From Dust

In a day and age where every other game seems to be a FPS, it’s an absolutely pleasure to play a game that isn’t afraid to try its hand at a different kind of game. One that not only is incredibly fun to play, but also well balanced, very approachable and best of all, brilliantly different.

The game is centered around a small tribe on their journey through a forgotten but seemingly familiar land. Your goal for each ‘stage’ is to help the tribe find their way to the exit, which is a monolith looking doorway that leads part of the group to the next area. However, you need to help the little guys and gals create a settlement around the totems on the map in order to open a doorway forward. The real fun and strategy comes in when you pay attention to the powers these totems give you. And as the game progresses you discover new totems that have more powerful and impressive powers. The charm of the game is discovering these powers, and what you can do with them. I found myself in situations where I had to change the way I played after gaining access to more powerful abilities.

The game mechanic is what I find the most interesting about this game. You are essentially a giant floating sphere. You don’t directly control any of the tribesmen, but you assist and guide them by manipulating the landscape and setting travel points. To reach another area the tribe will have to travel across water, sand and rock, and your job is to provide a way for them to do that. This is where your powers and the powers that each settlement can acquire come into play. By lifting and moving around sand, water and lava, you can create walkways, or clear paths, so they can transverse the land. Each totem needs 5 members of the tribe to make their way to it to activate, and once activated it usually provides you with a little something you help you assist the tribe. In addition, your tribes can share knowledge with each other to protect themselves from danger. This requires a runner to go between the totem village that holds the power and the one than needs it. It’s a simple process, but one that adds an extra challenge as the runner tries to outrun whatever danger is closing in.

This brings us onto the enemies. There are no traditional enemies in the game. There are no monsters, demons or hunters out to impede you. The threat you face is much larger, but with the right set of powers, and a good strategy, you can overcome anything that’s thrown at you. In this game you are at the mercy of the elements. There are times when you are helping your tribe scuttle to an essential totem while avoid the heavy flow of an erupting volcano, spewing forth lava down the mountain, or the rivers mercilessly trying to wash you away as a runner is busy acquiring an essential power to help redirect the water. The game gives you the abilities to deal with these threats, but you must earn them, and that’s where the main gaming elements come in.

Let me paint you a mind picture. You just arrived on an island and set up a village around the nearest totem. There’s a fast approaching tsunami ready to level your village and wash your hapless travelers out to sea. You have 2 choices, you can either try to get them to the next totem and to the exit before the wave comes, which is very unlikely, or you can help them discover something to protect them from the tsunami. If you chose the latter, then you would need to send one of the members of the tribe over to a special stone to acquire the power to repel water. He or she would then need to get back to the village and teach the power to the villagers, who then chant, sing and dance as the wave come crashing down, only now the wave moves around the village as some kind of magically force field protects the totem and the people from destruction. And it only gets better from there once you add in other powers.

There’s something exhilarating about watching one of your tribesmen running across the landscape trying to avoid any obstacles that arise, only to arrive at a village just in time to avoid a lava flood.

There are a few problems with the game, though. The path finding used by the denizens of this world is generally good, but there are times where I wish a simple stop command for them would have helped a lot. I have had a few situations where I would send people to a stone or totem, only to find them deciding that the best path there is right across the base of an active volcano, or a full lap around the island, instead of the easily accessible path I created for them which would have taken a few seconds instead of minutes. Another issue is that I would sometimes have trouble moving or altering the landscape with a controller. I have had situations where I would try to create a dike to protect a village from lava or water, only to find that the task was needlessly difficult to do so accurately under pressure, resulting in death. These are both minor complaints, though, as for the most part they do a good job and work most of the time.

But, as you can probably tell, I love this game. There are added challenges in each level, like ensuring that the forests and plants make their way over the majority of the map, thus unlocking some new stuff. And then there are also the challenge rooms for those who want to keep playing outside of the story. There’s a lot on offer here.

I have no problems recommending this game to everyone. It’s challenging without being frustrating. It’s engrossing without sucking up all my time. And, it has an environment that reminds me of the old Populous game. So, if this sounds good and you have a free day or a couple of free nights, do yourself a favor and pick this up.