xD
–

I find it weird that the still character portraits don’t seem to match the quality of everything else.
TCM

My God, I thought that nothing could surpass the sheer beauty of Odin Sphere or Muramasa…

(Also, freaking about furries in a nonsexual and noncreepy context is a sign of deep, deep insecurity)
Muz

starfox is the only cool furry
Cycle

The dude behind this game was an animator for Jazz Jackrabbit 2 just FYI.
jimmythechang

this thing’s gorgeous but boy, that Prop Shredder move looks like it’s going to solve everything in this game
Valkyrie

Looking great, but I agree with LordRolo about the moveset. I hope there is more to it than what it showed off.

And PC release, please?! OH GOD, PLEASE!
Dusty Spur

Got a huge Odin Sphere vibe at first (and a hard-on appropriate to that (not a furry I swear to god)) then the fighting started and. Well I am just really looking forward to this so much.

If it plays even half as good as it looks and sounds, I’m gonna love this.
SP

if(animal.isGirl && animal.hasBoobs)
then return FURRY_NOTHANKS;
else
return ANTHROPOMORPHIC_OK;

It looks really pretty though… maybe I can make an exception.

..BOOOOOBS
seth

to further derail the thread, i don’t see how The Lion King is furry at all
TCM

Anthropomorphic is defined as applying human qualities to anything.

In the Lion King’s case, it’s not physical, but mental qualities that are ascribed to animals.
BinarySplit

I love the art style in this, but for the love of god, please fix that ridiculous running animation. Animal or not, bipeds should extend their leading foot forward to stride, not just raise their knee while keeping their foot behind them.
http://www.mile222.com aeiowu

Walt Disney was a known furry
technos

Now I hope you guys remember this – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYPl-kduey8 , a game called Claw and made by Monolith in 1997? Back then nobody complained and screamed furry all over the place because Claw and now Elysian Tail are just games not some badly drawn explicit images of ‘furries’ having intercourse. I don’t think it’s fair to associate the game with the term furry just because those images exist. And btw, notice how similar the character is in both games?
http://www.intuitiongames.com fucrate

Everyone who’s posted in a positive manner towards this game has been listed as a furry sympathizer, and you know what we do to sympathizers…

For starters, we put them on lists.
sqrrl

I’m really suprised how far he’s gone with the visual effects. Anyone else notice the rippling effect with that weird wind cyclone?
KennEH!

If the only reason who won’t play this game is because of furries, you really need to evaluate yourself.

I I hope this won’t be generic as far as beat ’em ups go.
Anthony

Oh wow, I didn’t notice that running animation at first. It looks like the character is just trying to hop on one leg.
Bob

It’s a shame that it’s furry.

Also, I predict cliched, cheesy, and otherwise crappy dialog. Don’t know why.
Bob

(Gah, keeps cutting off my comments.)

Looking at it a bit closer, gameplay looks a little generic, but who can say for certain. I also doubt the story will be any good (who knows about the music, although, I’d imagine it’d be really hard to screw something like that up). And the film looks UGHHHHHHHHHHH no thanks.

On a side note, Jazz Jackrabbit was a pretty cool game.
Meh, I’ll just stick with Vanillaware’s stuff.
geist

This game was posted already.

Why is it being posted again? I’d understand if the game were updated or released, but it seems like you forgot that you posted about this game already and posted about it again.
undertech

Note to self: insert anthromorphic animals in game to generate free self-feeding publicity
eobet

The running animation has got to be one of the worst, if not THE worst, I’ve ever seen in a game.

It’s like he’s floating over the ground at an angle, just thrusting out his legs every few seconds (which, the way it is drawn, could be the same leg really).

One-legged-diagonal-floating-sprint…
mots

the game looks incredible, the run animation is a little weird, yes.. it looks like he’s skipping along

i’m not sure about the combat, like others have mentioned all I saw was 2 sword hits and then straight to that spinning move.
MasterShake

Run animation needs to be fixed.

Doesn’t seem to show much combat outside of the two moves he actually does. And it’s not like they’re used in specific contexts, either. Just smack, smack, twirl, fireball things–rinse, repeat. There seems to be a lack of “token gameplay element” ie. the one, gameplay-centric feature that recurs everywhere. Poyo’s teleport dashing comes to mind.

I don’t know why everyone is bitching about the “furry” aspect. Rofl. Just seems like bandwagon effectx10. It’s a popular thing to rag on furries, apparently with complete disregard to the quality of the work in which they’re featured.
Xander

@geist: We had only posted ‘Pre-Alpha’ footage before. Since this is video of the build being submitted to the XNA Dream Build Play Comp it seemed worth having its own post.
Ilya Chentsov

Lame boots.
Ninja Dodo

Maybe it’s because I don’t frequent Somethingawful and similar corners of the internet but this whole ‘furry’ problem is really a mystery me. Artist have depicted animals with anthropomorphic qualities since the dawn of time and this has rarely if ever had anything to do with strange fetishism.

I think those who automatically associate animals with sexuality should perhaps be less concerned about the leanings of the artist than their own.

The running animation is indeed a bit strange… strikes me as very anime (the sort of thing you’d get against a flashy strobing background). Otherwise looks really nice.
http://iterationgames.blogspot.com/ jph_wacheski

Does Overgrowth have furry haters/lover issues as well ? It did not occure to me till seeing this fur-bate,. . and do I care?