Today we had a look at the game Doodle God by JoyBits and wanted to share our review with you. The studio has offices in the US, UK, and in Russia and focuses on casual fun and riddle games.
You can find a lot of their releases in mobile game app stores, but we played their game Doodle God on the Xbox One and recorded a muted Let’s Play video for you, which you can check out below.
About Doodle God
Doodle God picks up a known game mechanic to combine individual elements to create new ones and find even more with additional options for new combinations. The goal is to find every possible element, item, virtue, and achievement of nature and mankind there is.
Some of you might think this is a bit like Little Alchemy, but since that times, JoyBits added a lot of feeling and function to this game. Also, new modes and quests were introduced. As you play along the main game, depending on the elements you unlock, they will unlock certain side quests to pursue on.
In our Let’s Play we activated the “Devil vs. God” quest that lets you create religious virtues to counter sins of the devil. It sounds a little too religious, but it’s only one side quest’s theme. The central theme pursues all types of elements and items without a focus on religion, despite the name of the game.
Gameplay
Controlling the combinations on the Xbox One was not very intuitive, and I had a hard time picking up on the controls. This is, however, just a personal comment on my own experience. It can absolutely be that you won’t have any kind of problem going through the categories and elements.
I have a strong feeling that this was ported from being a mobile game with touchscreen input to become available on consoles after. Even controlling this with a PC mouse seems more likely than using a console controller for this kind of activity.
So what do you actually have to do? I would consider this type of game to be a riddle game. It could be seen as casual-strategy too, but I suppose just trial and error would also get you game progress without penalty. You are in an empty world and get provided with the four main elements to work with – air, earth, fire, and water.
You start with combining these with each other to free up new elements and make new combinations. If you combine earth and fire, you get lava. If you combine fire and water, you get steam. Then you could try to combine these newly crafted elements to discover new elements.
The goal is to discover as many new elements and items as possible. There is no time limit, and there are no restrictions on how often you can try out combining items.
Push notifications on consoles
The known terror from mobile games has now been integrated into console games. Being in an entirely different game, I received a Doodle God push notification on system level, that asked me to play Doodle God. As this is not really good practice in the world of consoles, I felt rather alienated by that. I already bought the game, no need for it to advertise itself like that. I’ll play you again when I’m in the mood. And… since when do installed games on consoles have the rights to run in the background and execute such messages anyway? Concerning.
Summary
As Doodle God is not a free game, you are right to expect it to be somewhat more complex and fulfilling than free alternatives. I would say JoyBits achieved that. They worked on the graphics, atmosphere, and complexity to make it more fun than any other version I’ve seen thus far. The controls on consoles are somewhat awkward at first, but you’ll get used to it eventually. If you’re playing on PC or smartphone, you’ll probably not have any problems with that.
It’s a fun game overall but is to be considered only for the genre of casual games. While I can understand it being available on smartphones, I am uncertain if this type of game is the right thing for consoles. I only have that much time when I play games on console, and I’m not really looking to kill some time with a little casual gaming like when I’m sitting ion the train, waiting for my stop.
If you’re a die-hard riddle fan and love game mechanics where you need to combine elements to discover new ones and you want to do that on all platforms, Doodle God is likely to be the right game for you. The game costs $2 for your smartphone and $10 on Xbox One, which I hardly consider being a fair deal, even though they packed some more content in it and sell it as “Ultimate Edition.”
What do you think? Like the idea? Have you tried it yourself or have something else in mind? Please feel invited to share your opinion below in the comment section!
YouTube: Let’s Play: Doodle God – Ultimate Edition [No Commentary]
Photo credit: JoyBits
