Godfinger 2 Review: Worth Giving a Poke?

There’s something endearing about Godfinger 2. It’s the sort of game you can’t help but fall a little bit in love with, especially if you like your city builders to have a cheeky little grin on their face. It’s a …

By
Share this
  • Share this on Facebook
  • Share this on Twitter

There’s something endearing about Godfinger 2. It’s the sort of game you can’t help but fall a little bit in love with, especially if you like your city builders to have a cheeky little grin on their face.

It’s a resource management game through-and-through, don’t get me wrong, but it balances its wait-timers with a compulsive collection meta-game, and manages to keep you poking and swiping even when you’ve run out of things to do.

And lavished on top of that is a gorgeous layer of polish that makes any time you spend preening your own little world a joy. It might not be a massive departure for the genre, but everything it does it does well, and you can’t really ask for more than that.

godfinger-2-ios-1

The game casts you as a new god with a tiny planet to look after. To start with you’ve got one follower, who guides you through the mechanics of the game. To begin with these mainly involve shooting trees with lightning and making it rain on fields.

Your world is presented as a 2D orb in space. You can swipe to look around it, and pinch to zoom in and out. You’ll build a couple of buildings, plant some more fields, and then it pretty much leaves you to your own devices. Your aim is to grow your population and keep them all as happy as you can.

Each member of your burgeoning society contacts you via prayers – these are essentially requests for goods. Fulfil the requests and you get rewarded with worship, coins, and experience points. When you’ve got three little followers keeping them happy is pretty simple, but once you get into double figures it becomes a little more time consuming.

Soon demand is outstripping supply, and you’ll need to build new factories to produce everything your minions need, as well as planting plenty of crops, and building new strips of land hovering above the ground in order to house all the new followers you’re gaining.

godfinger-2-ios-2

The controls work brilliantly well. You drag and drop followers to set them to tasks, tap to collect the fruit of their labours, and long press on the screen to use your spells.

You can visit other worlds to gain extra goodies, and there are plenty of quests and challenges to complete to keep your coffers filled up.

And the whole thing bundles along at a lovely place. Within a couple of hours you’ll have turned your single-dwelling rock in space into a thriving little community, and you’ll be pushing to find new places to put people and buildings. The free to play system is generous as well, meaning you’re rarely scrabbling for your wallet if you don’t want to.

godfinger-2-ios-3

Yes, you’ll have poked and prodded things around in similar ways before, but there’s a rich, welcoming charm to Godfinger 2 that makes you want to push on. The cast of characters are a cheery bunch, and it always feels like you’re being rewarded for playing.

If you’re looking for a new resource management sim, then this is a damn good bet. It’s gorgeous, it’s deep, and you can dip in and out, or lose hours to it, depending on the way you like to play. It’s not going to convert anyone to its genre’s cause, but there’s a happy slosh to everything going on on your little world. If you like it, then you’re going to love it.

The good

  • Looks absolutely stunning.
  • Always feels like there's something to do.
  • Dip in and out or spend hours getting lost.

The bad

  • Doesn't do much we haven't seen before.
  • Can get a little repetitive.
80 out of 100
Simon has been playing portable games since his Game Boy Pocket and a very worn out copy of Donkey Kong Land 2, and he has no intention of stopping anytime soon. Playing Donkey Kong Land 2 that is. And games in general we suppose.