From Dust

Chahi’s approach to the long lost genre is traditional: your role as a God is as a shepherd, the tribesmen the flock that you must guide from A to B while attempting to keep them safe. At first this means building sand bridges to allow the tribe to cross wide rivers. But in time you are able to drain lakes of water, and even scoop up lava.

In this sense From Dust is closer to Lemmings than Black and White, although mercifully your nomads will have the sense to wait for your intervention before charging headlong into dangerous rapids. There aren’t really any moral dilemmas here – at least, not in the introductory section of the game we've had access to – so you don’t have to choose whether to be a benevolent or cruel supreme being so much as simply ensuring you are an attentive one.

Totem poles are the objective markers. Lead your nomads to a new totem pole and they will settle a village there, sometimes granting you a new power as they do so. Out from the village greenery begins to spread, rejuvenating the barren land around like a welcome cancer. Sprinkle sand over rocky outcrops and new palm trees will be able to spread across the environment.

While the safety of your tribesmen is your primary objective, restoring life to the environment is a pleasing secondary one. A green gauge sits in the bottom left of the screen, filling up as you aid the rejuvenation of an environment. When this gauge fills past a certain point, animals move in, living alongside your tribesmen, and signifying the unlocking of new stories and challenges.

But you never settle for long. This is a game about passage, your people constantly moving from location to location as they grow and develop in exodus. From Dust’s world is a cruel world to boot, and the chafing between man and nature is the conflict in which the gameplay is born. So you must send a tribesman to seek out an ancient relic to protect the tribe when the tsunami hits. If he returns to the group in time then, as the giant waves swallow the coastline, the tribe is protected by a bubble, which never breaks as water slaps against it.

Chahi and his cohorts at Ubisoft Montpelier have lavished attention on the engine. As a result the physical response of the world as you change it has a sharp, realistic quality. Tonnes of sand disperse when dropped, sliding out before settling into new shapes. Meanwhile the water slops and splashes with pleasing believability, making this a tactile game, and one that allows for emergent gameplay.

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Want to divert a river over a rock crop? You need only scoop up sand and drop it into a tributary to see what happens. It’s here that your god powers are at their most enjoyable and playful, and you can take a break from the tiring work of salvation to simply mess around with your creation, and it’s here that From Dust appears to strike a welcome balance.

Your people are in need of a saviour and the peril in which they live provides the sense of keen urgency that gives the game edge and bite. But the secondary work of rejuvenating the islands, sprinkling sand over rock to facilitate the spread of life is a pleasant, calming pursuit. The rhythm of save and build is mesmerising and for the first time in a long time, makes god’s work seem appealing. As such, this is a second coming that all can anticipate eagerly.