GodWright

GodWright is a single-player pixel-art god game and civilization sandbox. You create a small world, populate it with humans, elves, orcs and dwarves, then shape its terrain and watch settlements grow into kingdoms. You can protect a village, follow a royal bloodline, set rival kingdoms apart with mountains or connect their islands—and intervene with miracles, disasters or direct control.

A world that remembers

Villagers react when they witness your actions, from kneeling in rain to fleeing from fire. Each village forms its own view of you, shaped by its belief, love and fear. Your deeds build a reputation: bring rain and you may be called the Gentle Rain; rain fire and you may become the Burning Sky.

Devout towns can raise idols in your likeness, made of radiant gold, weathered stone or dread black obsidian according to how you have treated them. At night, the faithful walk to pray. Villages also call on you by name when they are hungry, sick, under attack or at war. Helping them grows their love; ignoring them can make them doubt.

People remember what happens to them. A woman who survives your meteor carries that memory for life and may rise against you, while a man whose field you bless may become your prophet. Terror without love can lead a town to renounce you. From its ashes, a Godslayer may rise and march on your idols, shrugging off your first killing blows.

You can issue Commandments, such as forbidding war, declaring holy war on heretics or blessing the world with plenty. The devout obey; doubters defy you. Towns that reject you may be claimed by a rival god, which raises its own idols, whispers doubt to your faithful, curses them and taunts you by name. If it gains strength, it can take your title; winning the god war leaves the world yours alone. Places are named after your actions, including Ashfall, The Drowned Vale and Godslayer's Fall. You can read your reign as a written Saga and save it as a picture.

Shape the world

Start with a generated landscape and reshape it using terrain brushes. Raise mountains, carve coastlines, pour water or lava, and paint forests, deserts, jungles, swamps and tundra. You can make an island refuge, divide a continent or create a difficult home for a civilization.

Populate the world with wildlife, sea creatures, monsters and the undead. Seasons and weather change the landscape, vegetation grows, and fire can spread. The world continues to change as its inhabitants try to live in it.

Grow civilizations

Bring people together and watch them establish homes. Villagers gather food and materials, take professions, build and expand their settlements. You can provide farms or resource deposits, inspect what a town needs, or leave its people to find their own way.

Trade routes connect communities, while kingdoms compete for territory. Armies march, towns endure sieges, alliances form and unhappy subjects can rebel. Religions, vassal relationships, tribute and overseas colonies add further activity to follow as the map fills with competing powers.

Villages can advance through eight technology ages: Stone, Bronze, Iron, Medieval, Industrial, Modern, Digital and Future. Each settlement progresses at its own pace according to its population, resources and buildings. Housing develops into larger towns and advanced cities; farms mechanize, industries emerge, and later ages bring factories, power plants, skyscrapers, tanks and aircraft. Kingdoms can also pursue Wonders, and neighboring civilizations can coexist at different ages.

Follow the people

Inspect creatures to see their names, traits, professions, equipment and family connections. Villagers marry and have children, passing down bloodlines; kings die, heirs inherit, and succession disputes can alter a kingdom's future.

Follow a person or settlement, then use the Chronicle to explore wars, crownings, disasters and connected stories. You can bookmark moments and see what happens next.

Intervene in their lives

Your tools let you affect an individual creature or the whole landscape:

• Help life thrive: add food sources and resources, bless creatures or summon rain.
• Change their fate: clone, teleport or polymorph creatures and see what follows.
• Take direct control: possess a creature and move through the world yourself.
• Bring disaster: unleash dragons, meteors, tornadoes, earthquakes, volcanoes, plague, nukes or black holes.

Set the rules

Free play lets you set your own objectives. Guided goals and scenarios offer challenges such as uniting the continent, reaching the Future Age, preserving a dynasty or surviving an apocalypse.

World Laws let you toggle systems including war, aging, hunger, reproduction, wildlife, technology and disasters. You can make a peaceful world, keep rival civilizations apart or set up a harsher experiment. Each saved world keeps its own rules.

Save and create

Save worlds to return to later and use the screenshot tool to capture moments. You can also explore mods that change buildings, powers, creatures and sprites, or make your own using GodWright's mod format of INI files and PNG images.