
Creo God Simulator Review
Imagine you’ve just finished trading wood and other materials at your city’s market, and you’re walking along the coast back to your house, which was magically built by your benevolent God — it’s peaceful until you hear a rumble of screeching, growing closer and closer. An angry herd of cats is barrelling straight toward you! But just as you brace for impact, the sky crackles and lightning strikes them. You breathe a sigh of relief, and your gratitude for that mysterious being in the sky increases. A few steps later, the crackling sound comes again, and you’re struck out of existence; it turns out you’re the unlucky victim of a side quest.
In Creo God Simulator, my civilians live under prosperity but also the constant threat of lightning, as building cities and managing resources comes with a hefty serving of divine powers that can be used to induce faith and fear. I think I’ve done a pretty good job as the Creostrider (a fancy term for God) so far. After six hours in my first playthrough, I’ve got a bustling population of 250+ people, more food than we need, and helpful technological structures in place.
Getting started involves choosing your Creostrider name and what you want folks to call your religion, and you get to adjust your map’s resources, such as increasing the number of mining deposits or decreasing wood. Every world is procedurally generated, keeping new playthroughs fresh in terms of landscaping, which determines where you’ll place your city’s initial plaza.
There is a main questline you’ll follow throughout each of your playthroughs, tasking you with building a certain number of structures, stockpiling resources, achieving population goals, etc. The Steam page did note there’s a lot of lore in the world of Creo, but the worldbuilding seemed sparse to me, as there’s not much of a narrative in the main questline, but these tasks offer good milestones for your city to hit. There are also smaller side quests your townspeople will give you, such as asking for rain (which you can produce on command) or more sinister requests to Smite another person. While these are easy to fulfil, and sending down bolts of lightning is quite fun, the side quests do lack variety and get quite repetitive over the course of a multi-hour playthrough. That said, they are a quick way to replenish some of your resources via their rewards.
You’ll need a good supply of natural materials for building structures. Wood is collected by Lumbermills, Stone by Quarries, and Metal through Mines, all of which require adult citizens to staff them. I like that depleting resources in the area doesn’t necessarily mean destroying those structures and building them elsewhere, as your Creostrider powers eventually give you the ability to place Stone deposits and handfuls of trees. Godhood doesn’t mean endless creation and destruction, though, as your powers are contingent upon how much Willpower you have, a special resource gained from answering your villagers’ prayers (easily done by clicking blue flames above their heads), completing their quests, and building religious structures that employ priests. You’ll then use Willpower to unlock upgrades via Creo God’s technology tree, spending anywhere from 2,000 to 10,000 Willpower to get larger markets, unlock kitchens, gain new powers, etc.
The gameplay loop is solid and fun — gather materials, build structures, get more citizens, gain Willpower, unlock technology, rinse and repeat. However, even after placing my city near plenty of material deposits and building homes to get more villagers (and thereby more Willpower), gaining resources in the beginning felt a bit grindy with a lot of waiting. Things speed up the more you progress, but even at the 5-hour mark, it felt like I was mainly clicking blue flames to answer villagers’ prayers while waiting for Stone or other things to replenish. The exorbitant prices to build things (such as Altars that cost 1,200 Stone) or unlock late-game technology, which often requires 10,000 Willpower, contributes to the grind quite a bit. When you have multiple full-staffed Quarries and are still only producing 1.0+ Stone per day, that slowness can be quite dull. Those lulls get little jolts of excitement from procedural events, including meteors, tornados, and the aforementioned cat herd, but I did run into an issue where I’d get event notifications, but nothing would happen. These long, eventless stretches were honestly kind of a bore.
I will say if you’re looking for a city-building sim with a lot of complexity and depth, I’m not confident Creo God would suffice. Its systems and progression are quite simple, you can be hands-off while you’re waiting for resources to be gathered, and handling events can be easy with your Smite and Rain powers. You’ll want to make sure you have Repair Shops and Wells placed out well across your city for the rare times a Creoquake causes fires to erupt, but that’s most of your prep when it comes to challenges, as you’re not necessarily managing any traffic or balancing citizen happiness.
Visually, I love Creo God’s aesthetic with its bright colour palette and charming villager designs, evoking a relaxing vibe. Your Creostrider powers also make their mark by leaving craters or sending shimmery lights of religious conversion over an area. With how much the Steam page talks up your ability to Smite villagers, the game definitely delivers, as you’ll see the poor soul get sent straight up into the air, accompanied by an appropriate scream of terror. The only feature I wish received a little more visual flare is the roads you can place; while they look fine when zoomed out, they don’t snap together nicely when placing multiple (you can see a rounded shape at the beginning and end of each) and the colouring makes them look quite flat and out of place with other structures.
Creo God Simulator has a lot of visual charm, runs well, and offers fun town-building gameplay. But in some areas, it does fall a bit short of reaching its potential, as slow resource gathering can lead to a lot of lulls, villager requests become quite repetitive, and some events simply don’t trigger after you get the notification for them. Additionally, if you’re looking for a city sim with a lot of complexity, this title could be a bit too simple for you, but for those looking for a fairly relaxing (and Smite-filled) time, then this casual god sim could be your next play.
Creo God Simulator (Reviewed on Windows)
Game is enjoyable, outweighing the issues there may be.
Creo God Simulator makes smiting villagers fun, and there’s no shortage of godly powers at your disposal, but gameplay lulls, high building costs, and repetitiveness can dampen your time as Creostrider.
COMMENTS