Talk:God game

message: I wouldn't call Harvest Moon or Animal Crossing god games; the player's control over those games is solely through their avatar, unlike The Sims (for example) where you can make changes to the world directly. N2 22:16, 29 May 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Harvest Moon / Animal Crossing 

message: Well since we restarted a discussion about the game in private I figured we could do it here in public. You said a game could be self sustaining and turn-based and I see your point if you can chose to "pass your turn". But what do we do for games that force you to do one action/miracle per turn ? That's why I changed first critaria but it may not be correct yet. For turn-based games I have the sandbox of god in mind since I think nobody else made a turn-based "god game" so if you want to try it to know what I mean please go forth. It's only 6 megs I think and it's free. In this way you'll be able to judge if it is a god game or not in your opinion. Bragador 14:10, 28 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I understand what you're trying to say. To avoid adding additional points making the definition unwieldy and technical I rephrased "input" to "intervention" and swapped places of the two original definitions. Now I think it says the same thing as you were getting at without mentioning turn-based or real-time. Also, did I fix the grammatical mistake you saw? Perhaps the subordinate clause is somewhat redundant but I thought it removed potential ambigiutity. --Mikademus 18:35, 28 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Actions taken by the player tend to be interventions into the system of the game world, for instance in the form of miracles or invoking calamities, rather than a necessity for its continual progression. As you can see, the main sentence is: "Actions taken by the player tend to be interventions into the system of the game world rather than a necessity for its continual progression.". So I feel ike it doesn't "flow" too well. Perhaps you could say something like : "Actions taken by the player tend to be optional interventions into the system of the game world rather than being actions necessary for its continual progression." ? Is this what you were trying to say ? I still feel that the points don't really apply for turn based games in which you don't necessary have the options of not doing anything since the definition tends to imply the option of not doing anything as a prerequisite of "self-sustaining world". Aside of that the whole thing is all right imho. Bragador 18:50, 28 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I'm not one to feel protective about trivial phrasings, so please feel free to slick up what you find lacking, though "optional intervention" sounds a bit redundant (doubled-up) in the context. I can understand that the definition wouldn't apply for a click-progressed game where every click by necessity entails an action --such a game design voids the very concept of "(optional) intervention"-- but since the definition as it is is general yet powerful enough to aestetically and agreeably delimit the GG genre, couldn't an alternative solution be a paragraph about the game in question in the "God games" section, along with inserting the word "generally" in the first paragraph (-->"God games are generally characterised"...)? --Mikademus 22:37, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I think I found a way... I removed the last part of the second point which is now "The game world is relatively self-sustaining and persistent." So by removing "even without any player intervention" it fixes the problem. It makes it more general and less technical too which is what you want right ? Of course it doesn't REALLY fix the turn based problem since we are stating the game is self sustaining and persistent, but it removes the focus off the player intervention part. Obviously, a turn-based game couldn't be self-sustaining and persistent. What do you think ? And yeah I could always make a small section on turn-based god games. Bragador 00:40, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  That's looks fine with me, like you say: it's more general but not less descriptive. I don't think you should worry about making the definition "too perfect" (so as to contain the sandbox game), we will never reach a perfect definition, at least not without destroying all prosaic value of it. And since turn-based GGs are such a very peripheral sub-category --is there even another one beyond sandbox? Or was SimEarth turn-based?, I don't remember-- they should probably be treated qualitatively (described as a special case), if you it is significant enough to warrant mentioning, rather than be allowed to problematise the core definition. Anyway, I think we should extend our flexible pseudopods and pat our backs a bit for rehauling this article from a disparate jumble into something quite good and relevant! --Mikademus 11:00, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I don't think there is any other turn based game in that genre. But many websites tend to use wikipedia articles to back their claims so I tend to be picky. Anyway I think the article is fine like it is too. I'm not going to touch it any more than that. Bragador 15:13, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Accounting for the quirks of turn-based games 

message: Who is Bragador? Why does he keep bringing up Sandbox of God? I tried it out and besides Bragador's references to its references it's an extremely insignificant game. In fact the only siginificance is that it's made in Game Maker 6.1. It's not historically significant like Commander Keen or Space Goose, it's not commercially significant, it's not culturally significant. It's just a project someone on the Game Maker forums thought was cool and decided to dedicate an entire definition arugument on wikipedia to. It's a puzzle game at best, a god game by no means. To call it a god game would be calling Lemmings a god game. That it is turned based is true. That it is interactive is obvious. That it is a god game, or that it belongs on this page, not so much.
Unless someone gives me an extremely good reason, quoting wikipedia guidelines, I will strike all mentions of it from the article. And from that insiginificant sentence from the definition paragraph that seemed to have occupied all of you pretty nicely. Seeing it occupy an entry alongside Actraiser, B/W, and Populous is insulting to me as a gamer. Having it attached as a caveat in the definition paragraph is arrogance.
In fact reading the entire "definition" section on this talk page it seems Bradagor has been the one getting all of you to devote reams of text defining an otherwise blisteringly easily demarcated genre. Sandbox of God doesn't belong here, maybe on "List of independently developed games" or "List of Game Maker-based games" or "List of small puzzle games". Asdfff 14:42, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It's good to see someone wanting to help wikipedia get better with such a great passion and adult behavior. I'm also proud you obviously understood the game Sandbox of God was used to show all possible facets a god game can have. Moreover, I'm sure you were joking so I laughed thanks to you. Of course we all know that a game doesn't have to be commercially significant or culturally significant to exist. Indie games, music and movies tend to bring new ideas and gameplay that are not available in the mainstream products. This is why they have even more weight in debates. Thanks for your time. Bragador 22:03, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Still waiting for justification using official wikipedia guidelines. Thanking me for my time isn't justification. I'd overjoyed I'm able to bring some joy, sunshine, and laughter into a what must be an otherwise comparatively boring life. Asdfff 01:00, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Glad to hear it. Please keep us informed. If you do find a rule against knowledge, just copy paste it and we'll see what we can do. Meanwhile, I hope you can still enjoy your life as a gamer without being too insulted.Bragador 21:08, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sandbox of God? Bragador? 

message: Anything sourced about the origins of this genre of game? I recall reading an article on Lionhead's website a couple of years ago in which Peter Molyneux (Populous creator) mentioned the influence of German board games on the concept for Populous but I can offer no citable references. --JamesTheNumberless 17:47, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Origins 

message: Arguments about what is and is not a god game dominate the article. This isn't how it should be. We should stick to a simple explanation and discuss the implications based on that. As-is, it's just a list of different sub-genres. I'm reorganising the article to encourage future growth. Chris Cunningham 19:29, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  General lack of direction 

message: I probably should have asked before "fixing" the spelling in one section, but shouldn't the "g" in god game be lower-case, unless specifically referring to the Judeo-Christian God? To say "a God" is never proper - it's either "God" or "a god" - which is what started me down the "fix" path (I might have over-done it.) Thoughts? Ben Hocking (talk|contribs) 16:15, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It should all be lower case as in "god game", as , as you put it, the player takes the role of "a god" (unless, of course, the game actually lets you play as the Judeo-Christian God, to which there is none that I'm aware of).  Obviously when "god game" starts a sentence, it should be capitalized by standard English rules. --Masem 16:33, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Should the G be caplitalized? 

message: I think that Dwarf Fortress is worth a mention of a god-game, because you can generate the world before play.203.214.65.222 (talk) 02:08, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: You have no influence over world generation, you can't modify a generated world, and DF is a fantasy variant of SimCity, not a God Game. Miqademus (talk) 18:23, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: DF has nothing in common with Sim City, its more like a Dungeon Keeper clone with a TON of added stuff. Ketsa (talk) 00:06, 6 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Add Dwarf Fortress? 

message: Has something happened since the last time I read anything concerning the God sim genre? Everyone contributing to this article seems to have unilaterally adopted the term God Game. This must be a recent(ish) term, as I am a fairly regular RTS / God Sim player for the past decade or so who has never encountered it before. Additionally, I was moderately surprised to see no one else raising this point.
When exactly was this genre renamed from sim to game, and by whom? I'd be just as perplexed if everyone started talking about Flight Games all of a sudden! Please, please tell me it is not because of a daft affection for the (admittedly handy) alliteration, satisfying though it undoubtedly is to write GG and have everyone know what you are referring to. Blitterbug (talk) 18:43, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: They've been god games since Populous 139.80.98.191 (talk)  —Preceding undated comment added 22:53, 13 October 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  God ''Sim'', surely...? 

message: Is "mass game" in fact a common alternative term for "god game"? I note that on google "god game" seems to return much more relevant stuff than "mass game". Also, there is no redirect from Mass game to God game again suggesting dubiousness of "mass game" term. 76.119.30.87 (talk) 17:33, 3 December 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: An IP editor changed all the "god" to "mass" a few days ago for no reason which also broke the hat links, I've reverted that. I have no idea what "mass game" implies. --MASEM (t) 17:52, 3 December 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  why is "mass game" term used throughout the article? 

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