E3 2013: We needed Curiosity to seed Godus' god of gods, explains Peter Molyneux

When you talk to Peter Molyneux, you're always dealing with a certain amount of baggage.

And Lord knows, I'm all about that baggage.

I've been interviewing him since 1999; back in the days of Black & White.

In current times, however, the baggage is the fallout from Curiosity - his screen-tapping cube game - that has recently climaxed after a six month process.

"The prize came before the puzzle," Molyneux states of 22Can’s debut title.

"I've been thinking about reinventing the god game for years. When companies started releasing Facebook games they called 'god games' I started getting angry.

"God games are not about a camera angle."

In this regard, Curiosity was important in two ways.

It demonstrated that players would perform a singularly-meaningless task for six months because of an overarching meta-game.

It also solved a deeper problem.

"If you are going to reinvent the god genre from the ground up, there have to be some incredible ways of using the available technology," Molyneux says.

"Players are going to have control over their little people, but now all of these worlds are linked together. That's the potential to have a 'god of gods'."

"What I've been thinking is how do you find the first one?"

That was the real conclusion of Curiosity.

The result is an 18 year-old Glaswegian called Bryan Henderson will be running aspects of 22Cans' next game Godus for the next six months.

"He will be in charge of a dashboard full of interesting questions," Molyneux says of Bryan's level of control.

Limited within certain parameters - such as how much work the little people will do, or their conception rate - nevertheless the point is that Godus' 'god of gods' will have absolute power over certain elements of the game.

The kicker is that after six months in charge, he can be challenged for his authority.

"The number of followers Bryan has will dictate the number of troops he has in a head-to-head Godus battle," Molyneux says.

If/when Bryan is defeated, the new 'god of gods' will have a three months grace period before the whole challenge process starts again.

And let’s not forget, being 'god of gods' will also have real-world benefits; notably a share of the revenue from Godus' in-game purchases, something that could easily end up being tens of thousands of dollars per month.

Maybe not something Ozymandias or Nebuchadnezzar would have got out of bed for, but in these time, not be sneezed at, nevertheless.

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