From Dust to Dust

2011-11-10

Nice tech demo, where is the game?

Having compleated some significant work, I treated myself to a game that I wanted to try out for a long time, From Dust. It basically all sttlarted with the first "Dev Diary" video. A beautyfull landscape molded in real time with reatime simulation of water, fire and vegetation. A real technology gem.

I heard allot of the game and few reviews where positive. But god games where never very popular, so in this case reviews are not the gold standard. I got the game via steam and tried it out.

The first thing that greeted me was the ubisoft launcher, that required me to create an account. Really, an account for a pure single player game?! Nice anoying DRM scheme, you know Steam has one and it works without anoying you. Next the launcher whent through the hoops of updating the game 3 times. Seriously?! Why did they not put the latest version of the game on steam?! What did I need to download then anyway?! Once I got over these DRM induced anoyances I was able to play the game.

The game puts you in the position of "the breath", a godly presence that can scoop up sand, water and lava. It is your task to colonise an area by sending people to visalges marked by totem poles. Each vilage will grand you a specific special power, such as jellyfying water, so you can pull a moses stunt.

The game is beautifull and the simulation is crisp. The only visual snatch are the simulation boundaries. They put some effort into hiding them, but they still are quite noticable.

But all in all, the game is a terain editor on steroids. Although interesting and sometimes chalanging the game is not really fun. It is nice to see that such technology works, but this is not really a game, more a tech demo. On the other hand I payed 15 EUR for it, you can't really complain.