Gods Will Be Watching: managing brutal consequences

Gods Will Be Watching is an hybrid genre game, a mix of point-and-click adventure and resource management game. You play Sergeant Burden, who’s sent into a particularly morally challenging undercover mission, and must manage a series of dramatic situations to maintain galactic peace and ensure his own survival.

I immediately liked the graphic style of the game. It is pixelated, but emotions and situations are well conveyed through clean and simple technique.

The narration is interesting and highlights an intriguing story. At the start of the game we find ourselves around a campfire with Burden and his despairing companions, who seem to have been abandoned on a hostile planet by an organization called “Xenolifer”.

A flashback then happens, which takes you to the first playable bit: a hostage situation you need to coordinate to avoid the worst outcomes. As can be seen with this situation, the themes of the game are dark: biological weapons, terrorism, torture and starvation all figure in here. Dialogue of the different characters is well thought of manages to lighten the bleak futuristic background, but the situations depicted are still quite dramatic. You will often have to choose who or what to sacrifice to achieve your goals.

You will be set into different mini-scenarios that you need to solve to progress, and the considerable difficulty you will force you to start over.

The gameplay is very interesting. For each sequence, you have a range of possible actions, but can never accomplish all of them at the same time. Thus, you have to manage your resources in the best way possible. Will you decide to calm a hostage, or continue with the hacking of the computer system? The decision is yours and you’ll have to live with the consequences.

About the difficulty level, it is adjustable in several ways: for example you can decide whether you want or not the events to have a random component. A fault of the game in my opinion is the obligation of repeating certain sequences from the beginning. It is sometimes frustrating when you had made good progress before committing a fatal error to have to start from scratch.

An original game that I recommend for its atmosphere, its history and because it makes you want to continue despite its high difficulty.

Why to play this game: if you like pixelated graphics, dark science fiction universes and if you want to discover a hybrid game with fun concepts.

Why not to play this game: if you are allergic to pixels, if failing often demotivates you and if you are sensitive to teeth being forcefully pulled without anesthetic.

Get the game on Steam or GOG.com

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