Crest is a Laid-back Sandbox God Simulator

We first covered Crest about a year ago, when it was campaigning for funding on IndieGoGo. After crowdfunding ended successfully, Eat Create Sleep continued to work on their god simulator, which recently arrived on Steam Early Access.

“Did god shape mankind, or did mankind shape god?” is the principal question in Crest. The player assumes the role of a god indirectly guiding tribes through lifetimes and generations. The only way to influence them is by communicating with commandments, setting guidelines for life by arranging symbols. The made-up rules seem pretty straightforward: Reproduce more if you have high good will, if you have high greed reproduce less, etc. The symbols offer many ways to influence the people who actually interpret the rules according to their own intellect, and the results could be unexpected.

Terrain changes with rainfall, and folks farm for food, reproduce, and hoard resources on the tropical island. The procedurally generated world changes over time, with vegetation and animals popping up. Currently, the creators estimate each playthrough to be about 15-30 minutes (until the inevitable civilization end comes), but that should increase to about 1-2 hours with updates. There is no current option to save games now, and in the future it will have only one save per session, so that players can see the consequences of their commandments.

There are still many more features to come, like additional interactions with animals and bigger variety to commandments. Right now, the game is at version 0.6, and expecting a release this Summer. Crest is compatible with Windows, Mac, and Linux.

Head over to the Steam page to get started on drafting commandments for the guinea pigs- err, humans. Crest is priced at $4.99