Last year, after watching American Gods and Wonder Woman, I got a nostalgia for God Games. The likes of Black and White, Populous, and I looked onto the present state of the video game market and wanted to see where that genre went. It went to Godus, of which the less we speak, the better. Dominions 5 came out in between, so at least we have that. And I was really hoping that That Which Sleeps would rise from the deep to, but it's a bit of a development hell type of situation there.
The point is, I couldn't find something to scratch the itch. So I started thinking. What could be done in this genre that hasn't really been done all that much so far in some of the classics of the genre? And the answer came from the two works of film I mentioned before. Thus was born the idea of Gods of Azure. What I consider as being the concept for a modern God Game. If you're in the mood to talk about video game design, this is what this series of articles is about. Designing a new God Game, from the ground up, building a modern game with all the magic that I feel the old ones had, plus a few new tricks.
So let's begin with the basics.
What is Gods of Azure?
It is a competitive God Game. A game in which you take the role of an ethereal entity that wields power over a world and all that exists within. In this game you will have the ability to shape that world, in a literal sense, as well as create new types of life. Creating sentient life and developing it is the main goal. But you are not alone. There are other gods within this world that have the same objective. They may be peaceful, they may be hostile, but they will have in the end the goal of surviving, even if that means wiping you out of existence.
Why competitive?
The problem with any kind of management game is that played by yourself alone it can get lonely, stale and boring. But if there's always someone else around, be it an AI or human controlled, there's always the chance of something interesting happening. Not to say that Gods of Azure won't have the ability to play by yourself, but it is built on the idea of interaction between your civilization and those created by other gods. Enemies will create adversity, and problems that should be fun to solve.
Cows?
Probably not, but isn't it cute?
How is it different from the rest?
The main difference between Gods of Azure and other God Games is that you don't just play in the Black and White way. The thing that really irked me about the people in B&W is that they were so stupid. They couldn't do anything on their own, they couldn't build houses, they couldn't feed themselves, they couldn't even bunga bunga unless you told them directly and selected the ones you wanted to breed. And that actually makes sense. You were a god, you were master of their fates, you were the embodiment of proof that they area meaningless and may as well not really do much of their own free will, it's not like they can have one when there's a god around. Gods of Azure also has that, but only if you make yourself known. If you work behind the scenes, then the people will figure that for the most part they're on their own and will do things like not burn scientists at the stake, accuse women that can read of being witches and burning them at the stake, and instead focus on improving their lives through technology, ecology, sociology and so one. Not to say that everything is going to be all fun and games for them. There will still be challenges to overcome, the biggest of which being that you can't pull Deus Ex Machinas at every turn. You still rely on their belief to gather power, so with a secular-ish civilization, you have very limited power. So then, why have one? Because belief goes around, and opposing gods can swoop in and influence them, gaining belief from them and even converting them. It would be harder to do that to a secular civilization, because of the inherent skepticism. This bit still needs to be worked out, because a giant hand coming out of the sky would be proof there's a god 100%. I'll bet tweaking that idea in the later articles and detail what exactly you can do with your powers in limited and full-on Zeus mode.
Is this actually going to be made?
Possibly. A few years ago this would have been just a dream, but there are so many amazing tools at the disposal of amateur game developers that it doesn't seem that far fetched anymore. I'm going to try and focus on it (time permitting) after I'm done with Tale of Doom. If it gets to the point where it can actually be done, I'll see about recruiting people that actually have programming skills. I haven't written code in about a decade, so whatever I make will probably have a lot of issues that I won't plan for. But before I get there, Gods of Azure has to be designed on paper as a working, functional, complete game. Heck, I could probably even do paper play tests to make sure it doesn't totally suck. The following articles will represent the bulk of the design documentation. And when it's done, if these articles get some traction, I may have a budget for it already. Oh, and here's the kicker.
Open Design License
If you like the ideas here and think you can make the game, improve upon it, go for it. We've got open sourced tools, open source engines. Why not open source design. Heck, this goes beyond open source, this is libre, you're free to do with it anything you want, even make a commercial game, without my consent, my approval, or anything like that. All I ask is that you mention the original source of the idea, Gods of Azure, and if possible, open source your project as well.
These articles will be published on a monthly/weekly basis, depending o workload and on the completion of Tale of Doom. See you in the next article, when I'll be detailing the nature of the gods and their powers.