Gods Will Be Watching

released on Apr 30, 2013

Gods Will Be Watching is a minimalistic “point and click thriller” centered on despair, commitment, and sacrifice as players face narrative puzzles and moral dilemmas that will affect both the lives of your team and the people you’re are sworn to protect. Set against the backdrop of an interstellar struggle, Gods Will Be Watching follows Sgt. Burden and his crew in six tense chapters from hostage situations and wilderness survival to biological weapon prevention and agonizing torture scenarios. Each decision is crucial and players will need to choose between the lives of their team and the saving the world from genocide. There's no good or evil, just decisions, with only you and the gods as a judge to your actions.


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No pude pasar de el tutorial 👌

The premise is cool, but in practice, this game is just so miserable. You do not play Gods to relieve stress after a long day of work.

A lot of gamers have their villainous fave– a game they love because its hostility works on a profound level. With these games, the unfairness, obtuseness and/or frustration unfold unique artistic qualities.

I believe Gods Will Be Watching is that game for me.

The developers set out to make a stressful game and a stressful game they made. There were several times where I was late in a chapter, not sure how long I was to the finish line, and I would be worried that one small mishap would mean I would have to start over since there are not checkpoints mid-level. The game itself describes its normal difficulty as “Harsh, unforgiving, and evil”. Accurate.

The challenge level in Gods Will Be Watching is vorpal and you have to be vorpal in response. Although my inclination was to make sure everyone survived in every chapter, oftentimes I had to sacrifice people if not outright kill someone in cold blood. Chapter 1 has you commit outright terrorism and it was very chilling to have to play that. The tone of the story matches the ferocity of the gameplay.

The RNG cheapness and trial and error gameplay would normally be a detriment to a game but it feels appropriate for what the game is going for emotionally. I wasn’t just frustrated playing GWBW– I was disgusted with myself, stressed out, confused, feeling in the dark, and ultimately relieved when I won a chapter.

That said, the story could use some work. The emotional experience of doing these harsh scenarios does a lot more lifting than any of the overt narrative. The plot relies on the player caring about slavery they never see and there’s little work done in the dialogue to make me care about this world. It’s a big problem. In the final chapter they’re talking about complex histories that I only now am I getting context for.

This is a game I heard about when it came out and it’s stuck in the back of my mind for a long time, mostly because of the cool name. Maybe it was fate that I would play it a decade later and it would be one of the most affecting video game experiences of 2023. It’s harsh, but this experience is going to stick with me forever. And the good news is I never have to play it again.

Entiendo que su dificultad es inseparable de su gameplay, pero este juego simplemente no hizo click en mí y tuve que encogerme de hombros y asumirlo.

Difficulty in this is just crazy

No esperaba que me fuera a gustar tanto un juego que en su inicio me tenía frustrado y apunto de abandonarlo, pero sin embargo, esa es la magia de gods will be watching, cuando te hace clic te atrapa por completo.

Bien se vende a si mismo como una novela gráfica, sin embargo es más bien un juego de puzzles y gestión de recursos, en el cual cada nivel te pone en una situación complicada de la que tienes que intentar salir como puedas.

Es un juego tremendamente duro , que no te lleva de la mano, si no que deja que te estampes una y otra vez, hasta que aprendes a jugar. Y eso para mi fue lo que hizo que me encantara, el hecho en cada nuevo intento pueda fijarme en los detalles y ser capaz de ir deduciendo como funciona cada una de las mecánicas del puzzle, para ponerlo a prueba en el siguiente intento. La repetición te lleva a la perfección y acabas superando cada capítulo con una sensación de satisfacción por haberlo conseguido por ti mismo.

Toda esa experiencia jugable se acompaña de una historia francamente buena, gira sobre un dilema moral muy interesante sobre el que construye a sus personajes. Te atrapa y te hace reflexionar. Aunque echo bastante en falta que tus acciones tengan efecto en la historia. Puedo sacrificar un personaje en una misión por el bien de grupo, y que siga vivo en la siguiente, lo cual convierte a los personajes en herramientas, más que en personas.

Tiene una banda sonora realmente buena, potenciando la tensión de la mayoría de situaciones, además de un píxel art bonito.

Es cierto que no es un juego para todo el mundo, porque se puede hacer muy frustrante ,pero si conecta, es una experiencia genial