Gods Will Be Watching: Fail Your Allies, Lose to Your Enemies, and Run Out of Water in A Desert

Gods Will Be Watching (6 hours to beat), was originally developed as a thirty minute game for Ludum Dare in 2013. The solo episode they produced ended up on sites like Kongregate, where you can still play it for free. When this minigame received enough critical acclaim, the title was picked up by Devolver Digital, and developed into a series of seven forty-five minute puzzles. Deadly puzzles. The originally game, revised and expanded, became the eponymous level four.

And with the title, the developers found a unifying theme to link the episodes together. The plot follows Sergeant Burden (in 2257 C.F.D), a member of E.C.U.K (Everdusk Company for Universe Knowledge), undercover and infiltrating Xenolifer (an organization dedicated to the freeing of all non-human life from slavery). In the distant past the Constellar Federation enslaved all non-mammalian lifeforms and Xenolifer finds this intolerable. The game is a bit unclear what alien life exists, as the player only ever sees humans, dogs, and robots during the game. But while Everdusk had hoped to control Xenolifer through Burden, and fashion a better, more peaceful future, the charismatic leader of Xenolife, Liam turns to bio-terrorism. Though Liam's original plans are ill-defined, he eventually decides to develop and release the Medusa virus, an infectious agent which causes paralysis, then death in all mammals.

The basic plot is clear and thought provoking, but both the meta-plot and the details escape me. The player discovers Burden is immune to hunger, thirst, a lethal injection, and can't be weighed. But Burden can tire, and possibly die (though this is uncertain). Is he immortal? Is he even human? The game fails to explain, and the gamer can conceive only wild theories, constructed out imagination rather than fact.

What is the game about? One possibility, is the pointlessness of choices in video game. Each level Burden has a number of companions who vary over his adventure. And each companion is subject to the choices of Burden. Someone will die. Horribly. And again. And over and over again. Jack, a fellow Everdusk ally, appears in episodes 1,2,3,4, and 5. When any ally dies, they reappears in later levels as if almost nothing had happened, but not entirely. Instead, those who have died but are alive anyway, flicker and shake in their pixelated presence. GWBW allows death because without it there is no threat and no challenge. But it needs everyone alive because companions are essential to future puzzles. And yet, the GWBW indicates to the player, that when characters die (even though they return) something has happened. It's just not clear what happened.

Each level is a set piece, where Burden is in a difficult situation. Each level is a single screen, where Burden commands his companions to perform tasks. Sometimes the player has a total number of tasks which can be performed. Other levels, each character can perform one task per turn. There's always some sort of timer counting down, before defeat; oxygen running out, police approaching, needing to reach a spaceship on time. Each level is a balancing act of resources and time, with multiple objectives in competition. Each level is tough, and I played on Original Light, which is described by the game as “Still a bit evil”. This was after briefly trying Original, “Harsh, Unforgiving, and Evil” and the developers aren't kidding. After failing to beat the first episode on original, a complete playthrough on Light required only replays of levels one, five, and six.

The missions are unique in spite of their time management perspective. They include breaking into a science facility which goes totally sideways, surviving twenty days of torture, developing a cure under desperate circumstances, wandering around a desert, surviving a frozen planet while waiting for rescue, interrogating hostile foes, and an eternal duel. Note, all levels are turn based, but I spent the whole first level operating as if events were happening in realtime. It undoubtedly made the level harder than necessary.

While the game uses numbers to display success and failure, the manner of success and defeat remain obscure. While the tools available to Burden are obvious, their interactions, and the permutations required for success, are a tangled mess. This isn't a bad thing. In fact, as Burden sat, tied to chair, facing a man who had already beaten him bloody for five days (and tore his friend Jack in half with a wall rack). Who now aimed a seven shooter with a solitary bullet in it, I felt the horror of the scars upon Burden's body, but also the strange contentment of having survived so long, and willing to dare the odds just a bit more. In hindsight, the effects of choice become clear, but the path to the goal is a journey composed of sidequests and secret paths, waiting to be discovered.

The difficulty of the game, which offers five choices, from Original to Story Mode (recommended only if you can't handle the challenge), isn't because any particular choice is hazardous (but they are), nor because each level requires many choices (and they do), but because each level incorporates a significant amount of chance, and if the dice rolls against Burden, he's going to need to start over. For example, as the executioner twirled the barrel of the gun, and held the one and seven chance of death to his temple, Burden had to decide to beg, think, lie, or confess. Begging might end the torment before it'd begun, or it might end in a pull of the trigger. Thinking would prepare Burden for a better lie, but did Burden have the time? A lie might successfully delay the torture, or the interrogator might see through the unprepared falsehood. Confession was the final option, but how much can one confess before there isn't anything left to admit to, and are therefore superfluous to the captor. With death possible in the first shot, was it worth risking a turn by begging or thinking? But the question would become even more relevant after the first empty chamber was fired. How long can one delay the inevitable before taking a risk?

That's the game in its simplicity. How long can the player avoid the risk of disaster, while trying to achieve your objective?

And as Burden piles the bodies around him in heaps, mounds, and mountains, both friend and foe, can he deal with the compounding choices of death, risk, and desperation which will leave you asking:

Are the God's watching your choices, or is it empty out there? And if they are, do you care?