Reus

INTRO:

Civilization and Mother Earth do not always go hand-in-hand with each other. History has shown that humanity has a tendency to exploit natural resources in sometimes unsustainable ways, as well as develop rather nasty habits like greed.

This is the underlying theme in Reus. Reus has the player trying to induce the development of human settlements by creating resources for them to exploit, via the powers of four immense creatures. The game will also have the player managing the antics of the humans, even destroying them in order to solve chronic problems.

However, the game actually has no appreciably sophisticated overarching goal for its gameplay. To extend its longevity, Reus resorts to locking away much of its content behind a scheme of achievements. Unlocking them is pretty much the bulk of the gameplay’s goals, as will be elaborated in the rest of this review.

PREMISE:

The player character is Mother Earth herself, of sorts. Sentient races have come and gone in the world. Despite Mother Earth’s help, none of them were able to sustain themselves past an age. This is mainly because they are rather irresponsible in using what they have been given. That does not stop Mother Earth from trying again, over and over.

This is pretty much the only bits of story-telling to be had from the game. There is almost nothing about the origins of the Giants and their god-like abilities.

THE “WORLD”:

Being an indie game, it would be a bit much to expect that Reus would have something that is passable as a planet. Instead, it simplifies the world into a single-dimension by putting everything on the circumference of a circle. There is only ever a single stratum to work with, even if there is the illusion of height brought about by the creation of mountains and oceans.

Players who had come into this game with the expectation that it would be a “god” game like Populous would be quite disappointed.

Anyway, the world starts out barren. It is the player’s prerogative to create the environments and natural resources which are needed for civilizations to thrive.

GIANTS – IN GENERAL:

To create the environments and the natural resources which civilizations need, the player makes use of massive creatures known as Giants. These creatures move about in the background, looming over the terrain and any human settlements. When they awaken, they only have their rudimentary abilities, which create terrain, and a few others which create some low-level resources.

Their other abilities can be unlocked and their existing abilities can be upgraded by having them pick up “Ambassadors”, who will be described further later. Specific Ambassadors unlock or upgrade specific abilities and there are only so many of them to go around, so the player must carefully pick which Ambassador to give to which Giant.

The Giants are very tough, but they are not invincible, as a careless player would found out. Eventually, after some sessions, the player will learn that the humans are not guaranteed to always respect the giants and might express their lack of respect in violent ways. If any giant is slain, it leads to a straight game-over for that session, so the player should try to keep the giants alive. Fortunately, the game will warn the player of any impending attack on a giant, and there are ways to keep them alive.

There are more gameplay designs about the Giants which will be described in later sections.

SPACE IN THE “WORLD” & THE TERRAIN:

As mentioned earlier, the world is just a circumference of a circle. The size of the circle can be changed, but the game generally wants the player to play the game at the default settings. This statement will be explained further later under the section for what the game calls “Alt Mode”.

The circumference is in turn divided into a single loop of cells, called “patches” in-game. A patch is a unit of space with which to house resources or human settlements and their projects. Settlements generally take up a few spaces each, whereas anything else just takes up one patch.

At the default settings, there are several dozen patches for the player to work with, so the player will have space for only a handful of settlements.

At the start of a session, all patches in the world are barren wastelands. There is not much that the player can do with these. To start seeding life and create natural resources in the world, the player must use the Giants to terraform the land.

For example, after introducing moisture to patches which are next to an “ocean” which the Ocean Giant has created, the Forest or Swamp Giant can turn these “moist” patches into forests or swamps, respectively. Afterwards, the player can place resources onto these terraformed patches by using the default resource creation abilities of the giants.

To cite a special example, the player can create forests by placing an ocean at the fringes of an existing desert; this negates the need for the Forest Giant.

Moreover, the creation of oceans and mountains can be used to control the size of oceans or mountains. It can be a bit tedious and the player will need to be able to estimate the range of patches which will be affected, but having shorter stretches of terrain might be advantageous if the player wants a mix of terrain types to fall under the influence of a settlement (more on this later).

After the player has created the necessary terrains in the world, all the player needs to do is to wait for a human nomad to appear in the world and move to some terraformed patches near the first few natural resources. This human nomad will then settle down, creating a village. This is the point when the civilization-nurturing part of the gameplay starts.

(Side note: the game refers to terrain types as “biomes”, though such a reference might not sit well with people who have experienced more complex games which use this term.)

RESOURCES:

The phrase “natural resources” have been mentioned a few times already. This phrase refers to a patch which has been modified to provide resources for human settlements. The game itself calls such a patch a “natural source”, so the review will refer to such patches as “natural sources” henceforth.

As for the word “resources”, this refers to the basic things which human settlements need in order to grow. There are three of these: food, wealth and knowledge. These are generally provided by natural sources, which the humans have to exploit. However, there is another way to obtain resources, which will be described later.

Anyway, natural sources are created by having the Giant “improve” patches with their powers. For the purpose of describing their creation and upgrade paths, the natural sources are categorized into “pioneer” natural resources and “advanced” ones for the purpose of this review.

The type of “pioneer” natural source which is created depends on the Giant which is used and the terrain which the natural source would be on. For example, if the Ocean Giant creates a “Domesticated Animal” in an ocean patch, it creates a shoal of forager fish.

The “pioneer” natural source can later be altered into an “advanced” natural source, depending on the “Aspect” which is bestowed onto it. The gameplay element of “Aspects” will be described further later, but for now, it will be said that an “Aspect” is the main requirement for a “pioneer” natural source to be changed. The resulting “advanced” natural source is not necessarily better, but it does have different properties, which the player may want to utilize in order to improve the patches around a settlement.

Indeed, planning the advancement paths of natural sources will be key to the gameplay. Yet, although there may be many permutations for these paths and there are secondary factors such as the danger posed by these natural sources, they ultimately have the same goal: creating enough resources for the humans to exploit so that the humans’ civilization can grow into something which the player wants.

RANGE OF SOURCES:

Some sources, specifically those which are associated with animals, affect more patches than just the ones which they are on. They grant their resource bonuses to a number of patches clockwise and anti-clockwise from them, a number which is called in-game as “range”. Keeping the ranges of sources in mind is important, because they will be used in the gameplay mechanism of “symbiosis”, which will be elaborated later.

NAMES OF NATURAL SOURCES:

The natural sources are named after real plants, minerals and animals, and are depicted as them too, albeit in stylized ways. However, this is merely flavoring.

Any natural sources which the player has unlocked (more on unlocking later) will be listed in the screen for unlocked content, which can be viewed at any time, conveniently. Interestingly, the tooltips for their icons also include general trivia about their real-world counterparts, in addition to their in-game effects.

“DEVELOPMENTS” & UNLOCKING:

Not all types of natural sources are available for the player to use from the get-go. Many of them are locked away behind what pass for achievements in this game.

To unlock them, the outcome of the player’s latest session must achieve specific conditions and circumstances; this is essentially the same as getting achievements. Specific achievements unlock specific natural sources for use in later sessions.

For better or worse (this reviewer believes in the latter), this is the crux of the gameplay in Reus. The player selects a trio of developments before starting a session and strive to achieve these, though the player might obtain other developments as well. The player then repeats the process until all developments have been obtained, after which a short (and perhaps unsatisfying) cutscene plays.

“ERAS”:

The player’s gameplay sessions in Reus are called “eras”. Every session has a time limit, as stipulated in the label for the type of “era” which the player has chosen to play. The first type lasts only for 30 minutes, the next lasts for an hour and the third lasts for 2 hours. Only the first is available by default; the others have to be unlocked by gaining enough developments.

The time limit is important to the gameplay. There are some developments which would be difficult to achieve within just one hour, such as developments which require the player to nurture settlements with four-digit scores of prosperity (more on this later).

As the time limit approaches, the Giants will fall asleep, one by one. When the last one falls asleep, the session is over and the player’s performance will be assessed. There is an option to keep playing (upon which the Giants will be revived), but whatever the player does after this does not count towards unlocking anything.

ALT MODE & FREE MODE:

Wily players might think about tweaking session conditions so as to make certain developments easier to achieve. Indeed, there are options to alter the conditions of a session before it begins.

However, if the player does make use of these options, he/she triggers the activation of the “Alt Mode”. This is not exactly a different game mode per se, but rather just a declaration that the player is not making use of the default gameplay settings. If the player plays with “Alt Mode” turned on, he/she will not be able to achieve certain developments, specifically the top-level ones.

There is a game mode called “free play” through which the player can play sessions with no time limits. Presumably, this mode allows the player to formulate strategies without concerns about time. Yet, the player’s selection of natural sources is still limited to whatever he/she has unlocked. If the player wants to experiment, he/she is better off playing with the default game mode in the first place instead of “free play”.

ASPECTS & FERTILITY:

Aspects are bonuses which the Giants can impart unto specific natural sources. For example, the Ocean and Forest Giants can impart Aspects unto plants in order to improve their food yields, or improve their Natura (more on this later, as it involves the gameplay element of “symbiosis”).

The Giants can only impart Aspects on one patch at a time, but their Aspect-imparting abilities have very short cool-downs, which become even shorter after they have gained more Ambassadors.

Aspects have several levels; they are, in increasing magnitudes of benefits: “Lesser”, “Potent”, “Greater” and “Sublime”. The level of Aspect that is imparted depends on the “fertility” of the patch, the level of the associated Giant’s Aspect-granting ability and a little bit of luck.

The level of Fertility guarantees that the versions of Aspects which are granted are at least of a level that is comparable, discounting the effect of the Giant’s ability. There is also a small chance that the Aspect which is granted is of a higher level, if the player is lucky.

For example, without any Fertility buffs, a patch is likely to gain the “Lesser” version of an Aspect when it is imparted by a Giant which has yet to upgrade its Aspect-granting ability. By default, most patches start with no Fertility buffs and only a random few have the first level of the buff. The first level of the buff guarantees that the Aspect which will be granted is of the “Potent” level at the minimum, though there is a small chance that it will be of the “Greater” level instead. Similarly, the second level of the buff guarantees that the Aspect will be at least of the “Greater” sort, and so on.

Incidentally, the level of the Giant’s Aspect-granting ability does happen to stack with Fertility buffs. This is something to keep in mind, especially after the player has unlocked natural source advances which require high Aspect levels.

Speaking of which, the other reason to grant Aspects unto sources is that they are needed in order to upgrade natural sources into other sources. Some upgrades require Aspects of specific minimum levels; for example, to upgrade the Great Coffea plant (the plant which produces coffee beans) to the Rubber Tree natural source, the plant needs to have a Sublime Leaf Aspect.

“GREAT” & “SUPERIOR” SOURCES:

As mentioned earlier, each Giant has the ability to place down a natural source. By default, the natural source which is created is of the regular sort. After these abilities have been upgraded by picking up Ambassadors, the sources which are placed down are of the “Great” variants, which yield a lot more resources. There is also a higher tier of variants, understandably called “Superior”, to achieve.

Replacing regular sources with “Great” and subsequently “Superior” sources will become a staple of mid- or late-stage strategies. It is also worth mentioning here that the Great or Superior versions of sources are needed in order to obtain particularly high-tier natural sources. An example has been mentioned earlier, e.g. the Great Coffea plant can be upgraded into the Rubber Tree.

ASPECT CAPACITY:

Aspects cannot be granted unto natural sources willy-nilly. Each natural source has a limited number of slots for aspects. Granting an aspect onto it fills a slot, which can never be emptied again so as to fit another Aspect into it. Furthermore, granting an aspect which a natural source already has only makes two copies of the aspect, filling up two slots. Even if the aspect which the player would grant is of a higher level than the existing one, it still fills up another slot anyway.

SETTLEMENTS:

After the player has set up conditions which are conducive to human settlement, settlements will pop up somewhere in the terrain which the player has terraformed. They are usually located near the first few natural sources which the player places down.

They also happen to take up three patches each. The patches which they occupy will not produce any resources either. These are things that the player might want to keep in mind as he/she attempts to utilize the remaining space in the “world”.

Settlements exert control over the patches around them; this extent of control is depicted by the border towers which appear at the ends of their regions of influence. Settlements can grow, typically by utilizing natural sources within their borders.

The extent of the utilization is indicated by their “prosperity”, which is the total amount of resources which the settlements have managed to harness from the natural sources in their control – or, in the case of settlements which raid other settlements, how much loot they have. There will be more elaboration on raids and the associated gameplay element of war later.

The prosperity score itself is not much used in the gameplay, except for the calculation of the benefits of some particular projects. Rather, the individual tallies of the resources which have been harnessed are more important, because they are used to estimate how close the settlements are to the completion of projects, which will be described further later.

As settlements gain more prosperity, they expand their borders outwards, thus putting more patches under their control. Fortunately, the settlements will not take up more patches as they grow. However, they will start projects, the first of which takes up one patch. The patch which is taken up is randomized, so the player will have to adapt his/her strategies to account for the positioning of the project.

NOMADS:

Nomads are indicators of when a settlement will pop up. In order to obtain nomads, the player must garner enough prosperity from all settlements to trigger the spawning of the next one. Each subsequent nomad needs more prosperity than the last one; this increasing requirement will not diminish, even if settlements are lost.

Therefore, if the player is aiming for developments which require high prosperity scores, it is in the player’s interest to keep as many settlements as functional as possible, because replacements will be expensive.

PROJECTS:

Settlements will automatically start projects on their own. Which types of projects these are generally depends on the type of settlement and the types of resources which are available to the settlements at the time when they made their decisions. Interestingly, if the player does not desire the projects which are being created, the player can choose to trash them; the settlements are likely to pick another type of project to start.

For the projects to be completed, the settlements must have harnessed the necessary number of resources from the natural sources under their control, or from the loot which they gain from pillaging their neighbours. This is where the player comes in: he/she has to create the opportunities which provide the necessary resources.

Afterwards, he/she waits for the settlements to obtain the resources themselves. However, the wait is not always uneventful; there is the gameplay element of Greed which will make things interesting, as will be elaborated later.

Anyway, these projects will immediately turn the patches that they are on into resource-producing patches, even if they had not been completed. The resources which are provided to the settlement varies greatly from project to project, however. Furthermore, the project’s main benefit, which will be described later under the section “Specializations”, will not be active until the project is completed.

It is also worth noting here that if settlements are ever destroyed, they take their projects with them.

PROJECT UPGRADES:

Projects also have levels. The first project which a settlement makes is a project with relatively small benefits compared to its upgrades. After having completed such a foundation project, the next project which the settlement starts is generally an upgrade to this existing project. Incidentally, the requirements for the completion of the upgrade are similar, albeit generally of greater magnitudes. There are also two possible upgrade paths for each first-tier project, one of which will be chosen seemingly at random by the owning settlement.

Upon being completed, the project will be upgraded into its higher and more productive form, and even change its name and appearance. For example, the food-producing Granary can be upgraded into a Mill, which produces even more food. (The details of how the food is produced can differ from session to session; this will be elaborated later.)

The third project which a settlement would start is generally a new project, specifically one from the third tier. This tier of project is not an upgrade to the second tier, but they generally have greater bonuses to offer.

By default, the settlement will pick an empty patch for this new project. This project is usually even more beneficial than the previous ones, but also requires a lot more resources to be completed. The fourth and final project is, unsurprisingly, an upgrade to this one, though it is worth noting here that there appears to be fewer permutations of upgrades for this tier of projects.

AMBASSADORS:

Human individuals known as Ambassadors will appear at settlements which have just completed projects. The Giants can place these humans on their heads to somehow unlock more of their powers or improve existing ones.

The type of Ambassador which appears depends on the type of settlement which he/she came from. The type of the Ambassador in turn determines which abilities are unlocked or upgraded.

If the player is allowed to have specific Giants collect Ambassadors without any restrictions, any strategic plan which the player came up with would have been easier to realize. However, there are restrictions: any Giant cannot be allowed to have more Ambassadors than the other Giants for long. Any Ambassador which the player would later get must be handed over to one of the other Giants, until all of them have equal numbers of Ambassadors.

Another restriction is that there are thresholds in the number of projects which have been completed, which when surpassed, will reduce the rate at which Ambassadors are created. For example, after six first-tier projects have been completed since the start of a session, the completion of any subsequent first-tier project will no longer produce any Ambassadors. The player will have to resort to the completion of higher-tier projects, which also means that the player must try to keep settlements around.

Fortunately, there is some flexibility in how the player can keep the company of Ambassadors and utilize them. As an example, the Ambassadors will stay with the Giants for the entirety of the current session, regardless of what the player does with their homes. Also, a Giant can also have more than one Ambassador of the same type, in which case the associated abilities which have been unlocked by the first Ambassador will be upgraded instead.

SYMBIOSIS:

In the real world, ecosystems are formed by the interaction between animals, plants and their environs. Reus tries to utilize this in order to implement the gameplay mechanism of “symbiosis”.

Certain natural sources happen to produce additional effects when they are adjacent to other specific natural source; this triggers symbiosis. Symbiosis can also be triggered in another way: certain natural sources activate their additional effects when other specific natural sources are within their range.

For example, natural sources which are carnivores happen to produce more food when there are herbivorous natural sources within their range of influence. (This might seem odd or even amusing to players who have a passing interest in zoology.)

Symbiosis is the main gameplay element which the player will use in order to maximize the amount of resources which can be harnessed by a settlement. It will require the player to study the descriptions of natural sources in order to formulate a plan. Fortunately, the descriptions of unlocked natural sources can be read at any time, including during a session.

SPECIALIZATIONS:

Projects also have their own version of Symbiosis, albeit this is called “Specializations” instead, perhaps to emphasize that their benefits are man-made.

Unlike natural sources, the resources which Projects produce are not fixed, and their interaction with natural sources are not so either. This is because each type of project can have one of four specializations, which determine these two matters. The specialization which a project will provide when it is completed appears to be randomly selected from these four.

For example, returning to the example of the food-producing Granary, the Granary may have a specialization which has it producing food at amounts which are proportional to the number of plants under the control of its owning settlement, or it may have another specialization which has food production being proportional to the number of animal sources instead.

Interestingly, if a Project is upgraded to its more advanced form, it retains its previous specialization and can take up another. These two Specializations might stack on top of another or complement each other.

Returning to the example of the Granary and its upgrade, the Mill, the Mill may gain specializations which has it producing more food if there are herbaceous plants under the control of its owning settlement. This of course makes it capable of producing more food than the Mill. Alternatively, it might have a specialization which has it producing Technology if there is a Boar or Rabbit natural source under the control of the owning settlement, so it might produce Technology in addition to Food.

Although these randomization features mean that any session with one type of Project might be different from another session which also features the same type of Project, it also means that luck is a factor in determining which strategic plan that the player will use, if only to maximize the benefits that would be gained from the project.

NATURA:

Natura is a minor gameplay element which is usually associated with plants. On its own, the rating does next to nothing. However, there are many natural sources which utilizes Natura in order to activate their tertiary benefits. For example, certain mineral sources happen to produce more resources if they are on a patch with high Natura ratings; in some cases, these additional resources are not usually associated with minerals. Certain projects also require the accumulation of Natura.

If there is any problem with Natura, it is that the game does not exactly explain that it is a minor gameplay element. After learning about Symbiosis, a new player might have the impression that Natura is as important as Symbiosis when it is not (if only because these two words sound like they are made for each other).

GREED:

Although the player must provide natural sources for settlements to grow, he/she must be wary of how fast the settlements are harnessing the resources.

The difference between the currently harnessed amounts of resources and the amount of resources yet to be harnessed is a factor in determining how fast a settlement utilizes its resources. Greater differences lead to faster harnessing, which at first glance is a good thing. Yet, If they are harnessing them too quickly, they start to become greedy.

There is an alternative condition which leads to the onset of greed. A settlement can have more resources than those offered by the natural sources which are under its control. This can occur if some natural sources have been lost but the settlement had been harnessing and hoarding the resources which were previously provided by these, or the settlement has obtained resources by sacking another settlement. In such cases, the resources which they have accumulated will only be around for a while; they will whittle them away until the resources reach the levels which can be provided by the settlement’s own natural sources. In addition, they start to become greedy too.

The extent of the greediness is depicted via a number of icons called “greed markers”. Having more markers makes a settlement more likely to go to war with another settlement, usually the one closest to them. Even more markers mean that the settlement’s respect for the Giants will diminish, even to the point that they would attack the Giants with their armies.

WAR:

Settlements will raise armies on their own, for the purpose of defending themselves and to enact raids on the others (or to attack the Giants, if they have become that audacious). The strength of the armies is mainly dependent on the populations of the settlements and how long they had been raising troops without getting them killed.

Eventually, the player will have to deal with the consequences of excessive greed on the part of the settlements. When this happens, they go to war; the player will be notified of this, and will also be informed about their intended target.

Shortly after that, the standing army in that settlement girds itself for war and sets out in the direction of their target. They can actually suffer casualties along the way, either due to patches with high danger ratings or due to the player’s use of the giants against them.

Regardless, if the army is not annihilated, it will be relentless in seeking its target. If they are targeting the Giants, they will pursue the Giants literally around the world. If their target is another settlement, they will fight the defending army until it or they are annihilated. If the latter happens, they will sack the other settlement and steal most of its harnessed resources. Afterwards, they make the return trip. If they manage to come home, their settlement gains the looted resources, thus experiencing a sudden jump in prosperity.

This can be used by a wily player to maintain the prosperity of a settlement at the expense of the others, if the player is pursuing a few certain developments.

Although greed is a major factor in starting war between two settlements, another strong factor is proximity. Settlements which are close to each other are more likely to go to war than settlements which are further from each other. This is especially the case if the settlements’ borders are adjacent to each other.

When a settlement is attacked by another, the outcome of the conflict will affect one or the other, permanently. It also has to be said here that any intervention by the player may aid one settlement or the other. For example, if the player destroys an invading army, the defending settlement counts as having won the conflict.

The settlement which wins the conflict gains what the game calls a “war mark”. An increasing number of war marks means that that the settlement’s army becomes stronger, making it more capable of withstanding attacks. However, the settlement also becomes more war-like, requiring less greed markers to go on the warpath; this can result in a nasty positive feedback loop which leads to more accumulation of war marks. In fact, at five war marks, a settlement will become a chronic threat to other settlements and the giants.

DANGER:

Like Natura, “Danger” is a secondary variable that affects patches and is also used for Symbiosis in some cases. However, it is far more than just a minor gameplay element that supports other gameplay elements.

Danger can be introduced to a patch either by placing a natural source with Danger onto it, or imparting an Aspect which increases its Danger rating. In the case of natural sources with ranges, they introduce Danger to all of the patches in their range. The Danger rating of any affected patch will contribute to the total Danger rating faced by the owning settlement.

If the total Danger faced by a settlement is high enough, it will not accumulate any greed markers. When this threshold – which is shown to the player – is reached, the settlement’s army will be occupied with dealing with the danger posed by the Danger-causing natural sources.

However, if the total Danger rises any further and reaches the next threshold, the settlement, and its army, will take direct action on the Danger-causing patches. Its army will autonomously seek out the patch with highest source of Danger and destroy it. This continues until the settlement’s total Danger rating has dropped below the previous threshold, which, of course, sets the player’s progress back.

Interestingly, Danger-causing patches can be used to damage travelling armies. However, the player should not expect these patches to be able to finish off entire armies though, at least not without increasing the density of these patches until they imperil the settlement which controls them.

AWE:

Like Natura and Danger, Awe is also used in the gameplay element of Symbiosis. Awe is usually associated with mineral sources, or some wealth-creating plant and animal sources.

Awe can be used in place of Danger for a less-risky solution of stopping the accumulation of greed. However, like Danger, it will take increasingly higher amounts of Awe to arrest the onset of greed as the settlement grows larger.

Eventually, the player will unlock upgrades and sources which have Danger, Natura and/or Awe qualities. In the late-stages of a session, it can be quite daunting to decide which one of these secondary gameplay elements to use in the player’s plans. Nevertheless, the developments which the player decides to pursue would give helpful direction, as long as the player can remember all the gameplay elements which he/she has learned thus far.

PATCH & SETTLEMENT HEALTH:

Like the giants, patches and settlements have health meters. If the meters are depleted, they will be destroyed, obviously.

Patches are easier to replace after they have been destroyed, but their health meters will never replenish on their own. Even after the player has upgraded the natural sources on them, their health meters will remain the same. In the case of settlements, their health meters do eventually replenish on their own.

MORE THINGS ABOUT THE GIANTS:

All of the giants will be creating terrain and natural sources, but each of them also has special roles to play. These will be described in the following sections.

OCEAN GIANT:

The Ocean Giant is perhaps the most important of all the four giants. Without its ability to create oceans and thus bring moisture to patches, there can be no swamps and forests.

The Ocean Giant is also the only Giant which is capable of healing the other Giants, though its healing capabilities are not available by default. Interestingly, its ability to heal itself is separated from its ability to heal the others. Its ability to heal the other Giants also happens to impart speed boosts, which might be useful to players who believe that every second counts. (In practice, the gameplay’s pace is so slow that the speed boost is not likely to matter much, especially if the player can plan far ahead.)

The Ocean Giant is also one of two giants which are capable of granting guarantees of obtaining higher-level aspects onto patches. Its thematically appropriate Monsoon ability can also affect a considerable number of patches, which will be useful in the later-stages of a session.

Perhaps the most important thing to keep in mind about the Ocean Giant is that its ocean-making ability can be used to quickly destroy settlements by sinking them into the ocean. It is a drastic thing to do so, but it can be helpful if the player wants to obliterate a settlement and its surrounding resources in a pinch.

If there is any complaint about the Ocean Giant, it is that some of its secondary capabilities can seem inappropriate, or require some suspension of disbelief in order to be reconciled with the nature of the Giant. For example, it can be difficult to accept that the Ocean Giant is somehow needed to create natural sources of domesticated animals. In another example, the Ocean Giant’s ability to grant the Growth aspect unto plants is perhaps believable because it is a creature of water, albeit water of the salty kind that is not good for terrestrial plants.

ROCK GIANT:

Although the tutorial starts itself off with the lesson that the Ocean Giant is needed to bring moisture to the lands, the player can learn that the Rock Giant can create viable terrain for civilization without the help of the Ocean Giant. If the Rock Giant creates a mountain anywhere, it will automatically create Deserts next to the mountain. This will be handy if the player wants a desert settlement to appear before the other settlements.

Like the Ocean Giant’s main ability, the Rock Giant’s terrain-changing ability can destroy settlements. Of course, the player will then have to deal with a mountain in place of the settlement afterwards, but knowing that the Ocean Giant’s ability can cancel off mountains will be helpful.

Astute players may also notice that the Rock Giant’s ability to change terrain into mountains (and the deserts which sit next to them) will also change land-based natural sources into other types. It can be used for a few strategies, though these will of course be drastic and likely less effective than strategies which are better planned.

(The Ocean Giant’s ability can also change natural sources to other types, but this only works for animals. Natural sources which are plants and minerals will be destroyed. By the way, the Rock Giant’s terrain-changing ability also happens to destroy water-based natural sources; these will not be converted.)

It should be noted here that the Rock Giant is the slowest of all the giants, which can be a problem if the player needs to use it to place mineral sources around the world.

The Rock Giant is one of two Giants with direct offensive capabilities, discounting its ability to wreck settlements by creating a mountain underneath them. However, its Earthquake ability requires it to get close to whatever it is supposed to smash; this can be a problem if its target is a hostile army. Still, the Rock Giant is the toughest Giant too, so it can take a beating or two.

FOREST GIANT:

The Forest Giant is a food-centric giant; most of the sources which it can place and the aspects which it can provide to sources produce food. The Forest Giant is also the fastest Giant, so placing food sources is not as much of a problem as placing mineral sources with the Rock Giant is.

Unfortunately, the Forest Giant’s abilities and limitations are emblematic of some of the gaps in the gameplay and thematic designs of Reus.

For one, there does not appear to be any natural sources which are based on aquatic plants or other static aquatic lifeforms. As a related side note and illustrative example, there is the mention of corals in the descriptions of natural sources such as the Clownfish, but there are no corals in the game.

The Forest Giant is the only Giant that is capable of shifting natural sources around from patch to patch. Unfortunately, this ability is limited to shifting natural sources within their own associated terrain type.

SWAMP GIANT:

The Swamp Giant is one of the two Giants which have offensive capabilities. Its Muck Bomb is available by default and it is usually useful for taking out armies, though the player will need to be able to lead the shot in order to maximize its damage output. An important thing to keep in mind about this ability is that it happens to damage natural resources on patches too, so the player will have to be mindful of when and where to use it in order to deal with rampant armies.

REPLACING SOURCES IN THE LATE-STAGE:

Having learned about all of the above, an astute player would realize that one of the most important elements of any strategies which he/she would use is the replacement of natural sources which have been created earlier. This will be especially so after the Giants have gained the ability to create “Great”-and “Superior” class natural sources.

However, replacing sources is easier said than done, due to the presence of other gameplay elements which make replacement a bit risky. Chief of these is the aforementioned greed mechanism; after the player has replaced a natural source with a Great or Superior source, there will be a considerable gap between the amount of resources which have been harnessed and the amount of resources which are available. This, of course, results in the accumulation of greed.

VISUAL DESIGNS:

Reus resorts to the use of 2-D sprites, specifically sprites which have been broken up so that their “body parts” can be separately animated so that their movements look believable. This is most noticeable for the giants.

The giants appear in a layer behind the world and the patches. As such, they look like they are looming in the background, which is perhaps a bit appropriate since they are supposed to be colossal. Yet, when they perform the animations for when they interact with patches, they do not seem to be touching the patches themselves, but rather something in the background. This is just a small complaint, of course.

There may be an attempt to make the Giants seem more adorable than they do at first glance. This can be seen from their idle animations, such as the Forest Giant’s leaf-shaking sneeze and the Giants’ occasional dozing-off.

As for the humans, their sprites are less detailed than those for the giants. Any details which they have are meant to visually differentiate the humans of one settlement from the humans of another. The game happens to mix their sprite components in order to create a considerably diverse number of permutations.

The humans do look comical, though this is perhaps the intended visual effect. After all, the artwork for the icons of the “developments”/achievements, which mostly feature the humans, can look amusingly silly.

Other noteworthy visual designs include those for the natural sources. Minerals are easy to differentiate from other types of natural sources and even from each other, due to their stark colour contrasts. However, differentiating between animals and plants can be a bit difficult, especially if the player is using far-out zooms. However, they do become a bit easier to look at if they are of the “Great” and “Superior” variants, or are otherwise based on large animals or trees.

There are also visual designs for what the humans do with the natural sources. As they harness more and more of the resources which are provided by the natural sources, the sprites for the natural sources actually change. For example, progressively deeper mines appear under the mineral sources as their resources are exploited. This ostensibly makes it easier to differentiate well-developed settlements from less-developed ones, though it is usually in the player’s interest to maintain parity in the level of development among settlements.

SOUND DESIGNS:

The only voice-acting to be heard in the game are the exclamations that the humans make whenever there is a significant occasion which affects them. For example, they cheer upon the completion of a project or scream in terror when their homes come under attack. Other than that, there is no legible lines to be heard from them.

The giants also do not have any legible lines, and they do not appear to utter anything either. However, they do have some unique sound effects which are associated with them, such as the Ocean Giant’s brief grating rumble which can be heard right before it beats the land into an ocean.

The most noticeable parts of the musical composition for the game can be heard in the menu and game set-up screens. When a gameplay session starts though, the music becomes more subdued, which is just as well, because the player might need to listen out for audio cues. The exceptions to this are when important occurrences which demand the player’s attention happens. For example, when armies set out to fight something, an urgent track plays.

SUMMARY:

Despite its simplistic representation of a world and its overarching gameplay of unlocking achievements and the game content which is associated with them, Reus does have a structure to its gameplay: the player will need to create the means for non-player-characters, namely the mortals, to prosper, followed by the monitoring of their progress and taking measures to make them more prosperous.

Yet, there might be missed opportunities to weave the themes of the game into its gameplay. There could have been some entertaining experience to be had from manipulating the lives of mortals by changing things around them with seemingly god-like powers, but the game, at its heart, is little more than just a matter of resource management and planning. Even then, to any player who is experienced in playing complex games such as city- and civilization-builders, the gameplay in Reus might seem a tad too simple.