HERE BEGINNETH THE BOOK OF GODUS
CHAPTER 1
1:1 Lo, and in days of yore a man named St. Peter of Molyneux arose in the land of Guildford, and he made many games, some of which involved playing as a deity; and many players looked upon his work, and they saw that it was good.
1:2 And then it came to pass that St. Peter of Molyneux was employed by Microsoft, whereon he ceased to make quite so many good games, and all did marvel at what he was doing with his life.
1:3 But then he said unto all, bugger this for a game of soldiers, I will make my own studio because I desire creative freedom, yea, and perhaps to keep a greater percentage of the fruits of my labour this time. And he called this studio 22Cans.
1:4 And then he did hie himself unto the great media circus that is called the Starter of Kicks.
1:5 And yea, it went pretty well.
1:6 So it came to pass that after a while St. Peter of Molyneux did make another God game. And he named it Godus.
1:7 For some reason.
1:8 And the people looked upon it, and they asked, is it any good?
CHAPTER 2
2:1 Then St. Peter of Molyneux was inspired by the LORD, and he did make in his game a world of many colours, with deformable terrain, and trees, and oceans.
2:2 And also he did bedapple it with rocks that looked like ham.
2:3 And lo for St. Peter of Molyneux did populate this land with small people who would be followers unto the player, so that these followers might build their houses and toil in their fields for the glory of their god, once the relevant technologies were unlocked of course.
2:4 And all the while the player would move mountains to clear the way for his chosen people, to allow them to put down more abodes, and to till more crops.
2:5 And this quickly became rather tedious.
2:6 For lo did St. Peter of Molyneux say, the powers of the god would unlock only very slowly, as the numbers of his followers did increase, and their fields did become greater in number.
2:7 And also did St. Peter of Molyneux decree that this increase also would be incredibly bloody slow, to ensure that the player would be more likely to speed up their progress using real money.
2:8 Because he had to make money from the game somehow, I suppose.
2:9 Anyway let’s get back to the moving of mountains.
2:10 For, as St. Peter of Molyneux hath preached, some gods are like unto a lotus flower or an olive tree beside a still pool, in that they sit and encourage contemplation.
2:11 And let me tell you, Godus gives you plenty of opportunity to sit in contemplation.
2:12 Whereas other gods are like unto raging tempests, in that they spew lightning from every orifice at the slightest hint of adultery, shellfish, or working on the sabbath.
2:13 And yet others, as St. Peter of Molyneux saith, are like unto sentient shovels, because mostly all they seem to do is move mountains while they wait for their followers to do something.
2:14 Because yea, the puzzle aspect of the game, the ‘voyages of discovery’, can be exhausted within about twenty minutes.
2:15 And that leaves us, really, with the moving of mountains, using the tap-and-push interface that is called Somewhat Wonky.
CHAPTER 3
3:1 And then came the smiting.
3:2 Or rather, there didn’t.
3:3 Because it seems that the vengeful god of the Old Testament, or indeed those of the various pre-Christian pantheons, got short shrift in the sermons of St. Peter of Molyneux.
3:4 For you can’t even take the land away from under your followers and watch them drown.
3:5 And the players did marvel greatly at this, saying, do we really have to wait until about 3 hours into the game to smoke a fool?
3:6 And St. Peter of Molyneux did say, but you can unlock the powers of smiting, yea, of all sorts, through the cards-and-stickers system which I have devised.
3:7 And the players did see very quickly that having to first unlock the card through playing the game, and then to power up that card using stickers that were not very freely available in-game, would take some time.
3:8 Unless of course they wished to hand over their talents of gold, or their dollars of green.
3:9 And so it came to pass that the players repeated their question to good St. Peter of Molyneux, only this time a little more pointedly.
3:10 And St. Peter of Molyneux did say, what the hell’s the matter with you people, can’t you just play nicely?
3:11 And the players did say, thou hast not really got the point of making us into the likenesses of gods, hast thou?
CHAPTER 4
4:1 And when St. Peter of Molyneux came to make this game, surely he did say, it will not be like unto the old days.
4:2 For nowadays what people really want is a free-to-play experience. And so it came to pass.
4:3 And lo, nobody told him that this was a fucking terrible idea, for he was St. Peter of Molyneux, founder of Bullfrog, maker of Populous, and crusher of the skulls of naysayers.
4:4 So it was that St. Peter of Molyneux made the game free, but made sure that, as is aforesaid, things would go really slowly, to ensure that players would buy ‘gems’.
4:5 Not real gems, you understand, but an in-game currency that is technically available through playing the game but actually is far more available through making donations to the church of 22Cans.
4:6 And at this point I must admit, I began to smell the dung that is known as the shit of bulls.
4:7 For I very much wanted to see how my followers would fare in the ages of Iron and of Bronze.
4:8 But yea, I realized I didn’t want to see these wonders enough to pay St. Peter of Molyneux money for that particular privilege.
4:9 And that brings us back to the moving of mountains.
4:10 Because that’s what you will mostly end up doing if you try to play this game for more than the hour a day it wants you to.
CHAPTER 5
5:1 For, as the prophets saith, making only half a great game is far worse than making no part of a great game.
5:2 For then people may look upon your works and become incensed at the ways in which you have poured the dregs of oil all over that which might have been fair as the desert rose, yea, or silken as the hair of goats descending from Mount Gilead.
5:3 And this is particularly relevant to the book of Godus, so pay attention, ok?
5:4 Because this game reminds one of nothing so much as that a real god game, that cometh with all the bells and whistles, yea and the smiting, goddamit (ahem), would have gone down a treat.
5:5 And lo, for this is certainly not that game.
5:6 Though it is fun for a while.
5:7 Though having said that, much of the gameplay seems to revolve around flattening mountains and putting tons of identical houses in their place, so that you may have more followers to power your works, through the engine of their belief.
5:8 Which, incidentally, pops out of their houses as a little pink sphere you have to tap, which gets old pretty quick. Though you can automate this process much later in the game.
5:9 For gems, of course.
5:10 In any case, when the gameplay involves taking an interesting multicoloured landscape and turning it into the Old Testament version of suburbia, verily, you know something hath gone wrong.
5:11 And though this game doth sometimes remind one of the really cool games that St. Peter of Molyneux did make in days of yore, it is mostly in ways that make you wish you were playing those games instead.
CHAPTER 6
6:1 And so it befell that the people of the land called Internet said unto St. Peter of Molyneux, mate, you are past it.
6:2 Also Curiosity was a bit weird, wasn’t it?
6:3 And St. Peter of Molyneux did say to them, who cares, I live in a mansion now.
6:4 And they did reply unto him, fair point, but that doesn’t mean we should buy your games.
6:5 And so it came to pass.
Write your own review of Godus >>>>
Hardcore?
Nay! For it is written: Thou shalt not pay to win.
Fun for the first hour, this quickly turns into a slog of Biblical proportions. In the pantheon of the gamer gods, Godus is at best a minor deity, and one that you’ll only want to worship for an hour a day.