From Dust - Eric Chahi Q&A Feature

Eric Chahi is the legendary game design visionary behind 1991 Amiga classic, Another World. After a long hiatus from the games industry following the release of Heart of Darkness in 1998, Chahi has returned to development with From Dust; an existential voyage of discovery mediated via a stunning virtual simulation of real-world geological processes. The game is a god-sim - somewhat like a modern 3D Populous - in which you sculpt the land, gaining powers as a result of the successful propagation of your tribes-people. You play as The Breath, a spiritual manifestation of the tribe, inextricably linked with the humans you shepherd. In the following interview with this astonishing gaming luminary, TVG learnt more about From Dust, and the ideas that inspired it.

What are you hoping that players will feel when they play the game?

Okay, that's an interesting question. This game is - well it's not clear when you play it because there's a lot of change - it's really a game about the passage of time, the fact that time is moving, and I really want the player to feel this through a world which is impermanent – always changing - and  where the static is the exception. So it's why in the game there is some scale, some geological thing that has been compressed; the time-scale of some phenomena like erosion, like the creation of volcanoes, it happens much  faster than we know in our experience, our life, because at our scale it looks very static when we watch a mountain or river, and so I really wanted to bring this change of passage into the game.

Yes, and even The Breath is always moving...

Yes, yes moving.. and even, people are becoming old. It's a side of the game which is much... it's a step back from the rest; it was supposed to be more present but it is still there...  and there are a lot of cycling things....

Was there anything in particular that was behind the inspiration for the game?

Definitely volcanoes (laughs). And also Desert, erosion, and life in general; even just seeing some photos of people that were young and then old; everything which is connected to the time. Also the idea that things can survive along with time, like this totem; they are here but we don't know from where or when they are.

I wanted to ask about the role of vegetation in the game,  and what function that serves?

Right now, the role is to... you mean in the gameplay or in the simulation? There are different elements...

Okay... In the gameplay.

In the gameplay well... the role is to have an activity for the player linked with the simulation, an activity about the propagation of the vegetation, but also it brings some changing elements like fire and it gives you a feeling that... well it brings a feeling of life; because without this it would be really, really dry.

Does vegetation increase the rate of reproduction, if there's more  around?

The speed is much faster than we know. There is another kind of vegetation which can block the humans, because in the pine tree humans can walk, but there is another kind of vegetation that doesn't propagate with fire, a vegetation that stops human displacement.

So it's got a sort of sculptural feel to it almost, like moulding clay.  It seems like it might fit with PlayStation Move controls; are there any plans for that sort of thing?

Well, it could be nice, but the fact is, we are a small team and we had so much to do to make this game; we prefer to focus really on the pad, which really gives a strong experience. I'm not sure that the experience would be much better with motion controls.

So looking at the campaign, it seems like there's this journey, and the tribe are rediscovering things about the past. It's a journey of discovery, in some ways similar to Another World perhaps; that was almost a journey of discovery, you didn't know what was coming and you were learning new things. Is this a thread that you intentionally... do you feel that you're revisiting a theme from earlier here?

Maybe it's something more personal to bring a lot of mysterious things to the world, indeed... I love to bring an original universe, but an original universe that can be shaped.. that is not finished, that continues to be shaped in the player's mind, you see what I mean? At the beginning of the game you know a few things about these people and the player will know more things, but even as he knows more things there is a lot of room to build a more, and I feel that... [how long have we got? PR – we've got about three minutes or so – Eric – Okay.. Okay.. ]

Okay just to tell you one thing, I’m not used to saying, well it's about the music. I did some research about different music and especially African music, and one point is very interesting in some African music; some music, in some places - on the contrary of our music which we try to make pure music, harmonic, pure harmonic -  in their music they are deliberately adding some things on the string to make noise, because it reflects the complexity of life, and I think that in From Dust, especially... life is something complex and I want to let room to build – for the player – to build, different hypotheses about what is this world and the question about the relationship between man and nature, and so …. I feel very close to this philosophy about physic.

Do you play an instrument yourself?

Unfortunately, I tried... but I'm not a good musician, and I programmed during some years too to build some sentence synthesis; I love to compose some little things, but well... no, I'm not a musician.

In terms of the tribe and how they interact with you.... I mean obviously in games like Black  & White, their level of belief and so forth gave you power, is there that sort of interaction here? What's the interaction between how well the tribe do, and your powers as a player?

Okay, there are no moral things in that sense; if you are doing bad things to your tribe, they will not hate you. But if you're bad with your tribe – because you get – well... if there are no more humans you will lose, and if you destroy a village that has a power, you will lose that power, so you're connected to the tribe but it's not so direct... well there is no moral and err... It's really, it would be interesting to build some additional psychological things about the people - their behaviour - but its complex and we prefer to focus on a more simple game; you can get lost in too much... but its an interesting question anyway.

TVG would like to thank Eric Chahi for taking the time to speak with us about From Dust, which is due out in the summer over XBLA, PSN, and the PC.