Gods was the game the Bitmap Brothers launched their own label with, and it came with a claim nobody could easily check. The game, Amiga Format reported, “continually assesses your progress”: health, score, the objects you carried, where you were and how long you had taken. “Play badly and it eases off, play well and it plays to match you.” The player was not meant to notice. It was a platform game about a warrior earning a place among the gods, full of levers, keys, traps and secret rooms, drawn in the Bitmaps’ heavy, carved-stone style and introduced by a two-and-a-half-minute tune from John Foxx’s Nation 12.
Fast facts
- Developer: The Bitmap Brothers. Programming by Steve Tall, graphics by Mark Coleman.
- Publisher: Renegade, the Bitmaps’ own label; Gods was its first release.
- Released: early 1991 on the Amiga and Atari ST; £24.95 on the Amiga. Work had begun in December 1989.
- Music: “Into the Wonderful” by Nation 12, featuring John Foxx; programmed for the Amiga by Richard Joseph.
- Later versions: PC (1992), Acorn Archimedes (Krisalis, 1992), Super Nintendo (Mindscape) and Mega Drive.
A new label
The Bitmaps launched Renegade at the Computer Entertainment Show in the autumn of 1990. Amiga Format traced the idea back to Xenon 2, when working with Bomb the Bass had brought the Bitmaps into contact with the record label Rhythm King. In music, the label sold the artist first; Renegade would put the programmers at the front of its marketing, give them more control, and use the label as “a guarantee of quality”.
Gods had been in development since December 1989, according to The One’s preview in November 1990. Steve Tall wrote the program, and told ST Format that he far preferred working on the ST. Mark Coleman, who had drawn Xenon 2, did the graphics; ST Format spotted that a floating fat man on level two looked a lot like one from Dune.
Four levels of puzzles
Amiga Format described four large levels: a city, a temple, a labyrinth and an underworld, with more than 50 objects to collect, many traps, and a weapons shop part-way through each level. The hero throws weapons, climbs ladders and ducks to pick things up, and much of the game is working out what a switch does. Up to four items can be carried at once. The shop, Amiga Power noticed, felt “much like the same scene in Xenon 2”. An American advertisement for the Genesis version, the Mega Drive’s name there, named the hero as Hercules and listed 15 weapon systems and 20 potions and power-ups.
The game that adapts
The feature the Bitmaps talked most about was how the game responded to the player. Amiga Format’s preview explained the method. Each level was mapped first, then the monsters, weapons and collectables were designed, and only then did an editor slot them into the map with “event triggers”. When you threw a switch or killed a monster, the game looked at your health, time and other measures and changed the result. “The only hint a player should get, if the system works, are the different results from different tactics.”
The One described the effect: if you were “tripping over your own feet”, you would be “given the occasional helping hand, like the odd energy top-up or extra life”. The monsters were described as intelligent too, “not in the classic artificial intelligence sense”, Amiga Format said, but in that they always found a way to reach you: a creature that could not follow you directly would work its way around the map.
Not every reviewer was convinced. Amiga Power’s Stuart Campbell, giving his own score of 76 per cent alongside the main review, wrote that “the artificial intelligence stuff doesn’t make any real difference to the way you play”, and that if Gods had not been by the Bitmaps, “people would see it for what it is — an average platform puzzler with outstanding graphics and great sound”.
Reception
Most reviewers were kinder. CU Amiga gave the Amiga version 93% in March 1991. The One, reviewing the ST version the same month, called it “the thinking man’s platform game” and “absorbing” entertainment “for all platform addicts, even the experts”. It noted that the title track, “Into The Wonderful”, had even been made to sound good on the ST.
Other versions
A PC version was on sale by August 1992, when it was advertised in PC Review at £25.99. Krisalis converted it to the Acorn Archimedes the same year. Mindscape announced a Super Nintendo version in 1992, and Nintendo Magazine System gave it 80%, finding it “challenging and pretty original” but with clumsy controls. A Genesis version was advertised in the United States early in 1993. The game had one more life much later: a remake, Gods Remastered, by Robot Riot Games, came out for Windows in December 2018 and later for consoles.
Sources
- The One issue 26, November 1990: “Gods” preview (Renegade; Steve Tall; initiated December 1989; Amiga and ST due early 1991, PC mid-1991).
- Amiga Format issue 20, March 1991: preview (four levels, over 50 objects, the adaptive system and “event triggers”, intelligent monsters, Nation 12 featuring John Foxx; Renegade’s launch at the 1990 Computer Entertainment Show and Rhythm King).
- The One issue 30, March 1991: ST review (“the thinking man’s platform game”, the player-monitoring system and “helping hand”, four-item inventory, “Into The Wonderful”).
- CU Amiga, March 1991, p. 34: Amiga review by Dan Slingsby, 93%, £24.95 (the intro tune by Nation 12 reprogrammed for the Amiga by Richard Joseph).
- ST Format issue 20, March 1991: Gods feature (Steve Tall on the ST; Mark Coleman’s graphics and the Dune fat man).
- Amiga Power issue 1, May 1991, p. 28: review (Renegade, Bitmap Bros, the shop and Xenon 2; Stuart Campbell’s 76 per cent).
- PC Review issue 10, August 1992: advertisements listing Gods for the PC at £25.99.
- Acorn User issue 123, October 1992: Gods for the Archimedes (Krisalis).
- Nintendo Magazine System issue 1, October 1992: Mindscape’s Super NES conversion. Issue 17, February 1994: review index, 80%.
- Sega Visions, February 1993: Genesis advertisement (Hercules, 15 weapon systems, 20 potions).
- Wikipedia, “Gods (video game)” (web, secondary): Gods Remastered by Robot Riot Games, December 2018. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gods_(video_game)