Kick Starter Alert: Project Godus

By  Dec 6th, 2012 1:56 pm UTC

When it comes to game designers, one of the more famous (or infamous depending on your view) names would be Peter Molyneux. He has been a part of the game industry since the 80s and has had a hand in the development of games from Populous, to Dungeon Keeper, among many other titles.

He has also developed a reputation for over promising on his ideas with some famous examples being Black and White and The Movies. But you can’t fault him for not experimenting with new ideas. And this month’s idea is to bring an old classic back with a generally new concept.

Project Godus

Divine Intervention:

Project Godus is being developed by Peter Molyneux’s studio: 22Cans and is an attempt to create a new game in the God game genre. The God game genre was first introduced with Populous which was one of Peter’s first games back in the 80s.

Similar to strategy games, God games give the player a bird’s eye view of the action. This gives them the perfect venue to unleash divine powers down on the map, from raising and lowering the land, earthquakes and many more.

However, the genre has not seen much traction with the last game to come out in it being Black and White 2. With kick starter, Peter is hoping to reignite the genre for a new audience.

Truthfully, while Peter Molyneux is considered a veteran designer, his tendency to over promise has given him a negative reputation among some gamers. While games like The Movies and Black and White were built up by Peter, the design never did match the vision that he set up for his titles.

And I think that is the reason why Project Godus isn’t lighting up the charts over at kick starter. Still, I’m interested in Project Godus hopefully being developed for one reason.

I think that the time is right for someone to attempt a God game again. This summer I played Eric Chahi’s From Dust which had the God powers, but was more of a puzzle game than an actual God game. The thought of someone attempting the genre again has got me interested and who better to attempt it again then the guy who started it in the first place.

Continuing with that thought, this year thanks to the rise of popularity with kick starter, we saw a number of classic titles and genres given a second chance: Star Citizen, Shadowrun Returns and Project Eternity to name a few.

Through Kick starter and the involvement of fans, I think Project Godus has the greatest chance of Peter’s recent projects to succeed, and being able to work on something with a somewhat established blue-print doesn’t hurt.

As it stands Project Godus’s Kick Starter is a little over half way done and they are about 22 thousand pounds from reaching their half way point. Like before, he has described a really good concept and I just hope that someday I can hit someone with a tornado.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8dvLnuHVkI[/youtube]

Kick starter Promotional Video

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  • I hope they have another source for funding. At the rate of the kickstarter there is a good chance the 22 experiments won’t make it past 1.

    • At this point things are neck in neck in terms of time left to amount funded. But at this rate unless something major happens I think it’s going to either be really close, or really far off.

      They have supposedly been working on a prototype that they can put up on the kickstarter. I think the more actual gameplay they have, the better.

      • I agree. Hopefully, the gamplay footage will be the tipping point. With Molyneux’s track record on delivering his vision, the prototype needs to solid. I’m surprised they didn’t show it from day one of the kickstarter. I think more people will get on board if they see that the core game is built and they are funding Molyneux’s grand visions to be added to the game and less funding the coding of the core game.