GAMETECH: Dragon Quest Builders builds on the past

THE best games build on what came before. They take the strongest parts of their competitors and break them down to form something even better. Dragon Quest Builders takes this to a whole new level, building on the past in more ways than one.

For a start, this is clearly a game built upon the success of Minecraft. You only need one look at the screenshots to understand this.

The core gameplay of Dragon Quest Builders is entirely modelled on Mojang’s cultural phenomenon, where the world is made of blocks that can be broken down into crafting pieces, which themselves can be combined into new items and structures. It’s where Lego and gaming collide.

Yet, unlike other Minecraft follow-ups, Dragon Quest Builders doesn’t just build on Mojang’s success. Dragon Quest is a legendary series with a 30-year history of its own — and this game quite literally builds on that past too. In a lovely twist, Builders is set in the same world as the very first Dragon Quest game, right after the events of that game finished. In agreeing to ‘share’ world domination with the evil wizard at the end of Dragon Quest, the hero actually destroyed the world.

Now, the new hero must ‘rebuild’ that world to make it whole again.

The result is a game that combines the spirit of Minecraft with the direction and quest structure of a classic Japanese RPG. A common complaint about Minecraft is its lack of purpose (beyond building and exploring) and Dragon Quest Builders answers those complaints beautifully.

The goal is to rebuild each continent on the world of Alefgard, which you do by exploring the surrounding landscape on each continent, collecting crafting materials and constructing a home ‘base’ to serve as a new settlement for villagers to live in. To begin with, you start by making simple houses and basic defence structures against the re-awakened monsters, but later you’ll be building all kinds of cool stuff, like fire turrets. If you wander off and explore the beautiful world, beating enemies and breaking new blocks, then you’ll discover new things to build on your own. If you prefer more structure, then the villagers will give you quests and direction instead. It’s a welcome balance for those of us who aren’t satisfied with building for the sake of building.

The combat in the game is a bit clunky, but it’s still fun to hunt for new enemies and the rare crafting material they might drop, plus it adds some much-needed action to an otherwise slow-paced and meditative genre. And while Dragon Quest Builders is a direct sequel to the original game from 1986 and a member of the Quest family, don’t expect an involved storyline or an epic RPG plot — the dialogue is highly amusing, but the story is thinner than a wafer’s hairline.

In every sense, Dragon Quest Builders shows what can happen when you take a good foundation and build on it. It’s the first Minecraft wannabe that will appeal to people who don’t get Minecraft. And this is only the first version — the next build could be even better.

ATOM UNIVERSE

Speaking of building blocks, atoms are some of the most fundamental in our universe. Which is why Atom Universe has gotten off to a rocky start. Atom Universe is a social-interaction game (like Second Life) that is currently on ‘early access’ mode on PlayStation Network. Early Access games are work-in-progress games that are made available to gamers so developers can tweak and test them.

That’s a good idea in principle, but Atom Universe is so empty and devoid of content that it may turn players away permanently.

Currently, you can create a simple human avatar, run around some empty areas (like a theme park and a house in the mountains) and chat with other players, but little else. In the future, the developers promise games like karting and bowling, but for now there’s very little to build on.

UPDATES TO OVERWATCH

Blizzard promised they would build on the success of Overwatch at no extra cost to the players. Now it looks like the latest free updates to the game are on the way. Halloween skins (costumes) are coming for the entire roster and there’s a new character coming too – the hacker Sombra. Now that’s how you build customer loyalty.