Note: This article previously appeared in Cult of Mac Magazine, available in the App Store.
Godus is the upcoming game from god-game specialist designer Peter Molyneux. The game will play on Mac and iOS seamlessly, letting you create and nurture your own little island paradise on one platform and then watch it develop on the other.
“We want to reinvent the genre of god-games,” Molyneux told Cult of Mac from his vantage point in a suite at the swanky Intercontinental Hotel.
Molyneux is known for thinking big. Godus will have an always-connected universe of over 50 million player/gods to manage over one trillion follower characters on a planet the size of Jupiter. The goal here, said Molyneux, is to make this kind of game accessible and easy to learn, but provide endless amounts of depth and customization.
Jack Attridge, the right-hand man for Godus, took Cult of Mac through a quick tour of his own private island, showing off the easy landscaping (just touch and drag to form new land formations) and the “belief points” players earn as a benevolent deity in the game.
“You start the game with just two little people, who assume you are their god; the start to believe in you and follow you,” Attridge said.
The little folks are named after people on your Twitter and Facebook feed, which is easily connected to within the Godus game.
The gameplay is quiet, gentle and subtle, which seems to match Molyneux’s quiet though passionate voice with overtones of his native Surrey. Godus is a game the 22 Cans team want you playing long after the first rush of excitement, and they’re hoping to monetize it ethically. It will be it free to download, but it offer gentle ways to enrich your play with in-app purchases and interactions that–hopefully–won’t burn out the player base any time soon.
“Internally, I like to call it an ‘invest to play’ title, to make it nice to our players,” said Molyneux.
Attridge dragged his finger around the iPad screen, sculpting the land to allow followers to get from one area to another. Tapping on the little houses encouraged people to come out and build new houses on available landscape. Adding trees was as simple as choosing them from your god-like power screen and tapping on the ground, anywhere you like; the saplings will then grow over time into full trees.
Molyneux remarked, “You can sculpt on your iPhone and watch it happen on your Mac; it’s all one world.”
Godus is available now on Steam via the early access program, but it’s not interconnected yet; the team is waiting for the iOS launch to make that a reality sometime in mid-April this year when they soft-launch the game in Sweden, Denmark, New Zealand, Ireland and the Philippines.
What a nice way to pass the time; we’re looking forward to spending ours in this new world from one of the most fertile minds in the gaming industry, brought forth by the talented team he’s surrounded himself with.
