We’ve been a little bit excited about From Dust since the beginning, but the ‘God’ genre hasn’t really been popular since Black and White – can Eric Chahi’s latest effort revive it? He certainly seems to think so.
“I do think that From Dust can give the genre new momentum,” he said, speaking to Eurogamer, “for one thing because the gameplay is tense and exciting whereas normally this type of game has a slower rhythm.”
“And we also took the simulation aspect as far as we could; the whole world is in a constant state of change, and everything the player does can have important short or medium term repercussions on the world.
“Diverting a river will completely reshape the landscape: for example, endanger a town or put out a fire. As a result, the gameplay comes to the fore, with the player creating challenging situations they have to respond to, caused by the domino effect of their own actions. That’s the beauty of the plasticity of simulation-based gameplay.”
I like the idea of attempting to control a landscape that is constantly evolving and changing according to a set of rules. Most God games rely completely on the player – change comes from your action. The same seems to be true in From Dust, but it looks as though the smallest actions can have chain reactions that have greater consequences than you can initially fathom.
I really love that concept.
Why From Dust can revive the god game [Eurogamer]
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