Dust: An Elysian Tail is what you get when you take the passion, determination, and talent of one man and add them all up together. Dust: And Elysian Tail is the brainchild of professional animator Dean Dodrill. Developed as an entry in Microsoft's XNA Dream Build Play competition, it looks equal in quality to a full retail game. Amazing animation, art director, and side scrolling gameplay all developed and programmed by Dean himself.
Dodrill was a former Epic Games employee who worked on the series Jazz Jackrabbit. After Jazz Jackrabbit 3 was canceled, the artist went out on his own and for the past several years has been developing his personal animated film titled Elysian Tail. As if that wasn't a large enough under taking, he also began work on Dust several months back. Although the story and characters of Dust are completely different from the animated film, the atmosphere and artwork remain consistently amazing.
The game has been causing some controversy amongst gamers in regards to the characters. Apparently people have forgotten that mascot characters like Sonic, Banjo, Sly Cooper, Parappa, and numerous other anthropomorphic exist and are giving harsh criticism where it is not deserved. Dodrill's characters have a unique style all their own, and look amazing and fluid in motion.
Not only does this look like an incredible independent game, the fact that it's all put together by one man is mind blowing. This is definitely an XNA titles that everyone should keep their eyes on.
Teaser Trailer:
Official site: www.elysiantail.com/
