God Games

[Up T Bloody Tree]

Has there been a high quality god game recently? I haven't seen one. Spore didn't cut it, and that's not recently anymore.

Let's talk about god games, old and new.

Here's one you probably never played.


The Shepherd.

I got it free on a coverdisk for the Amiga in the 90s. The guy who wrote it is technical directory (or something) at Rockstar North now.

It was unique. Populous + farming. The idea was to raise flocks of various animals and terraform the landscape to create good conditions for them. There was weather and stuff. There was an AI god competing against you, who could kill your animals and landscape with thunder and fire and things, which you could respond to in kind.

[mcbpete]

I loved the Shepherd (the opening audio was what got me into making music with trackers), though only ever completed the first level which seemed to take seemingly hours. I really liked the slow pacing of the game and the nice minimal control system - I might have to play it again this evening ....

[Utter Shit]

I have recently got back into RCT2 after reading a review of it on here. What a fucking great game that is. Two nights in a row I've accidentally ended up staying up past 1am playing it without realising how late it was. I haven't done that since Champ Man 01-02.

[small_world]

FUCK YEAH!
I love god games, or I used to. Hmm... I love old God games. Something like that.

As you say there haven't been any good God games of late. And I think it's down to the processing power of these new clever computers.
See, I have this theory. It's called Small_world's Champ Man/Swos theory. It goes like this.
The number of variables is proportionate to the enjoyment [of 'Sim' games].
[nb](I wasn't a fan of Champ-Man') My problem with CM was that you could alter so many things from game to game, that it became impossible to deduce what was actually having a positive impact. Where as with SWOS, you bought a good player, put him in the right position, and that was it. [/nb]

My favourite God game is probably Settlers (Settlers 2. Probably. From 3 on the franchise is dead to me).
You'd start in a position (In Settlers 1 you could choose where to place your castle), and from there, expand outward, taking in mountains for mining metals and stone, lakes for fish and open fields to supply food to your miners.
At a point you'd probably come in to contact with an opposition. And if you wanted his land, or he wanted yours, you'd fight it out. And the outcome of the fight was dependant upon the quality of your soldiers. This factor as decided by the level of the soldier (influenced by the gold you'd mined and provided them with).
All very basic, but you knew where you were. If you ran low on wood, or hadn't mined gold you'd be in the shit. A prosperous settlement with well designed road networks (an excellent strategy/puzzle element of the game) would defeat all comers.
You could tip the balance very easily. And mostly, every click of the mouse had a definite effect.

Recently I tried to get into SimCity (SC4 I think ) and there was just too much to do. Almost impossible to judge what impact your alterations were having on the city. You could increase tax and change the local school policy and size of catchment area, and loads of, seemingly, unrelated processes would run. It reminded me of one of those lights on puzzles (where your aim is to turn all of the lights off, but every light has an impact on a number of other lights) but a shit/broken/too massive one.

And that's it really.
Computers are now too good for God games to be any fun. I want Click-Effect. Some nice pixels (nothing too fancy). And a few little puzzles interwoven with the game.
But it's seemingly an impossible task.

[Up T Bloody Tree]

The number of variables is proportionate to the enjoyment [of 'Sim' games].

Yep. Or it might not be the number of variables, but the lack of seeing the figures or direct result of what you've done. The complexity should come from the interactions of the few variables, not from a bunch of behind-the-scenes wizardry that only the programmers can appreciate or even see.

Black & White 1 would have been good if they hadn't given the creature a neural network. How am I supposed to know what the fuck to do with it when its behaviour is determined by a complex arrangement of Data from Star Trek nodes that means it now throws shit at people because of that time I showed it some fish 16 hours ago?

(Black & White 2 addressed this, but forgot how to be a good game at the same time. If only its creatures could be put into the original game).

So yeah, keep the variables down and present them directly to the player where it's appropriate (e.g. city planning charts, opinion polls and accounts in city building game).

I'm very pleased to see that somebody else was touched by The Shepherd (haw haw).

[small_world]

What are we classing as God games?

See, I like Sim games, but I'm not to keen on the doll's house game 'The Sims' where I'd say that was a definite God game.
I fucking love Theme Par, and Theme Hospital[nb]Ah, I really want a go on theme hospital now, but I've loads of shit to do.[/nb] but they aren't really God games.

I remember I loved Populous, but haven't a clue what it was even about now. I haven't played it since I had it for the Master System.

[MojoJojo]

Populous was mostly about clicking. A lot. To flatten your land.
I loved it when I was younger, but I tried it again a year or two ago and it's really aged badly.

Mega-lo-mania has held up a lot better - despite being a bit easy and choosing you're starting zone was hugely luck dependent.

[Up T Bloody Tree]

I haven't played Populous in a while, and I expect the interface will bother me now. I wish I had the patience I had back then (newer computers and more sophisticated UIs have really spoiled us).

small_world, I'm quite lenient in what gets classed as a god game. For me it's building stuff that gets used by humans/creatures etc., coupled with that general sort of slow, strategic gameplay. Even if you're not a god and just a city planner it's still the same thing. I wouldn't think of Civilization as a god game though, as you don't really manage the landscape and the buildings in the same way.

Yeah, The Sims. There's just no reward to anything, and I don't find new furniture etc. to be as exciting as the game planners thought it would be. Levelling up the job ladder is some sort of goal, but I just find it a bit tedious. I got some enjoyment out of the first game, anyway.

[mcbpete]

Populous was mostly about clicking. A lot. To flatten your land.

I definitely preferred the second one to the first but yeah it was definitely more a flatten-land-em-up than a conventional God game. Computer game bubble wrap.

[Zetetic]

Regarding variables and presentation:

Dwarf Fortress
Dwarf Fortress has many, many variables.
Some are presented explicitly (export/input numbers) but their consequences are non-obvious and are certainly not predictable.
Some are presented at best vaguely. Happiness of individual dwarves.
Some are simply difficult to quantify. State of your military, particular relative to the many and varied threats that might come your way.

Granted, this, along with the interface, is what makes the game daunting. But it certainly doesn't make it not fun.

Civilisation 5
(Noting that it's probably not a God game, and its just not open-ended in the way which, say, DF is.)
Relatively few variables.
Food. Science. Gold. Production. Culture.
Most of them were obvious at release, and those that weren't (e.g. state of AI players in diplomacy) have now been made obvious in the interface, upon popular request.
Most of the game is entirely deterministic, and as such predictable. Military encounters may not be entirely deterministic, but remain strictly bounded.

Unbearably dull if you play it against a high-level AI. Because the way to survive and compete then becomes a matter of adopting trivially obvious strategies. It's even worse now that any sense of randomness has been taken out, because then there's nothing to push against.

So, I don't think that it's low number of variables, explicitly presented that's desirable (as Up T Bloody Tree suggests). What's important is that consequences are understandable and to some extent intuitive, sure, but to reduce it utter predictability for the player? At that point, I'm not even sure why I'd play the game. I'd even go so far as to say that some degree of hidden variables, unknowns are what make an awful lot of games fun.

[Up T Bloody Tree]

You've still got to make good with the variables. Explicit or fewer variables isn't an automatic formula for success.

It's completely unfathomable things rather than variables, I suppose. I think the creatures from Black & White are the best example of that.

I don't want everything to be predictable, but I don't want to try to manage a completely unpredictable thing.

A classic God game feature is disasters, which you can't control, but can apply your knowledge of what you can control to limit their damage. An unpredictable AI is good too.

[MojoJojo]

Yeah, I played the second one a lot more. There were a few tactics/strategies you could apply - building all your land really high then releasing a tidal wave on the enemy was fun. The computer always used a sort of blitzkreig - firestorm/thunderstorm an area then move their idol to the same zone and to concentrate their attack. Using lightening on their leader was always fun.
Also, you could plant loads of trees and set fire to them all to wipe out most of the enemy in a fairly cheesy way.

Populous was the first game to be called/marketed as a God game. I think the key thing is the indirect control.
And it was very early - at the very beginning of the 16 bit era, so the fact it had the complexity it did have - even if in practice most of what you did was flatten land (left-click, left-click, right-click), was quite impressive.

Unfortunately most of the classic god games series got turned into rts games - Populous, Settlers.

(sorry, this post was originally supposed to have been made about 2 hours ago)

Brad Wardell (Stardock - GalCiv games which aren't God games but having the building optimising thing going on) had a reasonably interesting blog post about explicit/hidden variables a few years ago. I'll try and find it.

I do feel that people are talking about relatively relaxed games with a building element here [nb] rather than rts games that have a building element but are definitely not relaxed[/nb]. but then i love those sort of games too. crying baby have to stop

[Up T Bloody Tree]

crying baby have to stop

That sounds like the best god game of all.

[The Boston Crab]

I laughed.

[DocDaneeka]

Anyone looking forward to From Dust? Looks good so far, it atleast has the messing about with water, sand and terraforming looking great.
From Dust - Developer Tech Demo [HD]

[Up T Bloody Tree]

I don't like how the water never crashes against bumps the player makes, it just flows politely down. I might be missing the point/timescale though.

[small_world]

I'm too busy looking forward to having a baby, and turning it Evil. Ah, twins would be even better, I'd make one good and one pure evil.

I do feel that people are talking about relatively relaxed games with a building element here

Hmm, I'm confused by the genre boundary line.
I know Sim City (the ones I've played anyway - the later ones) is definitely not relaxing. But I'd say Settlers (1+2 anyway, I was playing 2 just a couple of weeks back and loving it) can be a very slow game. And fairly easy going.

Thanks for the heads up on From Dust. I hadn't seen anything about this. Looks great, and I'm really happy to see that it's on Xbox, don't think my Pc'd run it.
Really looking forward to this now.

[Big Jack McBastard]

That does look nice, I shall be keeping an eye open for it too.

[small_world]

It is a REAL God game isn't it. Like, where some games you control aspects of a situation or people. Maybe even to terrain altering levels. In From Dust you are actually God.

Apart from Spore which I never got round to looking at, what other REAL God games have there been in the last few (10) years?

[small_world]

From Dust!

This is out tomorrow, is anyone getting it?

I haven't heard anything about it apart from on here... Apparently the PC release has been put back til August. I haven't played on my Xbox for a good few months, but I think I might get this game and resolve that situation.

Oh yeah, and I think it's released via XBLA only. No physical product. I might be wrong.

[Space ghost]

It was initially going to be a full retail release but was quietly downgraded to an XBLA title, which set my ' watch out low quality ' alarm off.

[thecuriousorange]

Has anyone ever made a Devil game where you have fuck shit up?

[mook]

Has anyone ever made a Devil game where you have fuck shit up?

black & white - however you tried play that game you ended fucking up the little people's day.

[thecuriousorange]

Also Sim City when you get bored and start wrecking the place.

[Zetetic]

Has anyone ever made a Devil game where you have fuck shit up?

I vaguely remember Despair 1.6 - a wrath simulator on a PowerBook Duo 230. I remember the diseased ewe.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

Has anyone ever made a Devil game where you have fuck shit up?

GTA?

[turnstyle]

new one out for xbox n pc called from dust it looks well good lol

you can download it today for xbox innit, pc sometime in august

i already got it cos my uncle works in the tesco warehouse and got me a copy it is ok not as good as cod though lol

i dunno if you have a pc or internet but here is a vid looks well good lol

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9WDCDWpDDE

it was made by the bloke who did another world and flashback. these are well old games i think they was on the BBC electron or summit

[I accept the terms of the]

I tried the demo but I didn't really care for it. There was so much fucking around. Having to shepherd a group of people around isn't very godlike.

[Marv Orange]

Has anyone ever made a Devil game where you have fuck shit up?

dungeon keeper is the closest game to that I can think of. If by god game you mean a dungeon game.

[Still Not George]

I promise I will saunter along with a really big long tasty post about all this stuff. Especially variables. I do love me some overcomplicated action. But I'm trying to write an abstract strategy game and keep my impossibly evil wife happy at the same time, so it'll have to wait.