It has been a tricky time of late for Peter Molyneux, 22Cans and their game, Godus. Recently we reported on the reaction of some fans who feel that the studio aren't delivering on many of the features that were promised to backers when the project hit Kickstarter.
Even more recently than that, 20-year-old Bryan Henderson spoke to Eurogamer about Curiosity. If you don't remember, Curiosity was a mobile game from 22Cans whereby people clicked on a cube with the promise of the winner receiving a "life-changing" prize - to be made the God of Gods in the studio's next title. Curiosity was more an experiment than a game, and Henderson was the one who clicked last, winning as he did back in May 2013.
However, since winning this "life-changing" prize, Henderson is yet to receive anything from 22Cans (apart from a trip down to meet the studio, plus a signed poster and a t-shirt). The proper prize was supposed to a be a slice of revenue generated by the multiplayer portion of Godus, the studio's next game.
However, the multiplayer mode is one of the features still to appear in the game. Without it there'll be no Gods of Gods role for Henderson, and without that role, there'll be no prize. Communication with the studio had pretty much stopped according to Henderson, who confirmed that he has yet to receive a penny.
"I totally and absolutely and categorically apologise. That isn't good enough and I'll take it on my own shoulders that I should have made sure he was communicated with. We will from today onwards do that," Molyneux said, before confirming that the studio is continuing to work on the multiplayer side of the game.
"We are now working on combat, which is the piece of the puzzle we need in the game before we start working on the Hubworld and the multiplayer," Molyneux explained. "When that happens we've got the mechanics for Bryan to be a useful participant in his God of Gods role. We are accruing the revenues ready for that to happen, and when that does happen his clock will start ticking.
"But we can't have the God of Gods role without the ability for people to challenge the God of Gods role, and the God of Gods role can't be challenged without combat, and we can't implement the combat without sorting out the server issues, which are being sorted out as of last week. It's just a maelstrom."
Molyneux, however, refused to guarantee that the God of Gods role would ever make it into the game. With combat scheduled to arrive in April, maybe there'll be light at the end of the tunnel. That said, it's not all doom and gloom for Bryan Henderson.
OlliOlli developers Roll7 and publisher Devolver Digital have conspired to offer Henderson a silver lining of sorts; a part in the studio's upcoming side-scrolling shooter, Not A Hero.
As explained in a blog post on the studio's website, Henderson will feature as a character in Not A Hero: "We kinda felt his pain-and asked BunnyLord what he would do in this situation. His answer (selected from Not A Hero's random text generator)? 'Make Bryan a God in Not A Hero and give him 1% of OlliOlli sales to date, oh and massage a wombat.'" Alas, the offer of 1% sales from OlliOlli is a joke, but no doubt the sentiment is appreciated. Especially the bit about the wombat.
Devolver Digital's Nigel Lowrie told Polygon: "The world of Not A Hero is a godless place, that much is certain, but the next best thing is BunnyLord - an anthropomorphic rabbit from the future running for mayor. Roll7 is going to put Bryan in the sort of employees lounge where BunnyLord stashes his heroes / henchmen as an NPC. It's not exactly becoming a god but it's the best we could do."
As for Henderson: "I didn't really know what to expect when I was waiting for the email from Devolver. So when I got asked to be a character in the game I just thought 'Well this is pretty cool. I'm up for this.'"
So, all's well that ends well? Maybe even more so if the God of Gods role finally makes it into Godus as originally promised. "If all goes well, absolutely it should happen," Molyneux said. "I want it to happen. I think we need it to happen. With all the press that went on with Bryan, why wouldn't we make that happen?"