I may be a little late to the party, considering Dust was released in 2012 and nominated for an Ursa Major, but Dust was on sale on Steam late last year and I took the opportunity to get it (Dust is 75% off on GOG.com until 29 January). One positive aspect of Dust is that it works on Windows, Mac and Linux, so I did not have any trouble even though I recently switched over to using Linux exclusively.

Plot

Dust is set in a world populated with various anthropomorphic characters. General Gaius has been leading a crusade to purge the world of Moonbloods, which appear to be primarily reptilian whereas most of the characters seem more mammalian. I don't recall any real reason ever being provided as to what led to the conflict with the Moonbloods and the genocide.

As Dust, you wake up with no knowledge of who you are and are soon discovered by a magical, talking sword, named Ahrah, and its guardian, the adorable Nimbat named Fidget. Ahrah clearly knows something but refuses to tell you and you start to explore the world to discover who you are and what is happening.

Dean Dodrill's 2D animated platformer Dust: An Elysian Tail is set to go on sale tomorrow for Xbox 360 during Microsoft's countdown to 2013. The price is not known; prior sales have been 50% off. [christianblough/Iscin]

Dust, a winner of the 2009 Dream-Build-Play contest, has attracted mostly positive reviews since its Xbox Live Arcade debut earlier this year, and sells on the Xbox Live Marketplace for 1200 XBL Points ($15). An unlockable trial is available, and Dust's soundtrack is also on sale (?3 with code crimbosale40).

Reviews: IGN, The Escapist, Joystiq, Destructoid

Update: The price of Dust has dropped to 600 XBP ($7.50) for the day, as expected.

Dean Dodrill (Noogy) has announced on NeoGAF that his anticipated action-RPG Dust, which won Microsoft's Dream.Build.Play competition in 2009, is coming in 2012.

When a user said they were looking forward to the game's release, Dodrill replied:

Man, I have to play that every day.. Oh, wait, I mean it's great :) It's coming out in 2012, promise.