ABSTRACT

God games are a form of videogame in which the player has the powers of an actual or metaphorical god, as well as some of the limitations attributed to such entities by deist religions. The term itself appears to have been coined by Bob Wade of ACE magazine to describe Peter Molyneux’s seminal Populous (1989 Bullfrog Productions [BP]). A god game will typically contain a simulation of a world, a nation, or (more prosaically) a business, inhabited by mortals (or employees) conducting their own independent lives. The player is given specific powers-for example, the ability to cause divine earthquakes or to increase salaries-with which they can manipulate the scenario, and goals to achieve. In contrast to the similar 4X game form, the player’s abilities will generally not include the power to order their mortals to do whatever is necessary; instead, success must be achieved indirectly, by inf luencing the behavior of the simulated population. Another related form is that of the social simulation in which no goals are specified, making it more of a toy than a game; these works are considered in the section on toy games. Many members of the god game school can also be categorized as “construction and management simulations,” a  generic term used to denote games dealing with the

simulation of business activities in the modern world. The god game proper, however, has historically been dominated by works created by developers associated with the UK designer Peter Molyneux, many of which are fantasy.