GenesisVR, the God game in VR and crowd-sourced design

Remember the Workshop from B&W? While I would hate for all buildings to have to be built that way (seriously, people who don't do anything without a divine revelation?), I loved the fact that those were part of the world AND the part of the interface at same time.

And, to tell you some of my old Godus recommendations (I did really believe that it was going to be a God game once), I'll say this:
1. Narrative should never include direct communication with the God as if seeing them in person. It should rather be prayers and legends about God does/can do. In fact, it's a great idea for the tutorial: a myth being narrated to children by old shaman.
2. God should be heavily dependent on his followers. God shouldn't be able to do anything that has nothing to do with his followers and should be worshipped to gather his power of faith.
3. Now the belief as a resource would be best seen as a tri-pool system (note that the word "pool" here refers to the state of energy and size of the pools is dynamic):
3.1. Potential Energy pool. This pool is a pool of energy that is not used and is available for both momentary miracles (think Fireball from B&W) and sustained miracles (think Forest from B&W).
3.2. Active Energy Pool. This Pool is used to power sustained Miracles. And while it draws power from The Potential Energy Pool, it takes all of the required energy and reserves it. And the active Energy slowly decreases until 0. When a Miracle's active Energy turns zero, it ends. Premature end of Miracle cancelled manually returns most of the energy left in Miracle's pool (if not all - a question of game balance) to Potential Energy pool. Note: You may set a togglable flag that would let Active pool draw sustainment energy from Potential Pool. This would be best if it allowed that for each Miracle separately for miracles like Shield or Rain.
3.3. Energy Recovery pool. This pool is amount of Energy you don't have, spent and not recovered yet. What makes me put it into another pool? Well, I believe that believe must have its maximum value dependent on the number of active worshippers (as in, the ones who actually believe in you and worship you and not just live in your city). Also I think that the faith recovery must somewhat increase with either amount of power in this pool (encouraging more active player) or in Potential Energy pool (encouraging limited involvement). Also any Energy from new citizen starts from this pool. Again, the speed of Energy recovery should depend on amount of active followers.
4. AI is key. No, AI is THE key. God Game is Artificial life simulation and as such has to be based around followers and their AI. God powers are clicks and whistles compared to the fact that you should have followers that have their own civilisation and can forget about you (or even worse, create a new cult with mythos stolen from your cult) if you don't show them your power and grace. That's why belief should be a support resource, while their lives should still be central.
5. Another idea is drawn from Shinto, Japanese faith. A God must have a goshintai, a "body" - object of worship. It can be literally anything - from a feather to a drawing. Examples I personally favor would be a meteorite ("A star that has fallen from the skies"), a Tree that has survived a lightning strike ("the protector from lightning", like Slavic Perun was worshipped through a tree stump once), or even an animal ("The desert beast of divine beauty", Bastet).
6. Stuff that stems from previous one - ability to infuse different objects with your divine power (counts as sustained Miracle, always draws power from Potential pool unless destroyed manually) that will perform some miracles on their own, like Creature from B&W. May even have separate number of powers you cannot cast yourself. Sustains belief in you by populace that sees this huge wonder. Potential names: Tsukumogami, Shikigami, Golem, Shinshi, Messengers...
7. Ascendants. Ability to turn a number of your followers into demigod ascendants that do not grow old, do not get diseases, cannot breed, do not sleep but require your divine grace for all that to work. Ascendants do not provide belief until turned back into a normal follower. Ascendants also make people believe in you more, work as foremen, oversee construction of buildings dedicated to you, etc. Ascendants also can perform rituals - miracles that require followers to participate in them AND powered by divine power. Ascendants may charge those decreasing the ultimate cost spent. So they are essentially are priest caste of humanity, but this time actually supplied with real divine power. And as such, they guide their less blessed (but no less important) brethren in their endeavors. Also work as scholars.

I also want to stress that competition should be for followers' hearts, not their lives.

I think the primary difference between playing a god versus playing a very powerful wizard or monster or something like that, is that a god wants his people to do something without being able to directly control them. Lacking of power should never be a factor (which is very counter intuitive for game design as it goes against the usual progression of power) So the difficulty of the game isn't completing a goal with limited means. But rather it's trying to understand your people such that you know what it takes to get them to do what you want them to do. Doing so with an individual should be relatively easy, but doing this with something as complex as an entire race of people should be very difficult.

Personally I think a missed opportunity in god games has always been that the primary opponent isn't the devil (in case you play a good god) or god, (in case you play the equivalent of the devil). Being diametrically opposed to your opponent in what you want the same people to end up being like.
Molyneux's god games always pitted you against another god who had his own people to influence. But I think it's more interesting to be influencing the same people, but wanting a different outcome for them.

Way I see it, you could approach it as every human in the game world having a list of possible actions that they can tag as being either right or wrong. And things that happen to them, either through your interaction, your opponent's interaction, or other people interacting with them, can change those tags.
People with different tags could become each other's enemies, or allies respectively. So it's very much a matter of understanding which NPCs to influence first, to create chain reactions that works out in your favor. For instance, if you influence the local religious leader, it'll influence different people around them than if you influenced the town idiot, or the king. Putting a controversial notion into the head of the idiot is less likely to lead to conflict, as people take him with a grain of salt anyway, doing it to the king could lead to all sorts of conflict, which may also be a good thing, depending on the situation.

Another thing I find important is that the big miracles, like destroying a town, should always be available, but should create such a big and hard to predict change among the people, that a person looking for a specific change among their people would rarely choose to use it, so it stays a very significent event when used.

Another thing to consider is a potentially endless game. If neither the god or the devil destroys the people entirely, and even if the players manages to create a unified set of morals among the people, the antagonist should always be able to start a new change in morality somewhere.
The player could, if they want to, innitiate an 'end times', at which point all the souls who have the right moral code are tallied, which is how crowded or deserted the player's heaven or hell end up being. A final score, should the player want it. But if they don't, they could just keep playing.

- What do you think makes a 'God' game distinct from any regular city building or 4X-style game?
Building off the "competition should be for followers' hearts, not their lives." I think it could go both ways depending on the type of god you wanted to be. I would love to see the option to take over the world physical, I.E. go out with armies and control the land or philosophically, I.E. control the hearts of the people of the world. I would also like to see the ability to be a good or evil good and have viable methods to go the physical or philosophical route to world control.

- What are important mechanics you feel would be core to your understanding of a 'God' game?
Very broad powers, that effect larger groups or wide areas of land. Not to say there can not be fine control powers but they should cost much more to use, require prerequisites to use or have a limit on how often they could be used or timers between uses.

- What are your thoughts on accessibility vs. depth?
Easy to learn hard to master.


- Are there any previous iterations of God games you think did things well, or horribly, that one should take note of?
Populous and Power Monger are good examples for me for the physical take over the world. I have only played Black and White a little, but it is good for how the path a god chooses effects his followers. I.E. As you do evil deeds your follows should be come more even and take on a more evil look. DO good and the followers take on a more good normal look. This would also be a good path for DLC or micro transaction appearance packs.

- How much control over NPC actors should a God have?
Very little. One prophet or Avatar at most. I really enjoyed the Dungeon and Dragons Time of Troubles book series/transition. Where the gods and goddess where thrown to the planet and walked around in one of their avatars. Some took up residence in one of their larger temples and grew to giant size and fought other gods that attacked their city. Some hid there presence and took a more secret path to guiding there followers and working their plots. That could be a cool event/end game. Where all the god/goddess are cast to earth and now have to pursue their goals in a more limited fashion.

Does a god game need to have followers?

Quick note, I've started copying out each reply from people and dissecting them into game concepts and game ideas. I'll be posting quoted replies on each idea soon! (this post is to say that gears are turning)

I think being a God, in a God game with no followers it would be somewhat boring unless you just really love the building and terraforming aspect of it. Which is my second least favorite part. My very least is battle, so my suggestion is make battle optional and even consider some different tiers for how involved your terrain shaping is. I prefer to shape my followers lives instead of their mountains and rivers.

To each his own, but isn't that what is great about being a God to begin with?

Definitely have, I'm trying to keep my own subjectivity out of it - of course I have in my head the idea of 'the God game' but I'll probably be the last person able to play a game I work on. 

BW and Dungeon Keeper actually do things right, and are iterations on concepts that PM had previously chased after with great skill. Bullfrog had originally started introducing the elements of games where your 'pawns' did not follow your direct and explicit orders, nor did you have 'total' control over them. I think there is merit in exploring this concept as it seemed like PM had that vision to tie the idea of being a 'God' with the battle against free will, as the primary mechanism for gameplay. You're trying to always get people to do things, trying to battle their wants/needs etc. Many of his games explore this concept, arguably maybe even Fable looked at the illusion of character in NPC Pawns. The Creature, in BW, is probably the pinnacle of this, before for whatever reason many of those concepts were watered down. 

That is a pretty awesome idea.

Wolf + tree = carnivorous mega plant