Nothing to God

[b][i]Review copy provided by developer[/i][/b] Easily my favorite part of the indie dev scene is the wealth of creative ideas that become full-fledged games. Many of them are unique or risky enough that they’d never be caught coming from a major publisher, and yet still prove to be worthwhile experiments. Nothing To God is the kind of game that rides on a simple but unique premise, a bullet-hell game where you cannot fight back. It’s not an idea that would work in most contexts but here it’s married to thoughtful ruminations on mortality and divinity, providing a meaningful backdrop to the oddly engaging dodging you’ll be doing. The god of nothing has overstepped his bounds and created you, a husk formed for a singular purpose. He sends you forth to receive the blessings of the land’s other gods, a pantheon of self-absorbed deities who will pose deadly challenges to you before even considering your plight. As you journey forth your awareness of your existence and the world around you grows, as well as your understanding of your task. Eventually you will return to the god of nothing not as the simple husk he created, but as something far more. Bullet hell games have come up with all sorts of scenarios to lampshade their chaos with, but this is one of the few that feels thematically consistent between narrative and gameplay. Your husk is compelled to complete its task, though it means facing certain doom every step of the way. At the same time it is learning about being, about feeling and sensing and deciding. Fitting these parallel journeys to challenges where you must find the right path or be annihilated seems terribly appropriate, especially when the gods taunt you with their challenges. The story is told in text both between battles and during them, so you’ll be facing the mad ramblings of gods and dark portends of their world as you skirt death itself. The tone of the game is excellent, giving it a very distant, alien feel with its world fallen to divine whims and hints of horror and atrocity peeking out from the corners. This extends to the dozen or so gods you will face and their unique bullet patterns. While the game starts with basic spirals and walls of shots it quickly moves into more interesting mechanics, each again thematically consistent with their deity. The god of law and justice, for example, is compelled to halt your journey but wishes to do so honorably, so his patterns have big gaps in them but cannot be passed unless you purposefully endanger yourself. The encounter with the god of music plays more like a rhythm game than a bullet hell battle. This creativity helps drive the latter half of the game when it opens up a bit and lets you choose your path. Despite the clever structure of both narrative and battles, I can’t deny that the game is limited by its scope. It’ll take you about an hour to see this one through to its emotional conclusion, at which point all you can do is challenge yourself by turning off the very useful assists like checkpoints and hitboxes. The pixel art is serviceable but I’ve never been a fan of mixing resolutions, and some of the backdrops are chunky to the point of distraction. There are almost no sound effects, though the soundtrack does a fine job of filling in the gaps. And while it didn’t cause me any actual troubles, the game can get a bit choppy during the densest room-filling patterns. I have nothing but respect for one-man projects but I have to be honest about their limitations. Nothing To God isn’t going to be the prettiest or most polished game you play this year, but the creativity that bore it is absolutely worth experiencing. After a slow start I found myself eager to see the next god, to hear their twisted views on the world and experience their unique attacks. The story drove me on to the end, and it’s an ending that’s stuck with me more than some major titles. As an indie experiment this one should not be missed, and as a game it’s solid if a little rough around the edges. Did you enjoy this review? I certainly hope so, and I certainly hope you'll check out more of them at https://goldplatedgames.com/ or on my [url=http://store.steampowered.com/curator/11322459/]curation page[/url]!

오늘 화이트데이인데 이 겜하고 사탕 오지게 배부르게 먹었어요 막대사탕, 눈깔사탕, 홍삼맛사탕, 계피사탕까지 정말 많습니다. 슬푸다ㅠ ㅠ

Nothing to God is a slow-paced bullet-hell indie game where you don't shoot, but instead have to avoid all enemy attacks to survive and move forward. The slow pace of movement mixed with the music almost put me to sleep at the start of the game. It was almost like trying to withstand an onslaught of lullabies and the games goal was to get you to fall asleep so I would lose the game, lol. The fact that there are no sound effects mixed with the gameplay and music make this game a bit of a sleep inducer, at least in the beginning. The music changes up after a while to something with a bit more energy. I think if there was some sound effects it would break up the trance this has me in, although I don't know how this could even be implemented as there isn't really anything to make sound effects. There is lots of reading in this game, the enemies you face talk to you and their text appears at the top of the screen but it's a bit hard to read while you are dodging all the bullets and obstacles. Even before and after the action segments I found it to be a bit too much reading. I think that if the game read the text to you the game would be much easier to enjoy and it would break up the sleep trance that it can cast over you. The game still needs a bit of polish, something an update could easily take care of. There was a couple minor spelling errors and the text boxes could use some padding on the left side, things like that. Nothing too crazy but little minor things like that would help add to the overall niceness of this game. The art style is nice to look at. It's a pixel art style of sorts and in the mini cut-scenes looks kind of neat. The difficulty level at first is quite easy at first but after a few levels there is one level that is almost too hard. It's the one where there are 2 guys at the top and I must have died like 10 times there. After finally beating that part I found the levels that came after were less harsh but still a good challenge. All in all, this is okay. I don't usually like to talk about price but based on what I've seen so far I think the full price may be a bit high for what's here. There's a nice story here and interesting gameplay that feels different but it is almost like an interactive story with gameplay elements. I really think this would be better with audio dialogue instead of reading. I found that after a while I was just skipping through all the text as fast as I could because I wasn't feeling much like reading, but at the same time doing this takes away from the game because it's really about the story and it was an interesting story. If the text was read to me by a narrator and the enemies had different voices and spoke their lines this would greatly improve things. I know it's a small indie game and voice acting isn't really something doable in most cases but if it was me I would have done it myself and tried to make different voices for the different characters with an option to turn off the voice acting. I wish I could give this a thumbs up recommend but I have to ask myself if I would buy this at full price and if I would be happy with what I got for it. Unfortunately I would have to say no. If the price was less and the text has voice-over I would probably give it a recommend. All that said, this shows lots of effort and the gameplay is neat but it just comes up a bit short for me. I appreciate the work and the effort the developer has put into this and hope they continue to improve their skillset and maybe next time I'll be able to give a recommend.

★★☆☆☆ So, this is despair. Nothing to god is a bullet hell where you do not shoot. A novel concept and one that could have allowed for some interesting situations and development but ultimately did not. Few reasons for that, the music does not match the gameplay as it is very somber and captures the emotion it is attempting to invoke rather than the flow of the game at that time and furthermore the game suffers because there are no gimmicks. Bullet hell games are infamous for punishing difficulty but the good ones have an element of fairness to them in so much that if you find yourself cornered by bullets you have a move, a tactic, a smart bomb, [b]something[/b] to help you out at least a few times before you either have to get good or quit. Because we can't shoot however we cannot interact in any meaningful way so we can only dodge and because we can only dodge we become painfully aware of how stale the gameplay is. So when gameplay fails we look to story. The story is the god of nothing creates us and sends us to meet with other gods to receive their blessing and in doing so we will return to him as something worthy of his time. I assume being the god of nothing he gets bored quite frequently. The issue with the story is [b]did I mention this is a bullet hell?![/b] Try reading the text box at the top of the screen while also dodging the unfair bullet spreads that litter up the screen! I call the bullet spreads unfair but that isn't a critism, afterall the game is a bullet hell but my gripe with the game is that it has a story to tell and the gameplay should compliment the story and indeed that was the intent. You are powerless, you are just a husk going up against the might of many gods and at the end of your journey the god of nothingness wants to strike you down so that he may have something. You can't shoot, you can't retailiate, you can't do anything except try to survive. But the gameplay only conveys this in the most basic sense. I could play a Super Mario rom hack where stomping goombas kills me and fire flowers are removed from the game and the gameplay would tell the story of this game just as effectively while keeping me engaged. A bullet hell was not the correct vehicle for this story. What would have been a better game type for this story? Hard to say really. It's a shame because this [i]is[/i] a unique game and not just another faceless clone of popular games and for that reason alone I recommend it but it fails on the most important aspect of any [b]game[/b] which is a game should be fun. I didn't find this experience to be fun. It didn't upset me or offend me and I wouldn't call this a rubbish game but I didn't have any fun with it and that is a shame. A real shame. Join Grumpy reviews because I am a miserable old man with bills to pay. http://steamcommunity.com/groups/grumpyreviews