We first reviewed Godville (Free) not long after it was released in mid-2010 and it instantly clicked with me. People love making comparisons to free to play games like The Simpsons: Tapped Out (Free) to virtual ant farms, as they require very little interaction and basically just exist as a virtual world to amuse you for a few seconds at a time. Godville is the most virtual ant farm-y of all virtual ant farms in that instead of logging on to manage timers or interact with whatever characters there are in game, you literally do nothing. It’s a zero player game that you don’t interact with at all beyond either encouraging or punishing your hero- Two things which both do whatever the next microscopic increment above “nothing" would be to the game world.
Instead, as mentioned in the review, all you do is check up on your guy whenever you remember him to see what he’s up to. He’ll go adventuring, fight monsters, collect loot, tame pets, join guilds, and everything else without any need of your attention at all. In fact, you can literally not even touch the game for a year at a time and come back to find your guy happily adventuring away, not even caring in the slightest whether or not you exist. It’s incredibly clever, and while I sometimes forget about my guy for a few weeks at a time, it’s always fun to come back and catch up on what he’s been doing. I can say fairly definitively it’s the only iOS game I’ve consistently played for nearly four years straight, as my character is approaching the age of 46 months.
Godville recently saw a substantial iOS 7 makeover with its 5.0 update. In addition to looking all iOS 7-like, it has some new swipe gestures to make your play sessions even quicker, allowing you to spend even less time following what your hero is doing. Anyway, it’s hard to think of many iOS games that have been maintained this long, much less iOS games I still actually play that are this old. With the semi-recent 5.0 update, it seemed worthwhile to remind people that Godville exists.
Give Godville a try. It’s the best game you’ll never play.
