Godus

The player starts out by saving a man and a woman from drowning. Once the player leads them to the Promised Land, they will settle down and build a tent on a square plot. One of two classes are created: Builders, who are reserved for constructing new abodes on plots, and Breeders, who exist to create more Followers. They will expand the settlement by breeding and building another tent to live in. By using this strategy, the player will explore the world and improve the population through the ages.

The main feature of this game is that the player is able to redesign the land stratum at will. Different strata require different amounts of "Belief", which operates like an in-game currency, to modify. The player will need to build more housing dwellings, which increases the population that worships the player.

Godus was the effort of game designer Peter Molyneux and his development studio 22cans. The game is the spiritual successor to Molyneux's earlier creation, Populous, and is inspired by his other titles: Dungeon Keeper and Black & White. Molyneux left his position at Microsoft in March 2012 to found 22cans. With a staff of 20 people, the studio released its first game, Curiosity – What's Inside the Cube?, on 6 November 2012, and began working on Godus.

The company launched a Kickstarter campaign to help crowdfund the costs of producing the game, and the campaign met its funding goal of £450,000 (US$732,510) on 20 December 2012. Although the game was only funded two days before the campaign ended, any remaining pledges would be put towards stretch goals which would add features to the game such as more single-player modes, a cooperative mode, and adding support for Linux and the Ouya platform. 22cans planned to release a prototype of the game on 13 December 2012, in an effort to attract more backers to the campaign. At the close of the campaign, £526,563 (US$857,139) was raised and five out of the six stretch goals were reached, failing to achieve the goal for Linux and Ouya support.

Criticisms were made over the freemium model chosen for the iOS version. Gamers and Kickstarter supporters have reacted negatively to the broken promises by Molyneux, and demands for refunds or apologies have not been met or addressed.