I've got some Dust in my eye

Ah From Dust, where did you come from?

I have never really tried/gotten into these God games that are out there. None really appealed, well, with the exception of Sim City.  I used to play com city for hours, tough half the fun was cheating, building a huge city then triggering multiple disasters.

From Dust is a very cute game, yeah, I said cute.  It blends some incredibly beautiful visuals with some interesting character, and throws in some really nice gameplay.  It is not for everyone, I started playing this Tuesday night, played for maybe an hour, cleared a few maps.  Then I played Wednesday night, ran 4 maps, a Tropical Volcano, a Desert (more on that one), a Daytime Fire Island?!?, and a night time desert? (more on that last one).  I thought I had only played for an hour, turned out to be almost 4... oops.

So I am addicted to it while playing it, that's different, but not too new for me.  The maps so far have produced interesting challenges, specifically the Desert and Night Desert maps.  The Volcano was fun, no big challenge for me, the Fire Island one had no challenge at all for me.

The Desert map starts off with a little water and 3 springs sitting right in front of you, you clear off some brush and place your first village.  The game then tells you that it is too dry and that you need water to spread vegetation,  fair enough, so you move some of the water coming out of the springs and voila you have vegetation in the area.  I should note that the vegetation isnt required but it is part of the challenge.  Next I started clearing a path for my little guys to grab the repel water and next totem... then it happened, I hit another spring, crap its gonna flood my village, so I clear a channel for it to flow down, in clearing that channel i hit 5 more springs, this is a desert right?  After a long while of clogging springs and channeling water I got the 100% vegetation, but it wasnt a desert any more, looked more like a group of islands.

The night desert map was a neat map in that the center of the map acted like a see saw or one of those single pole single throw switches that rocks back and fourth, the trick here, water sloshes in that little area, and there is a totem at one end.  After acquiring the repel water power it was made easier, however there was some hilarity to be had right there.

So here I am talking about a god game.  It definitely has a lot of fun and character to it, but I found it to be an instant purchase after playing the demo.  So try the demo, if you dont like it, well then move on, but if you do, buy it.

http://marketplace.xbox.com/en-US/Product/From-Dust/66acd000-77fe-1000-9115-d80258410a91