14 DAY TRIAL // Many years ago, god simulators were quite numerous, but in recent times, their number has dwindled, with only a few titles still allowing you to forge your own civilization, take care of inferior creatures and see them flourish under your guidance.
From Dust is the newest in this genre, with the game, created by Eric Chahi, of Another World fame, in collaboration with Ubisoft, appearing for the Xbox 360 console yesterday and getting ready to debut for the PC next month.
With the premise of guiding a civilization on a new planet filled with sand and water by manipulating the environment, coupled with a pretty interesting visual style, From Dust is definitely appealing. Is it worth it? Let's have a quick look.
From Dust was on my radar for quite some time, as I've looked forward to once again helping shape a civilization with my godly powers.
In the game, you play as a 'Breath,' a mystical creature that can accumulate sand or water in a giant ball and then displace it in another area. With the help of this power, you need to guide tribes of natives on rough ground, by forging paths through water, with the help of sand, or draining areas around mystical totems, where the natives can build villages and spread civilization.
The gameplay aspect is quite interesting, to say the least, as you'll quickly start picking up sand, putting it on water to create paths or just draining the aforementioned water from pits and displacing it somewhere else, where it's no harm for your tribe.
While at first you just guide natives around various levels so that they reach all the totems, establish their villages and spread plant life, like palm trees, around the game's world, things start getting complicated.
You need to shelter them from natural threats like tsunamis or volcano eruptions, often times needing to act quickly in order to prevent the destruction of the natives.
This can get a bit annoying, however, as the AI of the actual people is quite dumb, and will sometimes choose stupid routes to the objectives highlighted by the player, or just sit on the edge of the water even when you built a perfectly reasonable bridge of dust further down the coast line.
The visual style is pretty well done, but, at least in my view, most of the time playing From Dust, you'll find yourself using the zoomed-out look, in order to better navigate the map and see all your points of interest.
From Dust, overall, is quite an interesting game, even if the AI of the natives (more like lemmings) is a bit on the dumb side. While it may not be everyone's cup of tea, you can try it out on the Xbox 360 by downloading a trial version from the Xbox Live Arcade online service.
Until the 1.17GB download is complete, check out a gameplay video of From Dust below.