Molyneux's Godus Now Available Via Steam Early Access

[1337mokro]

Because "Winging it" is the motto 22 cans lives by.

"We released an experiment in seeing how many idiots we can trick into purchasing micro-transactions for a game that is literally nothing but tapping by exploiting human curiosity with a mysterious prize.

Oh crap! People actually managed to get close to the end. We have to figure out some kind of prize now. Didn't we start a kickstarter game that isn't even guaranteed to get funded or made? Let's give the guy that gets to the end the prize of being a god in that game.

Shit! We didn't actually think making someone a god through. He'd basically dictate the entire way the game worked by setting arbitrary rules so we have to limit what he actually can do, basically renegging on what was a prize in a contest and cutting his power dramatically.

ZOMG! I just realized how crappy our Godus game actually is. It barely has any functionality, no resource mechanics, obtuse time consuming design for no reason, it's basically a facebook game! Let's take the money we got from people wanting a Populus successor for the PC and instead partner with a mobile game publisher. Cause the PC crowd is gonna roast us for this POS, the mobile crowd however couldn't tell this POS from the gazillion other POS they have already installed!

We are gonna make bank selling this to the drooling idiots in the mobile games markets who think a game where you tap something to make something happen is mind blowing. Why didn't we think of this before. We are so totally gonna milk people dry when we add MICROTRANSACTIONS TO A CROWDFUNDED GAME!!! Screw the backers, we got their money so they can go fuck themselves. You'd think they'd learn after 5 failed Molyneux games, but guess not. Lucky us!"

That was a short excerpt from the company e-mail box.

 

[Lazy Kitty]

I've played it a little bit last night.
Having to click followers to keep them alive is a pain.

I agree, at first I though it's a pretty alright game, but then I slowly but steadily felt like I'm actually in an iPhone game where I need to keep tapping houses to get anything. Now I feel slightly annoyed that I wasted my money on this.
seriously, how hard can it be to not make a game insanely repititive and click intensive. it feels like Minecraft without any crafting, hunting or whatever, just mining blocks, and you are only allowed to place ONE after mining a whole ten of them. AAARGH.

Well, after a little bit more playing I actually got the hang of it.
You don't have to send your followers out of their house unless it's to build more houses.
Or attack an enemy.
All you have to do is make more flat space for houses to be built on.

I mostly mean the manual collection of faith, the breeding thing is remotely ok.

Ah, yes.
I wonder if there'll be a more automated way later on.

 

[cwmdulais]

I've played it a little bit last night.
Having to click followers to keep them alive is a pain.

I agree, at first I though it's a pretty alright game, but then I slowly but steadily felt like I'm actually in an iPhone game where I need to keep tapping houses to get anything. Now I feel slightly annoyed that I wasted my money on this.
seriously, how hard can it be to not make a game insanely repititive and click intensive. it feels like Minecraft without any crafting, hunting or whatever, just mining blocks, and you are only allowed to place ONE after mining a whole ten of them. AAARGH.

Well, after a little bit more playing I actually got the hang of it.
You don't have to send your followers out of their house unless it's to build more houses.
Or attack an enemy.
All you have to do is make more flat space for houses to be built on.

I mostly mean the manual collection of faith, the breeding thing is remotely ok.

Ah, yes.
I wonder if there'll be a more automated way later on.

there seems to be with settlements, which ive unlocked after about 4 hours of casual play. it isnt automatic but it seems to absorb all the nearby faith into one giant bubble, drastically reducing the amount of clicking needed

 

[New Troll]

So Black and White MMO?

When I first saw this game I was really interested. A 3D Populous!?! Yes!

But now I'm finding out it's more like an MMO than a remake of that classic... no thanks.

 

[Proverbial Jon]

After watching Nerd³'s look at the beta it doesn't look promising guys. A lot of tedious clicking, clunky mechanics and, of course, micro transactions! I know it's only beta, which Dan recognises, but damn it's a very bare bones start.

 

[Smooth Operator]

I would keep my money for now, because it is very much a case of paying absurd amounts for what will most likely be a 5 buck mobile app, and for the pleasure of paying 4x that you still get a micro transaction shop that is always on screen, always.
Granted the shop server got disabled due to backlash but all the ingame functionality was kept so do expect it's return.

And on the mobile game side of things it means this thing is very basic, from design to visuals to controls, pretty much 95% is run via left click which is not only tedious as hell(Cow Clicker vibe is strong here) but also very often causes wrong actions to perform as the game tries to decide what you really wanted to do, not to mention some horrid gameplay design that comes with that territory.
Also it appears they are aiming this for always online where your world will be kept on their servers, and we are talking about a studio who only makes games through Kickstarter to keep up the servers for all this... I wouldn't bet my money on this shit running for all too long.

 

[Frostbyte666]

Been disappointed by Molyneux games too often so will wait for a review. I'm also starting to get concerned with the amount of early access games that are flooding the market now. I'd rather wait and pay more for the finished game rather than pay less and playtest the alpha and beta and be fed up of the damn game by time the final release is issued.

 

[Ickorus]

Every time I see a Peter Molyneux game I think of the word disappointment. That man is very good at promising things and not delivering. Every.Single.Time.
I can understand how he became a big name in gaming industry, but why, oh why is he still relevant?

captcha: silence is golden

So now captcha is telling me to shut the hell up.

I feel like Molyneux was born in the wrong time, he has some great ideas and seems very creative but the technology simply doesn't exist yet for most of the stuff he wants to do.

EDIT: That said, seeing the video above maybe he's past his prime.. that really is a mobile game, isn't it?

 

[subtlefuge]

Every time I see a Peter Molyneux game I think of the word disappointment. That man is very good at promising things and not delivering. Every.Single.Time.
I can understand how he became a big name in gaming industry, but why, oh why is he still relevant?

captcha: silence is golden

So now captcha is telling me to shut the hell up.

I feel like Molyneux was born in the wrong time, he has some great ideas and seems very creative but the technology simply doesn't exist yet for most of the stuff he wants to do.

EDIT: That said, seeing the video above maybe he's past his prime.. that really is a mobile game, isn't it?

I'd disagree with the idea that he's more visionary or ahead of his time than most devs. I'm fairly certain that all good game developers have excellent ideas that can never come to pass, but they check their capabilities, limitations, talents, budgets, test them, and see if they will fit in the scope of the game before promising things to fans.

The only thing special about Molyneux is that he doesn't have a filter for his words, and he doesn't care about falling short of expectations.

 

[StriderShinryu]

I was optimistic about this as Populous is one of the few god games that I've ever enjoyed.. then I warched Total Biscuits video on it. Wow, it looks terrible (not in terms of visuals, I actually kind of like the look of it, but in terms of actual gameplay). It's a good thing that they're still fairly early in development because there's a lot that needs to be fixed. Let's just hope that they do actually listen to player feedback like they say they are going to.

 

[cerebus23]

TotalBiscuit did a piece on this game, i cannot believe they are selling this in this state, it is an alpha, but every design choice is like wtf.

Tons needs to change from alpha to beta, peter better pay attention to what the reviewers and community is saying about this thing.

Make a game peter stop trying to make a cash cow clicker.

 

[Angel Molina]

...unless you're dying to get your hands on it (like I was for reasons I can't fully understand) I'd say give it a few updates before buying in or just wait for the final release.

Alright, thanks. I was wondering if the game had anything compelling to justify getting it now (like if it's fun or intriguing or whatever). I can certainly wait if any such change occurs, in the mean time I have Planetary Annihilation to keep me occupied.