It’s interesting how Eric Chahi, most famous for titles like Out of this World and Heart of Darkness, has moved out of the platforming genre and into the god game with his new project, From Dust. Heck, if you watch some random From Dust footage, you could easily mistake it for a new installment of Populous or somesuch — not a game from a fellow who’s worked on minimalist platformers.
Chahi describes it simply: “It’s a god game where nature is at the center of the game.” One aspect he’s very proud of is the incredibly crazy world-manipulation simulator. Limited by your power (I’ll get to that in a bit), your role as a deity means that you can shift sands, add foliage, create or destroy waterways, and even muck with volcanoes. During a GDC Europe 2010 panel earlier this week, he showed off how the engine dynamically and quickly reacts to adding hills, ripping big chunks of land out, scooping up water, and altering the flow of lava (reproduced below).
