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The team was further inspired by African and New Guinean tribes, Conway's Game of Life, works of Polish painter Zdzisław Beksiński, and Koyaanisqatsi. Some features, such as the biological life cycle of the tribespeople, were left out of the game because of the huge amount of work they would require. Ubisoft was originally doubtful about the project but was later convinced by Chahi. The game was made by a small team within the Montpellier studio, so was considered an independent game produced by a large publisher. The game was announced at E3 2010 as Project Dust.

The game received a generally positive reception on release, with critics praising the game's physics, simulation, openness and graphics, while criticizing the game's artificial intelligence and camera angles. Opinions on the game's Challenge mode and mission design were polarizing. The PC version of the game fared worse than other platforms for its technical issues and digital rights management. The game was a commercial success for Ubisoft, selling over half a million copies and became Ubisoft's fastest-selling digital game. Despite its success, Chahi confirmed that he will not return to develop a sequel, and added that he intended to work on his next project without a publisher. However, the concept of having a small development team within in a large company continued at Ubisoft, leading to the creation of projects such as Child of Light, Grow Home, and Valiant Hearts: The Great War. From Dust Game free Download Full Version.

Gameplay

In From Dust, players assume a god-like, first-person perspective from which they manipulate an archipelago environment in an effort to save and enlighten a nomadic tribe and help them to seek their lost knowledge. With a spherical cursor, the user controls certain types of matter in real time. Lava cools to form solid rock, vegetation propagates in soil and spreads naturally once a village is built, and moving water quickly erodes the terrain. Physical changes to the world occur extremely rapidly, allowing players to restructure islands within minutes.

Campaigns in From Dust are structured as a sequence of missions, whereby completing certain objectives expedites the tribe's progress and bestows additional powers, such as the capacity to jellify water. Tribal shamans alert the player to natural disasters, notably tsunamis and volcanic eruptions, shortly before they occur. These disasters can be inhibited through creative, physical manipulation of the environment: a tsunami can be jellified, wildfires extinguished, and lava flows diverted. Although there is no 'explicit sandbox' mode, Chahi stated that each mission features a distinct map, which the player can return to and manipulate further.

From Dust has the option of two main game modes, one being the Story mode, the other a Challenge mode. The former consists of a sequence of missions which play through the story of a lost tribe who are using the player (who controls «The Breath») to travel to different levels in an attempt to discover what happened to their old tribe. By helping the tribe to find the different totems scattered on a map, they can begin constructing their village next to the totem. Players can also send tribespeople to look for magical stones, which will grant them the ability to manipulate the world, by repelling water and fire for example. When the tribe successfully builds villages next to every totem, a portal will open and the player can proceed into the next map. These maps become more and more challenging as players progress. New elements, such as trees that erupt in fire, and plants that explode, are introduced in later levels. From Dust game free Download for PC Full Version.

Challenge mode employs similar gameplay to that of the Story mode. The difference is that the gameplay for Challenge mode is faster-paced, offers more puzzles, and sacrifices any storyline in this mode. It consists of 30 levels and players must fulfill certain conditions before succeeding. Each level lasts only a few minutes, offering more exciting, yet harder, gameplay. The time needed for players to complete a level is recorded in an online leaderboard which can be viewed by other players.

Story

From Dust's story revolves around a tribe which has lost the knowledge of their ancestors — The Ancients. They find themselves located in unknown territory. To solve this problem, the tribe gathers and summons «The Breath», controlled by the player, hoping that it will help them to communicate with nature. However, after the summoning, the tribe desperately want answers to their questions, and have a strong desire to recover the lost knowledge. The Breath then guides the tribe to different totems allowing them to perform rituals and to construct villages and settlements. A passage will unlock and allow the tribe to discover new lands and places.

After discovering and journeying through islands of different characteristics, the tribe, with the help of The Breath, have overcome numerous natural disasters including tsunami and volcanic eruption. The tribe follows the path of The Ancients, yet their lands are nowhere to be found. By the last island, the players are given the chance to place the totem around the island and create and form their own island. After placing the final totem, the tribe reaches the place for the final ritual. After the ritual is completed, the entire island collapses and reshapes and sinks into the sea, leaving only the passageway above sea level. After the tribespeople pass the gateway, they realize that they have returned to the first island where they began their journey. The story ends with the narrator saying «And here we are, as on the first day.»

Development

On 14 June 2010, Ubisoft announced the development of From Dust at E3, and the appointment of Éric Chahi as the Creative Designer. Codenamed Project Dust, it was marketed as a spiritual successor to Populous, a game developed by Peter Molyneux and Bullfrog Productions in 1989. Chahi described the game as playing like a sandcastle game, but with elements like lava. On 16 August 2010, during Gamescom and the European Game Developers Conference in Cologne, Ubisoft unveiled technical footage showing the game's physics engine in detail. In the technical sequence, a narrator explains the user's interactions with the environment, and the effects of each physical element upon the other. During the conference, Chahi presented a lecture entitled «Creating a High-Performance Simulation: A Dynamic Natural World to Play With», demonstrating the world editor that underlies the environment simulation.

Ubisoft's decision to release the game via the Internet was taken partly to avoid distribution and manufacturing costs, but also to enable creative options for the team and to allow for future features, such as a world editor, multiplayer, or other enhanced content later in the development cycle. Guillaume Bunier, Ubisoft's producer, acknowledged that «some people would not be able to play it», but argued that the majority of individuals interested in the game would be using PlayStation Network, Xbox Live Arcade, and Steam. In the event that From Dust became a «huge success», Bunier suggested that the company could do another, disc-based version. When questioned about the suitability of the game for the console market, he responded by observing that other atypical games were successful on such platforms, notably Flower on the PlayStation 3 (PS3). The OnLive game system, the PS3, and the Xbox 360 were «powerful machines», and From Dust would utilise their superior capacity to operate the simulation. From Dust was released for the Xbox 360 on 27 July 2011. It was later released for Microsoft Windows in August 2011, the PlayStation Network in September 2011, and Google Chrome in May 2012.

Influences

Following the completion of Heart of Darkness in 1998, Chahi left the video games industry to explore other interests, and subsequently developed a passion for volcanology. In the past, Chahi self-produced video games, as the PC market was independent games-orientated. However, the independent game's importance diminished by 2006, so Chahi decided to work with a publisher instead. He presented the concept to Ubisoft in 2006. According to Chahi, it was not difficult to convince Ubisoft to fund the project, though initially there was hesitation and the proposal was rejected. After the company reversed its decision, the team spent approximately two years meeting with the key people within Ubisoft; development properly began in January 2008. The team initially only had three people, but it was expanded to about 15 to 20 people, which was considered a small team for Ubisoft.

According to Chahi, he was inspired by his 1999 trip to Mount Yasur's crater in Vanuatu. The scenery, and the power of the volcano, which was extremely active at the time, fascinated and scared him. Chahi, still intending to make another video game «before [he] died», hoped that his next project could convey the: «ambivalence of Nature, beautiful and potentially violent at the same time». Becoming more and more interested in the world's natural forces, Chahi went on to visit different volcanoes, including Dolomieu crater on Reunion Island, and a volcano in the Indian Ocean. Once the development was underway, Montpellier even recorded audio from a real volcano for inclusion in the game. Nature and cycle were some of the most important key elements of the game. The team intended to create different cycles and loops that would result in different kinds of interaction between the environments. For example, the tide cycle and eruption cycle changes dynamically, and it impacts the growth of plants and the lives of the villagers. According to Chahi, the cycle allows players to anticipate what will happen next.

While discussing the game's visual elements and art direction, developers revealed that they used several locations on Earth, such as the Yemeni islands of Socotra, lagoon archipelagos of Polynesia, and central Sahara as sources of inspiration. The team also worked with science fiction novelist Laurent Genefort to create the game's world. Bruno Gentile, Art Director of From Dust, stated that the world possessed strong visual contrasts, with «rich and swarming life full of weird shapes and colors». Inhabitants of From Dust wear masks, which serve as a motif representing mystery and uniqueness. Gentile commented that after the developers researched African and New Guinean tribes, one of Ubisoft Montpellier's concept artists developed the idea of a large mask, constructed from nacre. Chahi remarked that the team had drawn inspiration from various musical instruments, especially slit drums used on the Vanuatu islands, and indicated that music was «a key part in the gameplay and design». While tribes do not develop technologically, the team decided that their culture would evolve as they discovered «their world and their past». The game utilizes a rich color palette, which allowed the team to create strong color contrast and to «express the beauty of nature». From Dust Free Download Torrent.