Interviews

Peter Molyneux wanted to follow Curiosity with a game where a million people tapped their phone simultaneously

Part II of our chat with the developer of Godus

Peter Molyneux wanted to follow Curiosity with a game where a million people tapped their phone simultaneously

Peter Molyneux wanted to follow his bonkers social experiment Curiosity with a game where one million people had to push a box on their iPhone at the same time to shove it up a hill.

But with Curiosity taking up so much time and energy, the team at 22Cans jumped straight into upcoming simulation game Godus.

Godus will be available on mobile in the spring. It has, however, been in early access on Steam for months, where it has received middling reviews.

Molyneux is quick to declare, though, that "no one has the first idea what Godus actually is."

God knows

For one, the game is supposed to be much bigger, and much more social.

"We can connect up to - this is an insane number... you won't even believe this - 66 million people together all playing simultaneously. And they can all run up to a trillion of the little followers in their world."

However many players end up being hosted in your Godus game world, though, it wouldn't have happened without the "complete and utter unmitigated disaster" that was Curiosity's launch.

"That's where you learn the most," Molyneux explains. "So, we now have these 'self-healing' servers. If they find things are slowing down, they automatically switch on more servers."

Life of Bryan

There's also Curiosity winner Bryan Henderson, who has not yet been able to make his mark on the world of Godus as the god of gods.

Henderson, if you forgot, is the lucky Glaswegian who tapped on Curiosity's last cube and became the dominant deity in the upcoming god game.

He also gets a cut of any profits from Godus, and has already earned "thousands of pounds" from the game's early access build.

So far, Henderson's "been waiting incredibly patiently".

"The end of Curiosity happened in May last year. We thought: 'We'll be finished in a few weeks' time, so we better find our god of gods.' However, it's almost nine months since that point," Molyeux concedes.

"He's connected to every player in the world," Molyneux says. Oh, and he'll be able to change things in the world.

But his tyrannical (or benevolent) rule might not last long - "we've also got mechanics through which he can be challenged and overthrown as the god of gods."

What if god was one of us

Godus will also be free-to-play (though Molyneux wouldn't use that term, as you'll have read about in the first part of this interview), and will boast new sculpting mechanics, new AI systems, and other sweeping changes to the version seen on Steam.

The release date of Godus's "gamma" edition will fall shortly after GDC in March. It's set to go live in a few select territories at first, and will then pop up around the world sometime after that.

Mark Brown
Mark Brown
Mark Brown is editor at large of Pocket Gamer