The life of a treasure hunter is far from an easy one, if the likes of Indiana Jones, Tomb Raider and Uncharted are anything to go by. You’ve always got a rival trying to beat you to the treasure or an archeological wonder, and there’s usually some kind of mystical danger to be wary of. In Oh My Godheads!, it’s that the godhead stones have been imbued with some of the personalities and powers of the gods they represent.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96ruum_VF0s
Developed by Titutitech, Oh My Godheads is part of the growing Square Enix Collective brand, which started three years ago, and has been a long labour of love for Phil Elliott and the team that created it. It wasn’t initially intended as a publishing platform, but rather as an avenue for indie developers to pitch and develop their ideas to an audience, before diving into crowdfunding efforts on Kickstarter. That aspect is still very much present, but the string of game publishing has been added to its bow quite recently, with Oh My Godheads set to be the fifth game to come under the brand when it’s released sometime next year.
For a game that’s still really quite far away from launch, its core is already feeling very polished and refined. It has everything that you need for a party game, with up to four players split into two teams, simple controls and a handful of clever twists that add to the slightly manic pace.
The game features a bright and colourful low polycount art style, with squat little figures running around the map from an overhead view. My favourite might just be Mr. Fishelsworth, the aristocratic penguin in a top hat, but there’s also a very Lara Croft-like adventurer a skeleton called Dave and a few other characters to choose from. Apparently two of the men have beards.
However, you all have the same abilities. You can give a short sharp melee attack, with just one landed hit required to kill your rival and force them to respawn, but there’s also a charging attack that lets your catch and sweep through an enemy, and every player starts the match with three throwable bombs.
A lot of the frantic pace from the godheads that you’re fighting over. In the main game mode, you’re trying to grab them from the middle and run them over to the other team’s goal – you have to carry it into the area to score a point, which adds a lot of tension – in a basic one flag Capture the Flag game mode. You’re always a bit slower with the godhead in hand and you can’t strike at the enemy, but you can try and dodge by jumping over the enemy attacks that come your way or throw the rock around. You just have to be careful if that rock is, in fact, a godhead.
Agyo’s head will explode if it’s held for too long, forcing you to throw it after a few moments and encouraging you to work as a team instead of as a lone wolf. I prefer the evil cat godhead Bastet, though, which will randomly switch your controls back to front; it always seems to flip them at the worst possible moment, just as you’re thinking about throwing it ahead of you or just as you’re about to score a goal. There’s set to be many more gods featured in the game as well.
There are a great deal of madcap moments as a consequence, as something ever so slightly unexpected happens. Each player has their own designated spawn point on the map as well, so you always know where they’re going to pop up a few seconds after they’ve died, and always dread the moment that they do so between you and the goal. It feels just ever-so-slightly cheap, but means you always feel like you have a slight chance to perform a last second rescue and stop the other team from scoring.
The level design also adds some good variety into the mix, as well. The bomb could be right in the middle of an open field, atop a Mesopotamian ziggurat off to the side, or you’ll be fighting along a tight and cramped bridge. There’s ever so slightly different tactics to learn and paths to block. The bridge level, for example, has gaps that you can jump across, so that you’re not stranded if you’re spawnin on a central island that’s separated from the goal you need to try and defend.
Though the wait until 2017 is a long one, it’s reassuring that the Square Enix Collective is affording these indie devs the time and space in which to work toward a finished and polished product. From my brief time with the game, it looked polished and fun, but chances are that the team at Titutitech are busily adding new levels, extra godheads, polishing the other game modes and maybe even adding more beards to more characters. With just a PC version confirmed for the time being, cross your fingers that they can dig up a console release as well…
