Release Date: 16/05/2013
Played On: Win
Available On: Lin / Mac / PS4 / Win / XBO
Time Played: 3h 24mva
Progress: A few campaigns (it's open ended)
Developer: Abbey Games
Publisher: Abbey Games
I was a late-comer to the whole "god-game" thing, as I never played the classics like Populous or Black & White. It might be a bit of a stretch to call it a god-game, but the first one I remember playing would probably be Spore. Unironically, the god-game I've probably spent the most time with has been the utter failure of Godus, which I enjoyed right up until it stopped going anywhere and was abandoned by its creators.
Somewhere along the way I picked up a little game called Reus that quietly found its way into my collection without me really knowing. I remember trying it out a few years ago and liking the art style, but never really learning its systems until I recently dusted off its digital box and dove right in.
Reus is very much a god-game in the style of other classics, but instead of being the god in its world, you're tasked with controlling a number of gods in unison. Immediately the 2D landscape stood out to me, as I was more familiar with the typical isometric 3D god-games we've seen around before. Instead, Reus features a small planet that is awakening and bringing life to its surface, helped along by gigantic gods that watch over the land.
The thing I find compelling about god-games is that you are able to influence a simulation without taking direct control of it. I love how the challenge is focused on creating an environment for NPCs to thrive, rather than forcing them to live optimally through micro-management.
This is all too apparent in Reus, as the only direct control you have is over the available gods and their powers. There's the tree guy who can make forests, the rock dude who raises mountains and deserts, the crab guy who digs out oceans, and for some reason there's the toxic sludge monster that makes swamps.
To attract people to the surface of your planet, one of the gods will need to add their touch to the landscape. Eventually humans will arrive and settle in that forest that tree dude conjured into existence, and start demanding resources.
From a gameplay perspective, the entire surface of the planet is broken up into tiles that can have different resources and environments applied to them. When a tile has a resource on it, there will be indicators that show how much is being produced, which you're tasked with balancing with the NPCs requirements to flourish.
Combining different resources and environments on adjacent tiles is the name of the game and where the godly complexity eventually begins to take off. Simply put; having an ocean next to a forest provides fertile land that provides more resources. Planting some fruit bushes next to an animal habitat can encourage them to breed, this providing more for people to hunt. If you're into synergising elements with one another to create something greater than the sum of their parts, this is the game for you.
In fact it's this level of synergising that initially put me off Reus in the first instance. The tutorial does a good job of showing you the initial method of setting up a world, but it quickly says "go for it" and lets you lose to discover everything else on your own. While I'm all for exploratory and emergent gameplay, it can be pretty overwhelming when you're thrown in the deep end.
Each of the gods have powers that suit their theme, such as the ability for the rock god to create gem deposits underground that people can mine for wealth and prosperity. While each god has unique powers, many share similarities and can quickly blur together to obfuscate their usefulness. The forest god and the swamp god each have the power to create plant resources, but even though they're different and themed to each god, they both appear as bushes that could be anything at first glance.
To add a bit more complexity and confusion, the power to create a plant resource will have different results in different environments. It makes sense that strawberries won't grow in the desert, but when the same power creates a completely different resource, it can get confusing. In my first few playthroughs I found that I was plopping down resources just to see what would happen when I did. Unfortunately it tended to mean that I'd remove the resource soon after, as a more optimal location would reveal itself.
Thankfully though, Reus combats all this possible confusion by adding tooltips and information to every single element in the game. If you're going to create systems that aren't immediately understandable, this is the way to go about it. Part of the fun of plopping down random resources in different places is then reading all about it in the resources info box. There you can easily find out what each resource synergises with and what it needs to evolve into a more powerful version.
I'm not the kind of person to often jump into an overwhelming info-dump style game, but I feel like Reus has eased my trepidation a little. It's probably not as complex as an epic grand strategy, but there's enough there to feel clueless at the start. Now that I've played some more Reus and learned my way to a level of understanding, I feel like I could overcome other games that put up an even bigger learning curve.
With this in mind, I think Reus is valuable as a learning tool for a couple of major reasons. First of all it shows someone like me that if I apply myself a little, I can learn and absorb the information available to me. The key is that the information has to be there to learn from, but if it is I know I'm capable of capitalising on it and enjoying the fruits of my labour.
Additionally, most of the synergies and environment focused resources in Reus are relatively authentic and have real-world relations. Sure I've never seen a giant tree god walking around planting lush forests, but I understand that blueberries can't grow in a desert.
Much like Block'hood, this game has the potential to explore the decisions we make and their impact on nature. It's one of the core reasons why I like the god-game genre, as there's always the potential to thrive or devolve into chaos. Reus is no different and if you fail to provide a prosperous environment for the people inhabiting the lands, disorder will grow. This leads to war with other settlements and destruction of the land. There's a clear goal to hold everything in balance with each other and thus be prosperous, so it's nice that it can all go to shit if you're careless with your godly powers.
Environmental custodianship is a gameplay system I find extremely compelling when it has real-world correlations, so it's great to see it happening in Reus. When a game can offer important lessons for life in the world, wrapped in a good looking wrapper of gameplay and art, I'm like a pig in… well I'm happy.
Reus does a great job of appearing simplistic at first, with its beautiful art and cartoon looking style, but if that puts you off, it shouldn't. There's plenty of depth to get stuck into as you learn its systems and explore the relationships between each god's powers and the people that live in their environments. When you manage to cover the planet in advanced life and resources, only to witness the harmony of everything balanced and in order, it's pretty darn satisfying.
I'm not an authority on god-games and how Reus might compare to some of the classics of the genre, but for what it's worth I'm now more interested in what other titles have to offer. Thanks to this brilliant little game, I now know that I have it in me to learn the complexities of larger games that occupy more scope.
It's super satisfying to influence environments into balance, and something we should all take more stock in as our real world shows signs of imbalance. Do we really want to let the chaos and fighting continue, or can we impact our environment in other ways that benefit us all?
I love it when a game makes me ask myself these questions.