I bought "Reus" yesterday - and the next time I checked the clock, it was 0400.
The game is a strange genre blend. The easiest way to describe it for me is "Elemental Tower Defence" from Warcraft 3 meets Populus. Some sort of "godgame puzzler".
So what is the game about?
Well, you find yourself on a barren world where 4 primal giants just have awaken from their slumber. The map itself is some
sort of half-sliced planet from a sideway view where you can zoom in at will and rotate along the surface. It consists of a certain number of "plots" or "panels" and your goal is to influence those plots to call fourth and sustain life on the planet.
Each giant has a set of special abilities. For example, the ocean giant (a big crab), can lower land to create ocean which causes the barren land left and right from it to become wet. Then you can use your forest giant (a monkey-like being) to create a forest on that wet land or you can use the swamp giant (a big blob-like creature) to create a swamp. Or you use the stone giant to create a mountain somwhere and the land left and right of the mountain will become a desert.
So, now you have terraformed the world a bit and it is time to influence the plots. The giant crab has a "create animals" ability, that will summon animals on a plot, while the forest giant can create plant life and the swamp giant can summon exotic animals and herbs. The stone giant on the other hand has the ability to create different kinds of mines. The trick is that each plot can only contain a single "terrain feature" and the sort of feature depends on the biome. For example, animals in forest are "rabbits", while in ocean they become "mackerels".
Each improvement bestows different benefits on the tile. In general there are 3 ressources (food, wealth, science) and a special value called "natura", which seems to be some sort of ecological balance/power ratio (it can amplify certain tiles and effects). So once you have influenced the first few patches, humans will settle down and create a small city. Now your job is to carefully grow these city and help them complete building projects that will pop-up from time to time and require a certain ressource combination within the city expansion radius. The type of project is tied to the ressources available (e.g. granary with many food ressources + plants in the surrounding) and each project bestows a certain bonus on the city (granary -> more food production from animal or plant tiles).
So your goal is to create many settlements, let them grow and fullfil their projects. On the one hand, you will receive score points (called "prosperity" -> the combined amount of food/wealth/science) that can unlock new stuff for your next game, on the other hand each completed project will create an "ambassador", who can be used to unlock or upgrade your giants abilities.
This is relevant for the second aspect of the game: Each giant has additional abilites. Some are like "enchantments" that boost the output of a tile in a certain way, others allow you to perform new special actions (like moonsoon -> create a fertility boost on several plots at once). But here is the twist: Not only are these "enchantments" used to boost the plot feature, they also allow you to "evolve" it into something else. For example, a plant tile in a forest is a "blue berries". When enhanced with the "leaf" aspect of the forest giant, you can turn them into "strawberries".
The catch? Blue berries get +10 food when next to straw berries. Strawberries get +3 food next to blue berries and +5 awe next to other strawberries. So you have to carefully combine all the plots to use their synergies to maximize plot outputs. You have to puzzle around and figure out which combinations are best suited for your town. And there are 3 different tiers and 2 different sizes (normal/large) for each feature, so there are countless ways to combine stuff. And the game makes a great job to prevent "first order strategies" by assigning each town and each project a random benefit to constantly change the rule what is "best".
And there is more: If you create to many ressources and the towns grow to fast, they become greedy and/or warmongers. As greed rises, the people will start to demand more from your giants (you can see them hopping around in front of them with empty baskets) or they even attack them to subdue them to their will. So what to do? Well, you can destroy the town by using the ocean crab or the stone giant to terraform the plots - or you use mudbombs and earthquakes to show the impertinent bunch their place. Warmongers are a different breed - these guys attack other cities and try to loot and destroy them. But there is yet another twist: Some achievements and projects require you to have cities that won a certain number of wars. For example: Barracks requiere some food, some wealth and at least one victory in war.
This review is already way more detailed than it was supposed to be, so let me wrap it up: After a certain time has passed, your giants will fall asleep again and the game ends. But: This not just a simple countdown and "the end" screen. Instead you have a 1 minute grace period where they start to slumber away randomly, so with some luck you can use your forest giant to create a few more plants that boost your final score. Once the game is over, stuff will unlock for completing certain objectives. With enough objectives unlocked, you can reach a higher level, which will unlock longer playtime (you can play 30, 60 and 120 minutes).
One last thing: The graphics and animations are BEAUTIFUL! Lovely and full of detail, with a fidelity you rarely see in indie games.
In short: This is an amazing game for a 10 price tag. If you liked Elemental TD from Warcraft 3, godgames and/or puzzle games, you HAVE to check this game out!
That's how this game somehow became the reverse Civ 5 in my eyes: trashed by the critics but loved by the players. How often does that happen?
