God sandbox genre reviver Marcus explains how playing god is all a game!

After our conversation with 22Cans last time, I was thinking a lot about the god-sandbox game genre and its potential. These thoughts occupied gradually more of my time, to the point where I couldn’t separate my waking mind from the desire to seek out and explore more of this most ancient gameplay. One morning I awoke to the sensation of a strange pulling at my chest, and a blinding light that filled my entire vision. I then found myself in the occult laboratory of Marcus Lynn from ItsAllAGame, lead developer of the upcoming god-sandbox game Me Igigu!

Turns out in trying to summon the power of gods thousands of years passed Marcus had instead caught the attention of journalistic intrigue of the team here at guildford.games. This project has been cooking for a while, and as the powers that be had brought the two of us together I figured it was time to get a low-down on this exciting and unique game!

Me Igigu comes from a game archetype we really haven’t seen for a while. How would you describe the experience of playing it to those that never got the chance to try it back in its heyday?

[ML] I would describe Me Igigu as a zen, calming experience, quite different from the goal driven games it draws its inspiration from as it’s not a game per-se, but more of a digital toy that gives you the freedom to enjoy the mechanics of being a god which those great games of the past innovated without specific goals (outside of the tutorial). The mechanics in Me Igigu are its bread and butter, so I wanted everything to be ramped up and real-time, from terraforming to creation & destruction, everything is affected from grass to the 10s-of-1000s of inhabitants you can have in the game and see all react even from planetary view, much like a planetary ant farm.

Planetary ant farm is a great and fascinating way to put it! To think, a whole planet all to yourself, who wouldn’t want to have a go? This of course isn’t the first time we’ve felt a thirst for divine power in humble Guildford town, and Marcus is pretty familiar with this history as it turns out!

Our heritage in Guildford of course contains some pretty legendary examples of god sandboxes, how much of that have you drawn on for Me Igigu?

[ML] Without games like Populous, Powermonger or the legendary Black & White, Me Igigu wouldn’t exist. Long before I was in the games industry and before I was lucky enough to work at Lionhead, I’ve always loved these games, but not particularly for the gameplay loop, instead for the sheer novelty of the cause & effect of being a god. I’ve always loved the idea that you could have these powers, good and bad, to affect the environment, change the weather, creation/destruction, the passage of the sun etc., so many things you could do to see how your actions affected all these 1000s of little inhabitants.

Personally, I’ve always been a goal-driven gamer but Marcus was helping me see an angle I hadn’t considered much before. To be fair, sandboxes are endlessly popular even if they’re not necessarily my cup of tea, so I pressed for more detail. 

So what is it about sandbox games and the goalless nature of their design that draws people in?

[ML] I think sometimes we put too much emphasis on games having a defined structure, much like Hollywood films. I found myself in the trap of trying to find goals, a structured game loop, action & rewards, but as I wracked my brain trying to find that and define those, I found I spent a lot of time just enjoying the mechanics, time and again. And then it dawned on me, if that is the thing that keeps pulling me back, then maybe I already have the essence of what this should be, much like games like Townscaper or Tiny Glade, sometimes just taking time out to just enjoy the mechanics is enough.

Tiny Glade is a solid choice to demonstrate his point. I actually received a copy as a gift last year and have admittedly thoroughly enjoyed whittling away a few hours here and there building little villages and manors. I even printed some screenshots of what I had created to use for roleplaying game sessions, which I think is really at the heart of what these digital playthings are designed for! Though Me igigu seemed to also have a bit of an educational side to it too that I wanted to know about. 

Can you tell us more about the theological inspiration for the game, and why it was you went for something so specific?

[ML] I was trying to find a name for the game, I originally started with Godwatch, which refers to the now named Aegis, the device which harnesses Mana and gives the gods their abilities, but I soon found out Godwatch had too many connections to actual religion, and I certainly didn’t want to go down that road. So I looked around for any good names for trainee gods, as that was basically the player's role, a trainee god learning their craft. After a while I came across the Igigu, the mythological figures of heaven in the mythology of Mesopotamia, in the Atrahasis myth the Igigu were the younger beings who were servants of the Annunaki. This seemed a good fit and so Me Igigu was born.

The game has evidently changed a lot over its production time and Marcus has been working on it long enough that he’s now been able to get his sons involved. There’s definitely a strong metaphor there to do with creators, family, and collaboration but I’ll let you put that one together yourself. 

What’s it been like working on this game as a solo-dev? How does that compare to it then becoming a family project?

[ML] Me Igigu has been in development on & off for over 10 years now, for at least 7 of those years it’s been a part-time lunch & home project while I’ve worked at Lionhead and Flaming Fowl Studios. It’s taken so long because I’ve also created all the technology, from the graphics engine & game editor to the physics engine and in typical game developer style, I greatly underestimated how long things would take, especially when you’re a solo-dev. In more recent times I’ve been lucky enough to have members of my family test and support the game with proofreading and providing copy.

With that, I figured I should let him get back to it! Plus, the strange blinding light had returned and was taking me elsewhere for another adventure again. I said my goodbyes and made sure I wishlisted Me Igigu on Steam so I could give it a go. Thanks again to Marcus for the time, and make sure you watch this space for some exciting news from us in the near future!

Me Igugu is OUT NOW on Steam! Dive in today at a super affordable price - it’s a steal for an experience this good from a cherished Guildford dev. Don’t miss it - and if you play it and love it, make sure you leave a review!