Goats and amethysts.

No.

Blueberries and frogs.

No?

What do you little bobbleheads want from me?

Reus is a resource management god-sim that has you taking on the role of the planet itself, controlling four powerful giants that carry out your will and alter the landscape to your whim. You can create trees and animal life, grow entire plots of fertile swampland, and one of your giants can even punch veins of precious stones directly into the crust.

All of this, to attract the ungrateful little bobbleheads known as man to build great cities upon your surface. The humans create many great works on their own- well, with your help. Your giants can directly influence whether or not they complete their projects (do you really want a mad scientist around? How about a sacrificial altar?) by altering the landscape further, creating new resources that meet the goals of these projects. The more you complete, the more varying projects and resources you unlock, and thus the rabbit hole goes deeper. You can even unlock longer game-times as well, allowing more time to create and build, and allowing more time for the humans to try and rise up against you and your giants.

They do go to war with each other. And they'll attack your god titans too, which is a curious choice. Your giants can slaughter them back, as any good vengeful potential goddess will be happy to know.

The game can get quite complicated as you go on, however, the title screen provides a link to the Reus wiki, which will give a lot of ideas and help.

The graphics themselves are cartoony and relatively simple looking, but always bright and interesting to look at. The game is on a 2D scale, all around the surface of the planet. Your giants traverse the outside of the planet as well, so some of your time will be spent waiting for the big lugs to get to where they're going, but since their abilities have cool-down meters, that isn't too much of a problem. The soundtrack is rather limited, though, so have some of your own music handy for the longer games.

Overall, Reus is a well-designed god game. It'll start off just slow enough to get you hooked, and keep you in for the long haul as you look to see what you can accomplish next.

"Can the Rock Giant create a boulder that it cannot lift ?" ~Loading Screen tip

I’ve always been a huge fan of so called ‘sim games’, so playing Reus seemed inevitable to me. If You’ve ever heard, or better, played legendary ‘Black & White’ series, You’ll instantly notice some similarities between those two titles. They both may be called “God simulation games”, ‘cause in both of them we take up a role of tremendous beings, with power to shape the world itself, and the humans are only there as some kind of a cattle, growing and expanding their culture thanks to, or despite our actions.

In Reus, we get to control not one, but four godlike beings – The Giants, awoken from their slumber by the power of The Planet itself, in order to reshape it, and make habitable for humans. Each of those cute beings rules over one aspect of the planet – oceans, forests, swamps and mountains/desserts, but in order to restore life, and make it blossom again, they’ll need to use, and combine all of their powers.

One of the main problems Giants will encounter, and an inspiration behind the game itself, will be a growing greed of the human race. This feature not only defines gameplay pace, but also may prove crucial in achieving game objectives, required to unlock more complex resources. Basically the more goods You’ll provide to humans, the more they’ll want, and while trying to get them they’ll no compromise, resolving to fighting with each other, launching a full scale war or even attempting an attack on The Giants themselves.

But the best thing about ‘Reus’ is a seemingly endless, and flexible number of possible development strategies. Every resource created has its own unique “symbiosis” making it more potent under certain conditions. For example certain plant may provide more “food” while growing next to a mineral, which may also benefit further from the nearby animal nest. With 108 different types of resources present in total, You’ll need a long time to discover all potentially useful combinations, and craft Your own unique strategy to master the game, and help Your humans complete most challenging projects !

The last thing worth mentioning about this game, are its undoubtedly beautiful visuals. The whole planet, The Giants, and human villages are set in a cute, round and pleasant 2D environment. This concept fits the game perfectly, and in symbiosis (sic.) with a good soundtrack makes a perfectly addicting combination definitely worth it’s price !

Pros:
- Extremely high replayability.
- In-game milestones provide targets for every round.
- Intense theorycrafting is possible, due to a huge number of possible choices.
- Lively community, developing its own challenges, and competitions. (Official Reus Forum)
- Cute and enjoyable visuals.

Cons:
- Unusual gameplay, may be boring for some players.
- It takes time to figure out every aspect of the game.

I was going to hold off writing this review until I had more time in the game, but I woke up this morning confused as to why everything wasn't labled with their resource value, so I guess you can say it's made an impression. Theoretically, Reus is very similar to most civ-strategy games. Resource management is the core mechanic, upgrades are vitally important for continued advancement, great works will occupy a lot of your energy, and warfare is an ever-looming danger. What sets Reus apart is that you're not trying to make one civilization the best in the world; instead, you ARE the world, and you're trying to make ALL civilization succeed.
You exert your will via four semi-elemental Giants - titans, really - each with unique but related powers that alter the landscape of your surface. Humans will automatically settle and then try to form a civilization depending on what resources you give them. You then care for your babies, give them what they need, what they want, and watch as they thrive. But be careful not to give them too much, or they'll grow greedy and war-like; at this point, you either sit back and watch them form an empire, or take action and smite their army - or the entire town.
The game's replay value comes largely from its slew of challenges, which largely boil down to "Be this successful with these limitations." The only way to complete these challenges is by repeatedly playing the game until you understand how resources interact with each other - called Symbiosis because, you know, nature - so that you can maximize resource output with minimal combinations. Completing these challenges unlocks further Transmutations (resource upgrades) that then make it possible to complete even more challenges. So yes, the achievements actually mean something, which means that every time you play, you have to play differently. So if the game gets boring, well, that's your problem.

The penultimate god game, light years ahead of B&W or Populous. Tons of possible combinations, developments and challenges to explore, addictive and fun all the way through, that's Reus - one of the best strategy games I've ever played and probably the best indie game out there. Only one little 3D step from perfection. Not that there's anything wrong with it being 2D, but I'm still hoping for Reus 2 to venture that direction.

Reus, the Dutch word for giant. What an appropriate name for a game with such scale. At first glance Abbey Games’ Reus may not look like much, a simple god game with a lack of depth and strategy. But with further examination there is more to Reus than meets the eye. If you can get past the slow start of tutorials there is a surprising amount to learn and discover.

In Reus you are the planet and control 4 giants, the Forest Giant who can create the forest biome as well as basic plant life. The Swamp Giant who can create the swamp biome as well as animals and plants. The Ocean Giant who creates the ocean biome allowing the planet’s soil to support forests and swamps and the Rock Giant who creates the desert biome and raises mountains as well as minerals from the earth’s surface. All these giants are used together to create increasingly advanced forms of life as you progress through the game.

Creating life attracts humans; humans will create villages on your planet in the varying environments provided. These villages will start out as simple towns, but can grow into prospering cities when the right resources have been expanded and advanced. Villages will construct projects requiring certain amounts of food, wealth and technology from resources to be completed. Once completed ambassadors will be asked to join your giants, unlocking new abilities and resources. Reus features many different mechanics including a greed system that can lead to wars with other villages and eventually the giants themselves. Reus is best played when the player is left to discover the game by themselves so I won’t spoil anymore and really, there is too much for me to get into detail about everything.

The way you progress through Reus is rather interesting, and for me the most engaging part of the experience. Progression through the game is made by the collection of achievements, the game is on a timer and when you first start you are given 30 minutes to evolve your planet and complete the goals required to earn achievements. Earn enough and longer time periods are granted. Achievements also unlock greater and more powerful plants, minerals and animal life so it is certainly necessary, and satisfying to collect them all.

Your level of enjoyment in Reus will be determined by the kind of player you are. For me, Reus really engaged me, and immersed me in its world. It had my interest right from the start and that interest continued to grow as I discovered everything the game had to offer. However, I am the kind of player who loves to collect things, loves to level up my character until it reaches maximum rank. If activities such as achievement collecting or world building does not interest you your opinion on Reus may vary, but even so I have to recommend Reus to everyone. Even if it doesn’t seem like the kind of game you would enjoy I strongly suggest that you give Reus a shot. You could end up having a great time of gigantic proportions!