Universim is a new and upcoming God game currently in development by Crytivo Games. Recent updates are beginning to transform this title into something promising. Procedurally generated planets, resource management, technology research, dynamic events, and more will hopefully bring a captivating God game to market.
The goals of a God
Universim is being developed from the ground up to be a little different from a typical God game. While you will be able to hold power over your own people, this unique little game will take things to a whole new level. There's going to be a dynamic experience with various factors that can affect the outcome.
We're going to the stars. If our God will allow it.
Civilization will advance, which will bring great benefits and potential problems, but in the end, the fate of the empire rests in your hands alone. Whether you wish for them to eventually succeed and create a God-like society of prosperity or suffer and burn in fire is entirely down to how you feel on the day.
What Crytivo Games has planned for Universim sounds impressive:
- Conquer planet after planet as you expand your influence throughout the universe.
- Advance your civilization from the Stone Age all the way to the Space Era, and beyond.
- Endure a wide range of dynamic events and brutal natural disasters.
- Delve deep into the intricate research and civilization customization systems.
- Explore beautiful, diverse, procedurally-generated planets.
- Wield the immense powers of a god, ranging from restorative to destructive.
Space age. "Conquer planet after planet." That means we'll be taking to the stars eventually and that excites me as a fan of God games. It mixes some interesting strategic gameplay elements with a little city/resource management.
An early look
The latest update released earlier this month, titled "Beast Hunter," brought the game up to version 0.024. It's still early days and way too soon to do a review of any sort, but from what we have seen so far (and trying out this latest patch), things I'm looking for are really starting to take shape.
Called "nuggets," your people handle day to day tasks on their own, but you need to place orders for the construction of buildings. Building houses will give nuggets a home to live in (and to reproduce), allocate plots for resources will aid in bringing valuable materials into the tribe, and an archive allows you to save the game.
Start off with the basics and watch your nuggets having some fun.
Considering just how early the latest version is in development, the game itself runs fairly well indeed. The graphics look good prior to future passes, which I imagine will come as the team completes all the heavy lifting with new features and additional systems. The UI looks like it's part of a polished indie game already available.
There's something about having a 3D planet to scroll around and colonize, and with plans in place to allow your nuggets to build rockets and explore space (and other, different looking planets) will make for some awesome goals to complete. Technologies are easily accessible and powers (the important part of any God game) make sense, split into a few categories:
- Wrath.
- Influence.
- Protection.
- Creation.
Stay up-to-date with Universim development
The game isn't quite ready yet — there's a long way to go — and no release date has been announced. You can register interest on storefronts, including GOG, and be notified when pre-orders go live. If you're interested in trying out the alpha and beta, access can be provided by parting with money right now for available pledges.
Rich Edmonds is a word conjurer at Windows Central, covering everything related to Windows, gaming, and hardware. He's been involved in technology for more than a decade and knows a thing or two about the magic inside a device chassis. You can follow him over on Twitter at @RichEdmonds.
