Saturday, September 17, 2011

New video game: From Dust

We managed to get out for a two-hour walk this afternoon. It was a beautiful autumn day and perfect for wandering along some of the trails by the river. Although those trails are supposed to be connected all along the river, the trail is interrupted at the quarry so we had to detour through a commercial area. Even though we didn't get to stay by the river for the whole walk, we still enjoyed ourselves.

After such a long walk we spent a very low-key evening. Ian bought and started playing a new video game: From Dust. In it, the player is the Breath, which has been created by a small tribe that is seeking the knowledge of their ancestors. The Breath helps the tribe find and access their ancestral totems and knowledge by opening up new passages and linking lands together. It's really basically a puzzle game with only a few commands that solve a variety of situations.

The animation and art in this game are lovely. The landscape with its rocks, sand, trees, andwaters is gorgeous and I love the way the Breath and people look. The people's movements tend to look quite realistic, which I like.

From Dust is my kind of game: fairly simple commands, a gorgeous world, no shooting or killing, and an interesting story. I love the idea of taking a desolate world and making it whole again... and of being a kind of goddess helping the people in the game. Even though I've just been watching Ian play it, this is the kind of game I like to play myself.

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