God or Messiah Complex: Welcome To the World of From Dust
by BONZO, HSM guest contributor
From Dust may seem like another “playing God” game, where the fates of a number of digital beings are under the mercy of your virtual omnipotence, but it is far more complex and difficult than it may seem.
This game is all about life, and it is your sole purpose to keep your tribes alive and progressing through the journey to recapture the ancient tribal memory. The platform differs in that you do not control your tribe, or an individual being, or even the elements, but you guide them and manipulate the forces of nature in a limited fashion.
The design and scope of the game is beautiful, and deceptively expansive. Your overview of the landscape may seem limited, but a quick close up as you hover over a tribe’s member clearly shows just how detailed and expansive the world is. The fluid dynamics are really what make this game unique and impressive.
You constantly battle forces like water, brush fires, and lava, some times using the elements against each other, with every action results in a reaction that you have to account for. Rerouting a river or a lava flow, and altering the topography of the landscape may put your tribe in a different sort of danger.
Cause and effect are not the only challenges, as at any given moment you may be faced with fighting more than one elemental force at work, while at the same time guiding your tribe to each totem to raise a village, and aiding the landscape in promoting the growth of the plant life, and finding the hidden power that may be in any given area. It quickly becomes apparent that the heart of the game is in problem solving.
The surveying perspective may give you some distance, and the tribe member numbers rising and falling may at first seem impersonal and just a numbers game, but your detachment quickly fades as you hear the screams and chants of your tribe when they call out for help or assistance.
The powers you wield are limited; you control a cursor that manipulates few elements, and even then very little of them. You scoop up earth to make paths and bridges, remove water out of the way or use it to put out fires, and even manipulate lava to build walls or barriers. There is no real omnipotence, as you cannot control all the dangers – or even stop them all the time – which is part of what makes this game so powerful for a user. Having such limited ability to prevent danger from striking down your tribes, and even failing to prevent losses as you try your best to avoid a disaster and feeling helpless as a tribe catches fire or is flooded under a giant wave, can really put a perspective on your role. You are not a god, but a savior and a guide to the primitive tribe that can only follow your leadership.
Along the way you earn more powers, but even these are limited in use, as some need to charge before you can use them again. The urgency of the game is always present; it became challenging almost immediately in the story mode, but it is even more taxing in Challenge mode as you try to accomplish all the tasks in a limited amount of time. The story mode can progress by simply reaching all the totems and opening the path to the next area, but for the true gamer and adventurer, the real challenge is in finding the hidden chant in a level and spreading the palm tree meter to 100%. There is no real easy task; it is still a challenge to progress, even if you chose not to take on the side challenges.
The game is not without its flaws: the cursor which you manipulate with the left analog stick is sticky at times, the camera movements are limited and sometimes getting the right view angle is more difficult than it should be. At times, I felt the desire to play some more with the powers to alter topography or manipulate the elements, and even help the expansion of a village, but that would only deter the progression of the tribe, as the game’s main goal is to reach the next doorway to the next area. Even at its most challenging the progression can seem rather swift.
Despite these imperfections, the game has loads of re-play value. Working my way through the same level was not boring, as you don’t necessarily have to do things the same way every time; the fluid dynamics allow for plenty of improvisation and much experimentation. The graphics are impressive, and the fluidity of the lava and water, and even fire are rendered beautifully. The story progression – which was subtitled as the tribe speaks its own language – was intriguing and mythical and added an air of mysticism to the experience that was matched by the visual design of the characters, and totems.
Above it all, the most impressive element of the game is its dynamics, and fluidity of motion as none of it is pre-animated or pre-rendered, but the procedural animation reacts to your interference. The fluid dynamics are not predictable, and even when attempting to manipulate them, they react to the topography, forcing you to counteract their motion which adds another element to the challenge.
“From Dust” adds not just another puzzle, or god game to the mix, but a new way to experience a problem solving quest where the goal is not to control or strategize the growth of your followers, but to guide them to their salvation.
September 24th, 2011 by BONZO | 6 comments
BONZO is an editor and artist for HomeStation Magazine.
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Welcome to HSM Bonzo and good job on your first article. This game sounds very interesting, and the way you describe it makes it more so. The graphics look amazing as well. I may have to check it out sometime.
Going solely on the images alone, this would be a game I’d consider, as I’m a sucker for sweeping, beautifully rendered landscapes.
This was a wonderful review; I got excited as soon as I read it, and couldn’t wait to see it posted. Very good first time effort!
Welcome Bonzo! Thanks for looking at this game. I agree that the objective of “reach the other side” limited the game. I think this game could have been interesting with a one map world where you build your tribe up and work to discover and defend totems around the “globe”.
While playing the demo I got a destinctive “black and white” vibe. If you havent tried that game for the pc from a decade ago, google “black and white 2 demo” and check out what it has to offer.
Yes i did see elements of Black and White in it, and I love that game as well, I think i was hoping for more of those elements in From Dust. Like building up your tribe, and watching them evolve much as you do in Spore. There were things that reminded me of Spore, and Sim. Earth. I think the game was challenging enough just trying to get the tribe to survive. There was a particularly tough level where the tribe is literally inside the crater of a volcano. I think the limited number of your tribes members makes you care more though, when you play games like civilization you don’t feel anything about increasing your population just to send them to battle. I often built up my numbers just to use them as decoys, or build up defenses knowing a lot of them would be lost, but that was all in the strategy of the game. Its very detaching, i didn’t feel that with From Dust though, the numbers are so small that it makes it more imperative to ensure their survival in order to progress.
I tried the Dust demo about a week or so ago. It was very interesting. As you correctly point out, the player is not “God”. I would say that the player is more like a guardian angel; more powerful than the tribes people, but definitely not able to control events. I found it rather easy to connect to the tribesmen. At the beginning of the Demo, I was jazzed when I was able to rescue one lost tribeswoman. Later, I was pretty let down when I lost my entire tribe to a Tsunami. I like games that have an emotional impact upon the player. Dust hits the nail on the head as far as I’m concerned. Your article was a good read, and right on target.