Divinitiz Review

Divinitiz is something that very few Facebook games ever are: original. Although the gameplay is a basic take on your Diner Dash time-management puzzler, very few of these are available on Facebook and it’s doubtful that any of them are about you, as a newbie deity, taking up the thankless task of delivering offerings to a pantheon of cranky deities. Even if there is another game using this premise, I doubt it lets you deliver quite so many chocolate cakes to Bastet, the Egyptian cat goddess. Even though the current iteration of Divinitiz has many features yet to be implemented, the strength of the core premise still makes for an appealing and enjoyable game.

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Divinitiz is a little rough, but very different from the Facebook norm

Divinitiz is something that very few Facebook games ever are: original. Although the gameplay is a basic take on your Diner Dash time-management puzzler, very few of these are available on Facebook and it’s doubtful that any of them are about you, as a newbie deity, taking up the thankless task of delivering offerings to a pantheon of cranky deities. Even if there is another game using this premise, I doubt it lets you deliver quite so many chocolate cakes to Bastet, the Egyptian cat goddess. Even though the current iteration of Divinitiz has many features yet to be implemented, the strength of the core premise still makes for an appealing and enjoyable game.

The basic idea of Divinitiz is similar to that of Diner Dash. You figure out what customers, or deities in this case, want, then see to it that they get it quickly. In Divinitiz, you have to manufacture plates for each offering and make sure the deity gets the offerings it wants in the correct order. Different types of offerings require different types of plates, so you need to make sure you pick the right one to manufacture. If you take too long fulfilling a deity’s request it gets angry and incinerates one of your Sherpaz, little minions who carry around the offerings and manufacture plates. You begin the game with 16 Sherpaz and the game is over after they’re all zapped.

Divinitiz

Your game will inevitably be over, because eventually the deities will ask you to deliver too much, too quickly. Like other classic puzzle games, the challenge is to hold out as long as possible. In traditional games you’d want to amass a high score, but in Divinitiz you’re trying to amass virtual goods. Playing better gives you consumable candle power-ups you can burn to make the deities more inclined to be positive. You also amass bonus items, essentially treasures, that you can hoard as trophies or sell for virtual currency.

It’s hard to say what flaws are present in Divinitiz right now, since the game is clearly unfinished. Only one game mode and the shop, where you can directly buy virtual goods, are available. The game’s start-up screen hints at five other options that may be full game modes or simply additional options. As it stands, the game runs and plays very well. There’s a trial-and-error element to it owing to a localization that, at best, makes rough use of English. You’ll definitely be messing around with power-up candles for a while before you really get a feel for what does what.

Divinitiz

Divinitiz is a game that almost feels out of place on Facebook, where most games are slow-paced management sims and the ones that aren’t tend to be variants on match-3 puzzlers. Divinitiz feels a bit more like something you might happily pay $.99 to play on an iPhone or Android handset. Once the game is fleshed out with more content, it may be an extremely addictive experience. Right now it’s pleasantly fun, but the game sessions feel a bit long and involved for Facebook play. Having to pause the action to see what’s going on in another window is a bit annoying. Divinitiz is still worth your time if you don’t mind really committing your full attention to a Facebook game, though.

The good

    The bad

      70 out of 100