Constructive design ideas for GODUS

Before I get into some constructive suggestions for GODUS I want to mention the most recent video. Peter obviously is distressed by the level of community fury about the state of GODUS. Now there are some pretty strong views about the fairness of that. I don't want to get into the blame game in this thread but before I offer up some positive suggestions for GODUS let me say that 22Cans you don't have to implement changes to get us off your back, you just need to tell us about specific changes you are going to make that address our concerns. Once we have confidence that you are moving away from FTP on the PC we will calm down.



The current situation with GODUS is like a car going the wrong way down a one way street. 22Cans is the driver and the gaming community are the passengers. We are shouting at you to turn around and go the right way, 22Cans response has been to drive faster, we shout more and 22Cans say "well go faster I promise" in response. You need to hear us and do a 180 degree turn. Its not the progress that matters so much as the direction of travel. So if you want to cool things down a bit just make some promises that are broad (gives you room to move) but that clearly show the divergence between PC and Mobile that you will deliver. If both games keep moving in the same direction this wont end well for anyone involved.



Now my positive suggestions for mechanics. I've tried to work within the context of where GODUS is today.


•Priests, temples and such - I think priests collecting belief and taking it to a central building (church, temple, mosque, etc) that automatically beams that belief into space is great. I read it somewhere on the forums and its a good idea. This will be an automation of the belief collection that also adds variety to what your people do.

•Mountains are for mining - One of the reasons people flatten all the terrain is because (1) we have to hit population limits and (2) there is no benefit to mountains. Mountains should be for mining (low mountains for stone perhaps and high mountains for ore), you should only be able to mine at a certain altitude. This will encourage us to leave/build high points for mining. I'd consider starting the map of flat and incentivising the player to build mountains for their people. A mountain could also boost the belief/happiness of the nearby people e.g. Mount Fuji.

•Forests are for chopping - Same as with the mountains we strip the forests to clear land (probably the scarcest resource in GODUS) for expansion. We need to make forests cool. What if our people could be taught to sustainably harvest forests? What if forests were needed for building? What if we could grow forests with our powers? What if when we grew a forest it changed the way our followers worshiped us?

•Optimal altitudes - We want a varied map so we need all the terrain types to have their own purpose, if we can get say five different terrain types/heights that all interact with different resource collection mechanics that would really incentivise creating an interesting environment - sand/beach could be for fishing, plains for sheep, grass for grain, and higher terrain for mining.

•A real science system - One of the biggest complaints is about stickers. Stickers aren't actually that bad except for how we get them and how they are used. GODUS needs a science system. I suggest in the early ages priests also produce science which can be spent on "stickers" which can then be applied to different cards in the timeline. The timeline obviously needs to be reworked to make it less linear and to add choice but for now if you could get rid of the chests and make our followers build the stickers that would be a start.

•Great projects - In 1.3 it seems 22Cans felt we had too much belief, so to prevent us flattening the planet they reigned it back. If you want to soak up some belief then for a start make it so belief doesn't generate out of game, then give us some things to use it on other than expansion. I suggest great projects that look awesome and give us a small bonus somewhere but are more cosmetic than gameplay related. I'm thinking the great pyramids of giza, Notre Dame, the acropolis, the colossus of Rhodes type stuff. They would take a long time to complete but unlike some of our current timers there would be no limit on the amount of people dedicated to the task. So like 4 weeks of gameplay time with one person, but with 672 people it would take an hour. These projects would soak up manpower, resources and belief. There could be achievements for the people who build them first or build the biggest one in the case of a pyramid. Oh GODUS this is starting to sound a bit FTP. I just think that if you could look out and see some great works that have been constructed in your honour it would make you feel like a powerful god. Obviously there should be bonuses as well and these could carry over into some of the multiplayer games as well perhaps as long as it can be balanced. Belief is used in the construction of these because you need to inspire your people to build this symbol of your power.

•Take off the limits on belief and sculpting - You need to make sculpting cheap so we can do more of it and you need to make it easier. Reduce the cost of sculpting or increase the rate of belief generation. Also to make sculpting easier add in the option of holding the mouse to raise land or lowering it. That way it will be easy for us to make mountains. Give us multilevel sculpting early in the game. The challenge shouldn't be to expand across the map (that is why you have limits at the moment), the challenge should be to make an awesome civilisation. If we have varied terrain, great works, farms, mines, more professions, fountains and heaps of stuff to balance along the way then you wont need to hold us back from levelling the whole map.

•Fountains (and other gifts) - fountains are actually a cool idea but the way they were suggested by 22Cans is crap. No clicking on fountains. If we build fountains with belief that is cool although a stone resource requirement would enhance it. Once its built it should be automated (this goes for pretty much everything in GODUS please never have click, wait, click, wait, click for anything) with follower visiting to get the water they need. You could keep the happiness mechanic or you could do something else (see below).

•Self upgrading dwellings - Caeser and SimCity both have the idea of self upgrading dwellings that evolve as the infrastructure around them improves and as people get access to desirable resources. With fountains, and other improvements you could go down the path of having dwellings improve as the population get access to improved resources and services. Its an idea that is done before but it is a good one.


Ok that is enough for now. It would be awesome if others could chip in with their thoughts.

Remember you don't have to implement the changes to get us off your back, just tell us about the changes at a high level and once we get the idea that your taking FTP mechanics out and moving away from mobile we'll be more patient and you'll be less stressed. It might take 2 years to make GODUS a good game off the backs of money spent by whales who play the mobile version but if that's what it takes lets get started now. One final point, Peter mentions minecraft a lot which is fine because it is a great game but the truth is minecraft looks like shit. So maybe some of the changes can be included and not animated that well. If you automate belief without priest collection and beams into the sky as an interim measure that is fine, just tell us your vision and give us a reprieve from FTP and well be grateful I promise.

Oh and you should bring your ideas to us early in the brainstorming process. You have hundreds of people here you can spitball with and I bet you'll get better results if you bring us Peter's earliest ideas and bounce them around on the forums for a week.

I'm cooking dinner so I'll come back and edit this later.