★☆☆☆☆
Devtheism
There’s not much to recommend Devtheism as a “game,” per se. There are very few actual game mechanics on display. There is a way to save and load your game, and the game does keep track of you money, but that’s about it. The game pretends to have an inventory system, though since you only receive one item throughout the game, the system is not actually implemented. There are also no choices to make, aside from the decision to sleep through part of the game, which has no consequences as far as I can tell.
So, the game largely exists to tell a story. Unfortunately, there’s not much to recommend there, either. The game follows the story of a young man who is mocked for his belief in the “developers,” or the gods of the game universe. Other characters only exist to either mock him for his beliefs, or assure him that not everyone looks down on him for believing in developers. He decides to go on a quest to find evidence of the developers’ existence. Of course, he doesn’t find it, and decides that taking things on faith is good enough.
References that NPCs make to the main character being a terrorist make it clear that this game is meant to be specifically about Islam, rather than religion in general. It’s also obvious that the inspiration for the game comes from difficulties that the creator has had dealing with hostile non-believers on the internet. Characters even have names such as “forum guy,” to make clear that these interactions happened online.
While I have sympathy for the creator’s obvious frustrations in being stereotyped online, this game feels more like a way for them to blow off steam, rather than make something that is actually appealing to play or experience. This is essentially “People Are Mean to Me Online: The Game,” and it’s just not engaging in any way.
Devtheism is both free and short, so the only cost to entry is about 20 minutes of your time. Even then, I can’t recommend it.
Available on itch.io
