Starsand
Switch

Starsand

(ESRB - Standard)

Nov 17, 2022
  • Simulator
  • Adventure
Publishers:
  • Toplitz Productions
Developers:
  • Tunnel Vision Games
Offline play
Yes
Download required
Yes
Comments:

Crashed 3 times during the 15 hour play-through (the crashes that occurred in the last area mentioned at the end of the test)
- When going underwater the framerate drops under 15 frames
- When using the item 'Sandboard', the game becomes a slideshow
- Overall the framerate isn't very stable at all, it seems to almost never run 30fps
- There is a glitch when using night vision. 90% of the time it doesn't work properly. It seems that there is glare from the sun even when in caves that prevents the night vision from working. There is a section where the player has to use it in a cave. There are symbols on the ground and some of them light up. You can only see the active ones with the night vision. When trying to use the night vision here, you cannot make out the marks needed to progress because of a glitch that makes everything super bright. There is a workaround: make sure the symbol is on the right side on the screen: pause the game (the options and all text are on the left side of the pause screen), it creates an overlay so you can see the symbol.
- The Pyramid has areas that load slowly. At one point a void was encountered, caused by slow loading. If player continues walking without waiting for the assets the load, they will fall through the ground and die (happens both in docked and handheld mode)
- There is an area where there is a hole in the desert and when the player goes down this hole, the frame-rate drops to 10-15 frames which makes descending very difficult without dying (happens both in docked and handheld mode)
- When player reaches the last area of the game beyond 'The Door to The North', the game cannot load the assets fast enough and always crashes after 10-15 seconds. Found a possible work around online: placing a tent there (it can be used to save the game and acts as a checkpoint). Tried using this workaround and was not able to progress: after the game loads from the tent checkpoint, the player immediately fall through the floor and dies. (Also happens both in docked and handheld mode)
In conclusion the game cannot be beaten. The last update was on the 24th of November 2022. There are currently no further patches available.
It is recommended to avoid this release.

Played 15 hours or so docked. Also played a bit in handheld mode and the resolution was actually quite good and the frame-rate seemed a little bit better. No DRM.

Tested by DoesItPlay on Base Switch