Genesis of a Small God

One of the times I wished for a neutral review. I don't think this game was bad per say just... lacking? I get indie devs are on budgets but it uses mostly premade assets which I think hurts the game feeling unique, especially because it just.. lacks content? there was a semi basic tutorial and then you're kinda allowed to go nuts, but nothing has enough feed back or control (maybe because I was in VR? But its an advertised feature). I very rarely understand what the orbs I grab do outside of "bad thing" or "good thing" or how those interact with the world. They physics system is also clunky and does not feel pleasing to use, I got a pirate raid where a pirate ship kept circling my island and I had to crush it, but I couldn't aim any spells or props at it due to the engine and couldn't leave the island to just smash it, meaning it it became a permanent threat. Similar things happened with other random things that popped up like several locust swarms that destroyed everything, and some random vines that just infected the island. I never got to experience the god aspect because I was being overwhelmed by things that had little to no feedback and just kept slowly picking off villagers…

Works on Reverb G2. It is an ok god sim, feels a bit unfinished though. VR mode is free and functional, but poorly optimized, glitchy and a bit awkward to control.

This really isn't a good spiritual successor to Black and White. It's abandoned + has many bugs and frankly only just scratches at whatever itch. It needs work and if it ever gets it, I'll change my position on it, but til then? Only get it on an extremely good sale if you feel you must. I got it under the impression it would be continuously worked on, but it seems after a year or more that it's essentially not going to get anything.

I wish the dev would realize what kind of treasure trove is being sat on here. The market for god games is stale and would honestly be an easy market to corner. This game is on the right track, needs a few more things and a little more love to be that top notch quality. Could easily surpass its predecessors if it did a few key things. Right now your competition is Masters of Albion, a fresh game involving the man from the OG's, Mr. Peter. It is not going well at all. Then you have Fata Deum, which could be good but its missing the few key things too. You are so close here! Make it a DLC thing or hell sell it as remastered, people would buy it.

I literally could not get through the tutorial, as the controls repeatedly bugged out/would not display the required actions.

Don’t buy this game if not on sale. That being said! Still a great game if you can get it for under $20… even buying full price, especially with a VR headset (I don’t have) worth it. Not much content but it’s random and varied enough that you will be entertained. The random events are varied and many and because of the sculpting (island customization) and random seed generator it stays enjoyable. The one thing that I find very annoying in this game is that the villagers don’t automatically upgrade to better houses when they advance. You have to manually destroy them using objects or meteor strike/fireball. The later is very high risk for just destroying your whole town. As well even with the 50% speed upgrade for your villagers you have to hand hold them a lot. Avatar even fully upgraded is pretty weak and some of his abilities don’t seem to work. (Reincarnation never seems to activate) The fire wizard honestly seems the best defence once you get him.