Earlier this month at WWDC, we checked out an assortment of upcoming titles from Crescent Moon Games and their various partners. One of those titles was Topia, an interesting looking sim-style world creation game. It is being developed in conjunction with Glenn Corpes, creator of iOS racer Ground Effect [$1.99] and a former Bullfrog employee who worked on Peter Molyneux's classic strategy simulation Populous.

The Populous influence was apparent in that preview video, as in Topia you're given a colorful planet whose ground elevation can be manipulated and shaped using the touch screen. Exactly what type of game Topia will ultimately end up being is still being fleshed out, but so far we know that there will be various creatures who end up inhabiting your planet in great numbers, and a focal point will be to herd certain creatures together by using ground manipulation.

The world in the build of Topia that we saw at WWDC had tons of interesting characters running around, but they seemed to lack any sort of intelligence. That aspect of the game is starting to shape up as you can see in the following video with commentary from Josh Presseisen of Crescent Moon.

As you can see, Topia can display an impressive number of creatures onscreen at once, and the terrain manipulation and herding mechanics are definitely looking more fleshed out. The game is also quite beautiful, and based on the pedigree behind both Crescent Moon's and Glenn Corpes' previous work I feel pretty confident that whatever Topia turns out to be in the end will be something pretty interesting. You can head into our forums for discussion of the game and we'll keep our eyes on Topia as it continues to evolve during its development.