Crest - an indirect god game
- July 21, 2015
- Eat Create Sleep
- 3h median play time
Get on Steam
Get on itch.io Store"Crest" is a god simulation game set in Sub-Saharan Africa where your words are law. By issuing commandments in an evolving pictographic language, guide your followers, but be aware that their interpretation may not always align with your intentions. Their experiences and free will shape their religion, and the consequences of your actions may be unpredictable.
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Reviews
- Unique and engrossing concept where players create their own religion and influence followers through commandments.
- Beautiful art style and calming soundtrack enhance the overall experience.
- Interesting mechanics that allow for unexpected outcomes based on follower interpretations of commandments.
- Gameplay can feel repetitive and lacks depth, leading to a sense of boredom after a short time.
- Followers often misinterpret commandments, leading to frustrating and unintended consequences.
- Limited control over followers and lack of clear objectives can make the game feel aimless.
- gameplay74 mentions
- 18 % positive mentions
- 73 % neutral mentions
- 9 % negative mentions
The gameplay of this title is characterized by its unique commandment-driven mechanics, allowing players to indirectly manage their followers through a simplistic yet intriguing system. However, many users find the mechanics overwhelming and lacking depth, leading to a repetitive experience that diminishes engagement over time. While the graphics and initial fun are praised, the overall consensus suggests that the game requires further development to enhance its gameplay variety and depth.
“The graphics are excellent, the gameplay is quite fun, and the music is good.”
“It has a wonderfully distinctive visual style and an original and interesting gameplay using commandments to indirectly manage your settlement and followers.”
“Unique, commandment-driven gameplay.”
“Tons of gameplay components that didn't really affect the game in any way: the underworld I visited once and never again, the water maps could be ignored because the environment didn't seem to really matter, most of the skills tree can't even be unlocked, resource levels and city relationships just really don't matter to completing the objectives... it was a ton of tutorial for very little that actually came into play.”
“The gameplay might be simple, but it's also simplistic, and feels antagonistically one-dimensional despite any attempt by the player to bring strategy, tactics, or immersion into it.”
“Unfortunately, standing alone, this mechanic is not enough to hold my interest.”
- graphics67 mentions
- 37 % positive mentions
- 57 % neutral mentions
- 6 % negative mentions
The graphics of the game have received mixed reviews, with many praising the unique and charming art style, described as minimalistic, low-poly, and reminiscent of African aesthetics. However, some players have noted performance issues, including frame rate drops and optimization problems, which detract from the overall experience. While the visuals are generally considered beautiful and engaging, they may not appeal to everyone, particularly those who prefer more realistic graphics.
“The graphics are also amazing, and I really like the art style of it all.”
“The character designs and graphics have a charmingly stylized chunkiness to them that is both comical and endearing.”
“The aesthetic is gorgeous, and really needs to be seen in motion to be appreciated.”
“This is a decent idea for a game but it does not work when poorly executed and the devs decide to move on and there is something completely killing the game in terms of frame rate no matter what the graphics are set to.”
“But no .... when playing on graphics: simple & size: 1920x1080, it lags like crazy and for some reason my CPU temp gets extremely hot.”
“I still don't recommend this game/sim, it's boring, bland, graphically impaired (even if this game was nice, the graphics wouldn't be important), goal-less and extremely difficult to know what to do plus almost nothing to help you out on how and what to do to progress in the game.”
- music20 mentions
- 50 % positive mentions
- 35 % neutral mentions
- 15 % negative mentions
The music in the game has received widespread praise for its quality and fittingness, with many reviewers noting its soothing and relaxing nature. The soundtrack is described as outstanding, epic, and reminiscent of classic strategy game music, effectively enhancing the overall gaming experience. Additionally, players appreciate the availability of the soundtrack as DLC, further highlighting its appeal.
“The soundtrack in Crest is absolutely outstanding, and feels as worldly as playing Age of Empires II felt the first time.”
“It's honestly hard to describe how epic and inspiring the music here is; it's impressively fitting of the cultural subject matter and diverse in its instrumentations, bringing to mind some of the best old strategy game soundtracks.”
“The music is soothing and relaxing, making it very enjoyable to play.”
“The music and tone of the game is done well.”
“The music is soothing.”
“Relaxing music.”
- humor12 mentions
- 100 % positive mentions
- 0 % neutral mentions
- 0 % negative mentions
The humor in the game is characterized by its clever and often absurd interpretations of player commands by followers, leading to both hilarious and frustrating outcomes. While the comedic elements can become repetitive after a few hours, the creative misinterpretations and unexpected results provide a consistent source of amusement, making the experience enjoyable for players who appreciate quirky humor. Overall, the game successfully blends humor with gameplay mechanics, resulting in entertaining and sometimes chaotic scenarios.
“A bit gimmicky, but very funny and creative.”
“With that in mind, I think you might get a lot of enjoyment out of watching your insane little ant farm spread, adapt, and hilariously pervert and misinterpret your will.”
“The gimmick here is that depending on how faithful each follower is, they are more or less likely to take your word literally, and this is paired with an internal system where they learn word associations based on their individual life experiences, all of which leads to humorous 'story' screens that show their misguided attempts to understand the world.”
- story11 mentions
- 18 % positive mentions
- 55 % neutral mentions
- 27 % negative mentions
The game's story aspect is characterized by its directionless nature, where players are encouraged to create their own narratives through the interactions and experiences of their followers. While the game imposes early quests to unlock new words, leading to a somewhat random progression, it ultimately allows for humorous and varied storytelling based on the followers' interpretations and actions. This approach may not appeal to everyone, but it fosters a unique storytelling experience reminiscent of games like Dwarf Fortress, where failure can lead to entertaining and unexpected outcomes.
“The gimmick here is that depending on how faithful each follower is, they are more or less likely to take your word literally, and this is paired with an internal system where they learn word associations based on their individual life experiences, all of which leads to humorous 'story' screens that show their misguided attempts to understand the world.”
“While the lack of goals may discourage some, I find that it sits in the Dwarf Fortress mentality of 'losing is fun'; it's a story generator in a way such as how your followers mixed up your commandments and took up cannibalism or decided to feed all the old people to lions.”
“The big problem here is that for a game that claims to be a directionless god sim/story generator, it very much forces you to complete the 'quests' in the early game.”
“There is no story, nothing to accomplish except to encourage people to spread and try to keep them from eating each other or turning against you.”
“However, it's made to be ambiguous to produce a different story in every playthrough.”
- grinding11 mentions
- 9 % positive mentions
- 0 % neutral mentions
- 91 % negative mentions
Players find the grinding aspect of the game to be a mixed experience; while some appreciate the slow-paced, relaxing nature of managing resources and ecosystems, others criticize it as tedious and frustrating, particularly when it comes to unlocking farming technology and managing overhunting. The game's mechanics can lead to unintended consequences, such as resource depletion, which adds to the challenge but can also detract from enjoyment. Overall, the balance between managing growth and resource sustainability is a central theme that players either embrace or find cumbersome.
“It's relaxing, not tedious, and it's accessible as opposed to deep or complex.”
“On the opposite side, the game is slow-paced even at 3 speed; followers tend to overhunt animals, and unlocking words is tedious.”
“This is beyond tedious.”
“The game's use of graphics and its interfacing system to allow you to manage your religion and its people is tedious at best.”
- stability10 mentions
- 0 % positive mentions
- 0 % neutral mentions
- 100 % negative mentions
The game's stability has been a significant concern among users, with many reporting persistent bugs, lag, and issues with game mechanics, such as saving progress. Despite these problems, some players express optimism about the developers' commitment to addressing these glitches through updates, indicating a balance between enjoyment and frustration. Overall, while the game is fun, its stability issues detract from the experience.
“It feels less like 'talk to your followers and have them interpret your commandments' and more like just trying to play a buggy city builder where sometimes the wrong thing happens.”
“Game was buggy and laggy.”
“It is still rather buggy - sometimes when you try to save and quit it will not let you actually save the game.”
- optimization9 mentions
- 33 % positive mentions
- 33 % neutral mentions
- 33 % negative mentions
The game's optimization has received mixed reviews, with many players experiencing significant stuttering and performance issues, particularly on lower-end systems or with specific settings like ultrawide displays. While some improvements have been noted in recent patches, users recommend lowering graphics settings and managing in-game resources to enhance performance. Overall, the game appears to require further optimization to fully realize its potential.
“Ps: With the latest patch released, I can finally play it on my Mac without any crashes and performance issues.”
“The isometric style is enchanting in its simplicity, but to get the best performance, I'd recommend dropping the graphics down a notch.”
“Also: I'm sure the developer will optimize AI performance, but right now it seems to be a bit of a resource hog, so if your computer is not keeping up, lower the amount of animals and islands!”
“With about 100 followers, the game is stuttering like hell and is no fun anymore.”
“But while my laptop has no problem running vanilla Kerbal Space Program at full framerate, this game stutters and runs slowly.”
“Maybe it's a platform thing, but whether it's the graphics or what the main loop is doing in the background, it seems horribly optimized for whatever it's doing.”
- replayability6 mentions
- 50 % positive mentions
- 0 % neutral mentions
- 50 % negative mentions
Overall, the game's replayability is criticized for lacking meaningful variety and impact, with procedural generation and tech trees feeling more like obstacles than enhancements. Players express that while the potential for replayability exists, it often results in frustration rather than engaging gameplay, leading to a perception of limited actual replay value.
“While rapid replayability and changing environments are a great idea.”
“It's a tricky puzzle; it's procedurally generated for replayability, but it feels like smashing your face into a brick wall and running out of options.”
“The tech tree seems to force replayability by not letting you unlock all the techs, but I don't think the techs are interesting enough to justify starting a new game to see how they affect things.”
“Could have been great with RNG elements that could have added replayability, and which could have made the commandments impactful.”
“While occasionally this helps with replayability, more often than not it proves to be a hindrance.”
“All of this amounts to a game that, though open-ended, has very little actual replay value.”
- emotional3 mentions
- 100 % positive mentions
- 0 % neutral mentions
- 0 % negative mentions
Players find the emotional aspect of the game to be deeply impactful, with moments of poignant gratitude from characters contrasting with feelings of disconnection and lack of purpose. The combination of touching interactions and the struggle to engage meaningfully creates a bittersweet experience that resonates with many.
- character development1 mentions
- 100 % positive mentions
- 0 % neutral mentions
- 0 % negative mentions
The character development is highlighted by charmingly stylized designs that feature a comical and endearing chunkiness, contributing to the overall appeal of the characters.
“The character designs and graphics have a charmingly stylized chunkiness to them that is both comical and endearing.”
- atmosphere1 mentions
- 300 % positive mentions
- -200 % neutral mentions
- 0 % negative mentions
Reviewers consistently praise the game's atmosphere and graphics, highlighting them as standout features that significantly enhance the overall experience.
“The atmosphere and graphics are truly wonderful.”
“The game's atmosphere immerses you completely, making every moment feel alive.”
“The hauntingly beautiful soundtrack perfectly complements the stunning visuals, creating an unforgettable atmosphere.”
