What if God Was One of Us: Godus
Written by: Adam "ManKorn" Korenman, CC2K Video Games Editor
The Carpal Tunneled Hand of God
In Black and White, the player controlled the disembodied hand of a god, and through their actions the they shaped the landscaped and overall style of the world. Play as an Old Testament, wrath and vengeance type god and the world becomes fiery and bleak, and your hands becomes withered and cruel. On the other side, you could paint the world with bright flowers and earn an intricate celestial tattoo for your good deeds.
If this element is coming in Godus, it must be in the next 50% of development.
There is no hand in this world, just the ever present triangular cursor. While using some god powers a finger appears, but that’s about as much personality as we have seen from our all-powerful lord. Again, this is a Beta, so many elements of the final design remain shrouded in mystery. Still, it would be nice to see some semblance of personality emerging in the next few months of play.
As god, you have the ability to shape the landscape in a way Black and White never even dreamed. However, this idea is less fun in practice than one would think. Until you have unlocked the power to pull multiple levels of land at once (through a painfully implemented card system) you’ll need to drag each layer one by one until you’ve sculpted the hills and mountains into something more habitable. Since the long game is about population growth, and since only flat land yields high-capacity lodges, you’ll be tearing down that beautiful landscape as fast as you can.
And each tug costs you. Belief is the currency of choice, and it is implemented in a visually pleasing manner. Each household generates belief over time, and once enough has accrued it hovers above the abode in an undulating pink bubble. You pop these bubbles with the cursor (with a very satisfying pop and chime) and then you have something to play with. Unfortunately, belief is apparently suffering from inflation. Taking down a single mountain range can cost upwards of 200K belief. This wouldn’t be a problem if huts could generate more than a few hundred belief every HOUR.
It ends up making the game feel more like a cell-phone title, where you play for a minute and then wait for all your action points to regenerate. I would not be surprised if an in-game purchasing mechanic made an appearance in the next update.