Game designer Peter Molyneux is well-known for making extravagant promises, then underdelivering on them time and time again, from Black & White to Fable to (sigh) Milo & Kate.
We all know Molyneux's MO by now, but we still fall for it: The latest example is Godus, a return to the god-game simulation genre that made him famous in the first place, which he Kickstarted in late 2012 for nearly $800,000. A Populous for the modern, mobile age, Godus promised to put you in control of a benevolent deity guiding a budding settlement from a ragtag group of lost travelers to a thriving civilization.
Two years later, Godus did at least ship, sort of: There's a mobile version on iOS and Android, and an incomplete PC game in Steam's Early Access open beta program. But as with other Molyneux projects, it's not what he promised it would be at the outset. Actually, if things don't turn around it's looking like it could be his most colossal disappointment yet.
A month ago, it began to seem that Molyneux might be calling it quits on Godus when he announced that he and 22cans were working on a new game, a social/mobile game tentatively titled The Trail.
The website Rock, Paper, Shotgun raised some serious questions this week about whether 22Cans would actually take Godus to completion when it reported that Konrad Naszynski, a Godus Kickstarter backer who ended up joining the team at 22Cans, had stated in some forum posts that he didn't expect that the developer would actually be able to deliver on the promises of the Kickstarter.
Most notably, the Linux version that Molyneux promised as a stretch goal was in serious jeopardy---since the engine the game runs on doesn't even support Linux.
"To be brutally candid and realistic I simply can't see us delivering all the features promised on the kickstarter page," Naszynski wrote. "A lot of the multiplayer stuff is looking seriously shaky right now."
The multiplayer mode being "shaky" has got to be disappointing to the game's fans, but in particular, one Bryan Henderson: He's the winner of Molyneux's much-hyped contest for his game Curiosity. As a prize, Henderson was supposed to get a cut of Godus's revenue in exchange for playing the role of the game's all-powerful god in the multiplayer mode.
So far, Eurogamer reported today, Henderson has received nothing.
The Rock, Paper, Shotgun story ignited a firestorm of backlash. Community members cried for Molyneux's head, saying he had abandoned the game, that he had lied to the community, that he had taken the money and run.
In response, the Godus team quickly released a video. It seems to have been put together in an attempt to get the mob of angry backers to put down their torches. But if anything, it seems to be only fanning the flames.
In the video, Molyneux admits to moving on from Godus, and that he is now focusing his attention on The Trail.
But wait: Molyneux assures us that he has passed development of Godus into the capable hands of---you'll never guess---Konrad Naszynski, Kickstarter backer cum designer.
"I do take blame and put the blame on my shoulders," Molyneux says. And yet, his silver tongue never stops spinning negatives into positives. Molyneux wants you to know that his exit from Godus is a good thing: By stepping back, he says, he can look at it with fresh eyes, which "may mean that I can actually input more into Godus."
Godus's new lead Naszynski says that the first order of business is refining the game's combat, which will subsequently lead into a full story mode that will be overlaid onto the existing game.
"The conclusion here is," Molyneux continued, "yes, there is a slightly different team. Yes, there are less coders and artists. But that team is fully supported by 22cans. And we are fully committed to taking Godus from where it is now to where it could be."
Of course, backers still have good reason to be upset, as Godus was sold on the reputation, such as it is, of Peter Molyneux, not Konrad Naszynski. "GODUS is a delightful reinvention of the god game from 22cans and Peter Molyneux, who created the genre," reads the first line of the Kickstarter.
Instead, the game as it currently exists is a tired rehashing of old, standard god game tropes and the future of the vision isn't Molyneux's. He's already on to his next game, and we're sure he'll be telling us all about how amazing it's going to be, soon enough.
If there's a tiny ray of light poking through the clouds, it's that perhaps Naszynski can bring a single-minded focus to Godus that the flighty Molyneux would never have been able to.
"I saw how it was going in the alpha and I thought, I'm going to do this myself, somehow," he said in the video. "I'm a massive fan of strategy and god games, and I want to turn this into a game I want to play."
