Crest Preview

It’s common knowledge – rules are there to be broken when necessity calls. Ah, what the heck? We just love breaking and bending the rules. There are worse things than rewriting laws and upending commandments. Eat Create Sleep’s upcoming game, Crest, confirms that notion and shows you its worst aspect.

Crest is Eat Create Sleep’s second project and puts the players in the divine shoes of god, with the task of helping civilization – the player’s ultimate friend and enemy – thrive. Crest revolutionizes the god-game formula, and limits the player’s interaction with the chosen people to filling an empty slate with commandments, leaving civilization to go off at a tangent, or to obey and prosper. Crest, which is currently crowdfunding on Indiegogo, does not stop at enjoyable gameplay, but places the player in a situation of unconventional ingame responsibility.

The god game follows Among Ripples, the studio’s first released game. Among Ripples is a sandbox game set in a pond, and it is characterized by the freedom of experimentation afforded to the player. In some ways Crest is a continuation of Among Ripples, evident in Crest’s prototype, which gives players a lot of room to roam and explore the effects of their choices.

Crest revolves around a simple mechanism, allowing players to write out commandments to their tribe. The real challenge comes to examining the tribes, understanding them and writing commandments which help them flourish.

With Crest only giving players indirect control over their people, tribes are free to interpret and rewrite the commandments bestowed upon them. Various infographics allow the player to examine the tribes’ characteristics and exploit them to guide them towards prosperity or despair, yet it is ultimately the tribes and their relationship with the player which determine how they react.

Players are faced with various situations, yet Crest prides itself in there being no right or wrong choices. Players are allowed to deal with the world in any way they deem fit, taking the tribes in whichever direction they prefer. Inherently, this means that players can forge their tribes or destroy them, yet the game’s exploratory facet makes experimentation all the more enjoyable.

Crest’s gameplay is full of symbolism, and it builds on it in its graphical style by drawing inspiration from African cultures. The minimalistic approach, alongside the liberal approach taken in the game’s art, just add to the symbolism and the overall mythological theme. The simple graphics are representative of the game’s deeper meaning and interpretive gameplay, and further progress will add to this experience and to the player’s perception vis-à-vis the game’s tribes.

Eat Create Sleep has big plans for Crest, which is currently awaiting the green light on Steam. Central to the game’s theme will be the procedurally-generated content, which will make each playthrough distinct, and players will have to face the various challenges offered by different types of environments. Coupled with the legacy system being developed by Eat Create Sleep, Crest promises to affront the player with the necessity of evolving alongside the world they build.

Whilst the player’s actions influence the world and its tribes, the decisions also affect future generations. Adding an extra layer of depth into the game, this system would place the player in a situation where the goal isn’t just for a tribe to prosper, but for society to blossom – literally writing history.

With no planned campaign or story modes, Eat Create Sleep’s intentions are clear – the way the game plays out is completely up to the player. Respect can be won and lost, trust built or shattered, and players’ beliefs are challenged as he is pushed to think about the theme of his play-through.

In comments given to Invision Game Community, Eat Create Sleep reiterated the importance of the game as an experience which allows the player to build the world as he wants, interpreting the goals he sets himself. The game will put aside combat and wars, focusing instead on allowing the player to immerse himself on his own tribes and experience. Sounds too easy?

Managing a community is never simple, much less as a god. Inter-religion conflicts are projected to be in the final release, whilst different school of thoughts will further affect how different tribes perceive commandments.

Meanwhile, whilst Crest will have no conventional multiplayer modes to speak of, the team behind Crest also revealed to Invision Game Community that they are working on a system which will make it possible for different players to take over other players’ worlds.

Still awaiting the green light on Steam and looking for funding on Indiegogo, Crest is turning the god-game genre on its head, reinventing its formula. Art challenges our way of thinking and our fundamental stances, and that is exactly what Crest does, as early as in its prototype. You have bent orders and rewritten commandments before, but can you cope with being on the other end?