WorldBox is a god sim too smart to give you goals Rock Paper Shotgun Support us Join our newsletter Visit our store Sign in / Create account If you click on a link and make a purchase we may receive a small commission. Read our editorial policy. WorldBox is a god sim too smart to give you goals Just an ant farm to mess with News by Graham Smith Contributor Published on Jan. 8, 2022 10 comments You know what's good? TFI Friday, RPS's regular roundup of indie games by Alice B. It's where I learned about another good thing: WorldBox, a god sim that entertained me (and my son) over the Christmas holidays. Is it cheeky to write about a game that I learned about because RPS already wrote about it? No, says I, because more people deserve to know about this game. I like god sims, but I don't like the way they're often structured. I want to be a god, which means I don't want to have to unlock my powers, and I don't want to have to gather wood for singing sailors. WorldBox seems to understands this and it's more of a toybox than a game. Watch on YouTube There are no objectives, just a generated pixel world with which to tinker. You have a suite of tools with which to change that world. In the first instance, that might mean dropping little people - humans, orcs, dwarves and elves - and leaving them to it. The pixel people will scurry around, chopping down trees, mining, building homes and farms. Eventually, they'll form kingdoms, go to war with their neighbours, build boats and go colonising. As an ant farm, it's great. You can zoom all the way out so that the people are nothing more than dots, or zoom in and click on individual citizens to learn about them. Some like sushi, some have bloodlust, some have lost an eye. They grow old, they have babies, they declare themselves king and secede from their nation. It's relatively light touch, but it's enough to support the fantasy that this is a world living independently from you. You can, of course, get more involved. You can paint new islands, change biomes, drop down fruit bushes and ore. You can pick an island and fill it with nothing but monkeys. Or you can do what my son likes to do: wreak havoc. He has learned that I like it when he builds a nice world of happy little people and lots of cows. But when I look away, it's instant carnage. As I said, it's a toybox and toys are for smashing together to see who wins. My son will spawn 28 dragons, drop a volcano in the ocean, plop a sandworm below the elves. He'll infect the dwarves with the plague, then set nanomachines to convert the world into grey goo. The citizens aren't helpless in the face of this onslaught. They'll form a militia and fight back against the dragons, and give it a generation or two and people will develop an immunity to the plague. The grey goo... Yeah, there's not much they can do about the grey goo. But if you spawn a giant crab, the only creature you can directly control, then detonate it, they'll later build statues in its honour. I'd probably had my fill of WorldBox after around 4 hours, but it was a happy four hours. My kid's appetite for it is insatiable. It remains in early access and you can get it from Steam. More News Jack King-Spooner's next handcrafted game has a teaser demo out Judero brings chat and action in the Scottish Borders Alice O'Connor 17 hours ago 1 If you were hoping for any Overwatch 2 balance changes then you'll have to wait until season two The next season begins in December CJ Wheeler 18 hours ago 3 The Dead Space remake will chuck random Necromorphs at you as you wander the Ishimura In space, no one can hear you proper bricking it CJ Wheeler 18 hours ago 8 Valve register mysterious new Neon Prime trademark in the US It doesn’t seem to be for a particularly colourful Steam Deck CJ Wheeler 20 hours ago 11 Latest Articles What are we all playing this weekend? Well? Alice O'Connor an hour ago 22 Past Wordle answers Here's an archive of previous Wordle words Ollie Toms 2 hours ago 1 Wordle answer today (Saturday 15 October) Hints and the answer to today's Wordle word Rebecca Jones 9 hours ago Overwatch 2 hero tier list Which are the best heroes in Overwatch 2? Ollie Toms 16 hours ago Supporters Only You're probably better than me at One Many Nobody You go on without… uh, you? Sin Vega 17 hours ago Supporter podcast - The Nate Files episode 13: dry bones Bad science is also FUN science! Alice Bell 18 hours ago Japanese dating show Love Wagon has surprising parallels with Yakuza and Persona My new obsession Ed Thorn 2 days ago If you're hankering after Bayonetta 3, Valkyrie Elysium might be a good substitute It's not out on PC until next month, but the console demo has been a surprise charmer Katharine Castle 1 week ago 4 We've been talking, and we think that you should wear clothes Total coincidence, but we sell some clothes Buy RPS stuff here