-Dayv
I'm
always on the lookout for games that are willing to be a little
different. While I love the throwback platformers (Rogue Legacy,
June 27th!!),
the survival-crafting sims (check out Starmade for some
space-Minecraft), and the 2d puzzlers with weird little twists
(uh...well that's actually like 90% of indie titles), I really enjoy
seeing something with some fresh gameplay. My most recent fresh find, and one that I don't feel has gotten enough attention, is Reus by Dutch developer Abbey Games, where you'll be utilizing
your team of nature-themed giants to cultivate life on a desolate
world.
Each
game begins with you, said lifeless planet, awakening from your
slumber with the intent to liven up your bland, barren surface.
Depending on the length of the game you choose you'll have
half-an-hour or more (with longer games unlocked later) to develop as
complex a world as you can using the abilities of your four giants
(Reus means 'giant' in Dutch). Or you can play like me and just
giggle at all the little animals.
 |
| d'awwwwwww |
My Friendly Giants
Your terraforming quest will be carried out
by the 4 giants at your disposal, each with a different theme:
Forest, Mountain, Ocean, Swamp. At the start of each game the giants
will only have a couple abilities, their trademark skill (creating
their namesake landform) and a basic ability to enrich an area with
some sort of life or mineral deposit. As you upgrade them by placing
village ambassadors on their shoulders (the giant equivalent of
giving them a gold star, I believe) they will gain abilities used to
buff and upgrade animals, plants, and ores.
 |
| You earned it big guy. |
But
your goal isn't just to level up your rabbits and blueberries. Your
real challenge is to encourage villages to expand and progress, which
will in turn have them granting you more ambassadors to further
upgrade your giants. Villages will form in biomes (desert, swamp, or
forest) that have sufficient resources, and ambassadors from
different biome villages give your giants different abilities, so it
is often important to mix it up a little. Unfortunately, humans are
assholes and if a village gets too greedy they are all too happy to
start some shit with their neighbors.
 |
| Dick move Village of Hammermill |
This
can be avoided by not over-pampering them, letting the little
bastards work for it or by impressing them with awe-inspiring feats
...or
you can be more to the point and just beat their everloving asses
back into the dirt.
 |
| MORE STRAWBERRIES?! |
Orthogenesis
While
at first you'll only have half-hour games available, you'll unlock
longer sessions soon enough, and you'll need that time as you begin
to unlock more and more complex organisms. Reus' unlocking system is
based on completing specific achievements in each playthrough, some
of which cannot be done at the same time, so you're better off
focusing on a few and seeing what you can manage.
 |
| or you can just go at it blind and see what happens |
Reus
encourages trying new and weird things so that you can try newer and
weirder things the next time. There are really just a crazy amount
of achievements, enough that the first few playthroughs you'll likely
get a handful just at random.
 |
| Seriously, there's a lot |
Unlike
achievement systems in a lot of games that seem to be just tacked on,
Reus achievements are more like encouraging little goals to shoot for
in each session, and as you play through in different ways and meet
different objectives, you'll unlock more possibilities for future
games.
Chickens, Bluberries, or Agate, Oh My (also: Stone, Marmots, Tomatoes, Marsh Mallow, Clownfish, Pineapple, Tortoises, Barrel Cactus, Frogs, Rattlesnakes, Salt, Apples, Barracuda, Dragonfruit, Topaz...)
There's
quite a bit going on in Reus beneath the basic heading of 'cultivate
life, progress humanity'. Each village has a few different resources
you'll need to improve by properly placing plants, animals and
minerals. How much of each they require depends on the type of
village and what sort of project they are working on. The type of
organism or mineral created depends on what biome it is created in,
changing what resources it gives and how it interacts with nearby
resources.
 |
| fuck it, you get blueberries |
To
get the most from the land you'll also need to utilize synergies
between different improvements, all of which also vary from biome to
biome. Those synergies, and potentially the basic resources
provided, can also change significantly as you upgrade from one
species to the next.
Basically,
Reus is complicated. It can be rather daunting the first few games
you play, pausing every couple minutes to read tooltips and synergy
details. Honestly though, that's kind of just the nature of this
particular beast...or giant. It takes some mucking about and
trial-and-error, but Reus is a nice, complex challenge.
 |
| With cute little animals! |
More
than anything I think Reus is a game of experimentation. It's just
fun to sit down for an hour and see what comes of it. It's easy
enough to replace a mislaid or wrongly upgraded resource, and as was
mentioned, if a village gets too unruly for your taste you can just
wipe it off the planet. With single-sitting games and a huge array
of achievements to unlock, it's really just a great game to tinker
around with. If you're looking for something vaguely akin to a
strategy-puzzler, or just feel like playing around with your own
little Earth-themed ant farm, Reus is currently selling on Steam.
Scores
Originality:
4
Reus
was a nice bit something new. Though I suppose it's still sort of a
puzzle game, albeit a very complex one, which the indie realm is
rather full of.
Species
Variety: 5
Once
you unlock a decent portion of the animals and plants, between exotic
animals, domestic animals, plants, and herbs, each of which are
different depending on which of the 5 biomes they are in, and each of
which can be upgraded in multiple ways, there is a wide mix of
options as to what to place in each tile.
Fun:
4
There
are some moments early on of confusion and sometimes a bit of a
what-the-hell-do-I-do-know sort of feel, but once you get rolling
Reus will quickly eat up an hour or two (depending on how often you
pause the game).
Self-Terraformation: 4
It's not every day you get to try terraforming a planet, but in Reus you are the planet...so...that's kinda weird. So are all those cute little animals actually some kind of infestation?
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| Cutest infestation ever |
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