Pocket God

Pocket God
File:Pocket God Icon.jpg What's The Story Morning Gory
Developer(s)	Bolt Creative
Publisher(s)	Bolt Creative
Platform(s)	iPod Touch, iPhone, iPad
Genre(s)	God game
Mode(s)	Single-player

Pocket God is a game for the iPhone/iPod Touch and iPad developed by Bolt Creative. It was programmed by Dave Castelnuovo and it was designed by Allan Dye. Originally released on January 9, 2009, Pocket God has been in the iTunes App Store's Top 100 Charts since its release.

Gameplay

Pocket God was created by a Baton Rouge child by the name of Tyler Overton, who attends University Lab School. is a god game in which the player takes the role of an omnipotent being who rules over an island and controls almost everything present. The primitive islanders, known as Pygmies, are subject to the player's god powers. These range from benevolent powers, such as giving the islanders a fishing rod, to destructive, like summoning a hurricane, or simply entertaining, such as levitating the Pygmies. Built-in features of the iPod touch and iPhone OS are used, such as the accelerometer to simulate gravity and earthquakes. Most of these features can be toggled on the game's menu bar. The "March of the Fire Ants" update also added a new feature known as OpenFeint, where players can access chat rooms, leaderboards, and announcements during gameplay. Pocket God was ranked number one on iTunes for at least six months.

One of Pocket God's most notable features is the regular release of updates that introduce additional content. The episodes "A New Home", "Dead Pygmy Walking", and "The Pyg Chill" added additional islands to the game, which can be toggled from the menu bar. The Fun n' Games until A Pygmy Gets Hurt update added mini-games for consecutive coconut bounces, consecutive shark snaps, underwater skewer, pygmy bowling, and hurricane zaps. The Ooga Jump update added the first crossover minigame, Ooga Jump, which was followed by a Harbor Master crossover. In the Idle Hands 2: Caught With Your Pants Down update more idle features were added to the Pygmies when they are not in use. Also, Buddy Challenges were implemented with OpenFeint. In the Good Will Haunting update, a DLC store was added with changeable skins for the T-Rex. Other packs, such as the Halloween, Holiday and alien themes, have since been added.

Episodes

Pocket God is frequently updated with new 'episodes', a themed update that adds new features to the Pocket God world, such as new islands, items, or minigames. As of March 16, 2010, 31 episodes have been released. A newer mini-update has been released on the app store with a news feature and story mode enhancements.

Episode Descriptions

Pocket God is frequently updated with new 'episodes', a themed update that adds new features to the Pocket God world, such as new islands, items, or minigames. As of March 16, 2010, 31 episodes have been released. Recently the updates have been taking long but the creators said that there will be more smaller faster updates.

Episodes
Episode Number	Version Number	Release	Episode title	Features
1	1.0	01/09/09	Nowhere To Go, Nothin' To Do	The first release of Pocket God. Abilities include flicking and levitating the Pygmies, as well as throwing them into the water.
2	1.1	01/14/09	Does this Megabyte Make My App Look Fat?	Several updates to the game engine.
3	1.2	01/20/09	You Always Hurt the Ones You Lava	Added a volcano which the player can flick Pygmies into. After three hits, the volcano will erupt, spewing molten lava onto the island. The Pygmies are set on fire, and then jump in the water and drown.
4	1.3	01/29/09	Shake That App!	Added gravity features allowing Pygmies to slide across the screen by tilting the device, and creation of an earthquake by shaking the device.
5	1.4	02/05/09	A Storm is Coming	Added storm clouds and lightning which can electrocute the Pygmies.
6	1.5	02/14/09	And on the 7th Day, Rest!	Added the Ability to change between day and night by dragging the sun or moon up and down.
7	1.6	02/20/09	Just Give Us 5 Minutes	Added the ability to make the Pygmies dance by tapping the screen, a feature unlocked by achieving five minutes of gameplay. The boulder was also added, which can crush Pygmies or bowl them off the island.
8	1.7	02/26/09	Jump the Shark	Added a shark to the ocean, which will eat a Pygmy if it is dangled over the water. Players can also levitate a shark out of the water and drop on a Pygmy's head, or slap Pygmies off of the island.
9	1.8	03/06/09	Idle Hands	Added top menu and more gravity functionality. Also added more idle animations to the Pygmies.
10	1.9	03/15/09	Hi, Dracula!	Introduced the vampire bat, which turns one sleeping Pygmy into a vampire. The vampire will knock all the other Pygmies off the island, but it is destroyed when the player changes night into day. By tapping on the screen 25 times, a swarm of bats attack and eat all of the Pygmies. Also added an eclipse when the boulder is levitated in front of the sun.
11	1.10	03/24/09	A Mighty Wind	Added the ability to create a hurricane by making circular motions on the screen during stormy weather. The hurricane whirls Pygmies and objects around the island and drops them in the ocean.
12	1.11	04/01/09	Something Fishy...	Added a fishing rod, to let Pygmies catch and eat the new fish. Also added OpenFeint, an iPhone social network with chat rooms and leader-boards. (This was also the April Fool's Day release, which implied that the player had only purchased the lite version, and must buy the full version for $4.99.)
13	1.12	04/08/09	March of the Fire Ants	Added an anthill and magnifying glass to the island. Tapping the anthill and drawing a line from the anthill will draw out fire ants, which will consume a nearby Pygmy. The magnifying glass allows you to destroy ants and burn the Pygmies.
14	1.13	04/17/09	Say my Name!	Added the ability to name individual Pygmies and their tribe. Also added stats to see how many times Pygmies were sacrificed and given gifts.
15	1.14	04/28/09	A New Home	Added a new, larger, island that contained an outhouse, as well as a mysterious dinosaur egg. Pygmies who use the outhouse will stay indefinitely until the player knocks on the door; meanwhile, Pygmies who are forced to wait in line will eventually burst.
16	1.15	05/08/09	The Tyrannosaurus Strikes Back!	Now, when a player drops the egg three times, a Tyrannosaurus Rex will appear and begin eating the Pygmies. The Moai statue is changed to an octopus god statue, to avoid racial insensitivity. Additionally, a story about the island's background was introduced.
17	1.16	05/19/09	Return of the Pygmy	Added a spear, which the player can give to Pygmies to fight off the Tyrannosaurus Rex. Once the T-Rex's health bar is emptied, it will fall into the water. This update also added buttons for toggling T-Rex egg and outhouse functionality. Finally, an easter egg was added so that if players touch the octopus god statue three times in rapid succession, all Pygmies on the island are vaporized while the statue mumbles 'You know you like Pocket God'. A god statistic screen is revealed, but doesn't save user's changes due to a small glitch. The game is upgraded to iPhone OS 2.2.1
18	1.17	06/01/09	Surf's Up!	Players can now generate a tsunami by moving a finger across the water. The flood reveals a new underwater area, with a mysterious statue that protects ancient ruins. Tapping the statue will release a deadly spear that skewers the Pygmies. Pushing the water down will return the scene to the previous island. The new god stat screen is fixed and allows users to change their god type and shows users their achievements. Due to complaints, the game is downgraded to iPhone OS 2.2.
19	1.18	06/17/09	Fun n' Games Until A Pygmy Gets Hurt	Pocket God now includes achievements that turn some Pocket God activities into mini-games. Achievements include records for most consecutive coconut bounces, consecutive shark snaps, underwater skewers, pygmies bowled and hurricane zaps. Also, a two-finger swipe is now needed to create a tsunami or change the weather: the change was intended to avoid players accidentally triggering the tsunami or changing the weather. This was also a cleanup update to correct many glitches and optimize animations.
20	1.19	07/03/09	Stop! My App Is On Fire!	This update gives the pygmies wood to make a fire so they can cook fish and warm themselves. Pygmies assemble a pile of wood, and the player hits it with lightning to set it on fire. Now, the player can roast a fish over the fire, but roasting a fish for too long will burn it. Giving the burnt fish to a pygmy will make the pygmy choke and fall into the water. Players can also cook pygmies so that they turn rock-hard. A more complex background is added for the underwater area. The two-fingered sky and water movement controls are reverted to one finger controls after technical difficulties. Due to this being the 20th update, some thought Pocket God would cease updates.
21	1.20	07/09/09	Flipping the Bird	Added a flying Dodo bird to every island. Poking the bird will make it drop "bird bombs" on the pygmies. This leads to a new a mini-game, in which the player has to drop the most feces consecutively without missing. The dodo bird will go after caught fish, and will snatch up a Pygmy holding a fish. The bird can be caught and cooked over the fire, or can be struck by lightning. A whirlpool ability and some fish animations are added to the underwater area. Achievements are now recorded in Feint.
22	1.21	07/24/09	Ooga Jump	This update is a crossover with Doodle Jump. When a player drags a Pygmy over the cloud line and drops him, it will bounce off the cloud and be propelled up into the sky. There, there are four types of clouds: a normal cloud which bounces the pygmy further into the air, a thundercloud which lights a pygmy on fire and shoots him even higher up, an ice cloud which freezes a pygmy and prevents him from jumping as high, and a fake cloud which disappears when you try to jump on it. Once you reach 1,000 oogles, there will be doodler's perched on clouds that will try to shoot the pygmy. If the pygmy fails to hit a cloud, it falls back down to the island and is flattened. The record height for "Ooga Jump" is a new achievement.
23	1.22	08/05/09	Bait Master	This update is a cross over with Harbour Master and adds a new mini-game to the underwater scene. When the anchor is picked up and dropped, piranhas begin to enter the screen from the left and right to eat floating Pygmies. Players must guide each piranha by drawing a path. The goal is to keep them away from each other as they are led to their dinner, and then back off the screen. The more Piranhas are "served", the faster they arrive. Gameplay is similar to Flight Control, but players may move the Pygmy targets as well as the piranhas. This update also adds two improvements to Ooga Jump: players will no longer end up in a situation where there are no possible jumps, and the doodlers appear sooner and only one at a time.
24	1.23	08/19/09	Idle Hands 2: Caught With Your Pants Down	This update adds more idle features to the Pygmies when they are not in use. The new idle features are as follows: The Pygmies' grass skirts fall down showing underpants, sneezing, a Pygmy thinks of a food item, it pulls the bone out of its hair and it falls down over their face, and the Pygmy beats its chest like Tarzan. This update also implemented Buddy Challenges through Feint. Due to some coding errors, this version of Pocket God ran iPhone OS 2.1s and 2.2s. Due to this problem, Bolt Creative replaced the update with the previous update "Bait Master". The next update was later released as a combination of Ep. 24 and Ep. 25.
25	1.24	09/02/09	Sharks with Frickin' Laser-beams Attached to their Heads	This update added a chum bucket option to the underwater area, which players can use to attract a shark. The shark can shoot pygmies, using the accelerometer to control aiming. Sharks will also eat Pygmies if they are holding a piece of chum. There is now a button to go to the underwater area from the menu. The title is a reference to Austin Powers.
26	1.25	09/17/09	Dead Pygmy Walking	This update added a new location: the Pygmy Graveyard. On the island is a grave in which players can bury a Pygmy alive. The seal on the grave will cause the Pygmy to come back as a Zombie, which proceeds to eat the brains of the other Pygmies on the island (which turns them into Zombies as well). When the player makes zombies dance, it is based on "Thriller." If a player touches a zombie, it explodes into blue flakes of skin. Added two new sacrifices, Brains Eaten and Buried Alive, and one new gift, Gift of Zombie dance.
27	1.26	10/06/09	Good Will Haunting	The graveyard island will now create ghosts when any Pygmy dies on the island. Players can direct the ghosts by dragging across the screen, and can make ghosts and Pygmies interact: The ghosts can possess a pygmy, scare it to death, pick up a Pygmy and carry it away, pull a Pygmy into the ghost dimension, or make a banshee scream that will burst the eardrums of the pygmies. To get rid of a ghost, players have to direct it into "the light", located at the top left of the screen. The ghosts can be toggled from the menu. Also, players can now enjoy extras from new downloadable content. There were DLC features for the T-Rex, like new skins, tattoos, and hats. One of the skins can be see here.DLC(Downloadable Content) was added to help continue funding for the app, instead of raising the price. As a result of DLC, Pocket God is now only compatible with 3.0 and higher firmware, so users still using 2.XX will be required to update their iDevice firmware before they can continue to use the app.
28	1.27	10/28/09	Barking Spider, Crouching Pygmy	In the graveyard, a giant spider has been added. To attract the spider, a Pygmy must be placed in the web hanging from the tree, touched to summon a small spider to cocoon him, and touched again to burst the cocoon, revealing dozens of baby spiders. The giant "Barking Spider" then appears. Pygmies can be webbed and eaten by the spider, or put in the spiderweb where the mother spider puts the pygmy in a cocoon to be fed to the spider babies. Pygmies can also fight the spider with the spear, but a different strategy is needed than with the T-Rex. Halloween themes for the DLC was added for many items around the island, such as the volcano,the dodo bird, the meteor,and even the Doodler from Doodle Jump. The "Barking Spider" literally barks when it is about to eat a Pygmy and whines when it is hit with a spear. Like the T-rex, there is an achievement for least spears used to kill it.
29	1.28	12/04/09	The Pyg Chill	Introduced a new ice island with an igloo. Players can cook fish in it, but the igloo can also fire pygmies out the top or sides. This update also included an ice monster, which is battled by flicking Pygmies at it. The ice monster can block attacks and throw snowballs. Additionally, there is now a brand new island selection screen which shows a map instead of a list. Another holiday skin pack was released as an add-on purchase, which includes different Christmas themed items.
30	1.29	1/26/10	Great Job, Ice Hole	Players can now expand and contract the sun to make the world hotter and cooler. When it’s cold, the pygmies turn into frozen statues that shatter when you touch them. When it's hot, they start sweating, and eventually explode. If the Pygmies are on the ice island when it gets hot, they melt through and create an Ice Hole. Pygmies can fish in the Ice Hole and catch a swordfish, which is lethal when eaten. If a player holds a Pygmy over the Ice Hole, and a squid will come out of it to try and catch the Pygmy. If players pull too hard against the squid, the pygmies head will fall off and body taken into the ice hole by the squid. There is also an Easter egg, if the player drops a burnt pygmy from the Dino island, an ice geyser will erupt, killing all the remaining pygmies. 8 new dances were included as downloadable content.
31	1.30	3/15/10	What's the Story, Morning Gory?	Added a story mode, which lets players watch movies from the creators, create their own, or share them on OpenFeint. A new game, called the Pain Drain, was added to the underwater area, which involves players tilting their device to control a pygmy dropping down platforms. An alien themed DLC pack was also added. The title is a reference to an album of the band Oasis.
31B	1.31	3/29/10	What's the Story, Morning Gory? Part II	A clean-up update to fix some bugs. Added an in-game news alert for Pocket God events.
32	1.32	TBA	"Crack is Wack"	A new minigame that has something to do with a pygmy running from lava (underground)? (PG's blogspot)lalalalalalallalalala and mabe new map (island) (PG blog)

Wallpaper Contest

Bolt Creative ran a contest to design the best Pocket God desktop wallpaper between March 19 and April 5, 2009. They received around 300 entries and picked the top 5. The main prize was a limited edition islander figure with 4 runners up receiving T-shirts. Entries were posted on Pocket Gods Facebook site and on its Flickr site. Entries had to be 1680 x 1050 with a Pocket God theme and with a limit of 3 entries per person. Entries also had to include the logo and that Pocket God is for the iPhone and iPod Touch for 99 cents on iTunes, they also had to be saved in png format. The overall winner was Victor Villanueva with a poster depicting an islander as almost human with an iPhone in its hand playing pocket god. On March 19, 2009 the official Pocket God website announced that there will be a new Wallpaper contest. The rules are similar to the first one and the winner will get the first Pocket god toy.

Idle Hands 2 Contest

On July 29, 2009, the official Pocket God website announced that there was going to be another clean-up update, but to make it more fun, more idle animations would be added. The website invited fans of Pocket God to come up with the next idle animations. Winners included: Brandon and Derek (A thought bubble with some kind of food in it), Sam Greenwood (Pygmies pull the bones out of their hair and it falls down over their face), and Adam Jaffe (Pygmies beat their chest like Tarzan).

Twitter Your Picture Contest

The Twitter Yer Picture with Pocket God on Yer iPod Contest (more commonly known as the Twitter Yer Picture Contest) involved contestants taking pictures of themselves playing Pocket God in creative places. The three winners were "FernyTheBomb", "Dylan_Johnson" and "MalcomJudd". They each won a third generation 64GB iPod Touch.

Reception

Pocket God has received ratings that ranged from generally positive reviews to universal acclaim. iTune App Reviews gave the game 5 out of 5 stars. AppStruck gave the game 5 out of 5 stars referring to the game as "endlessly amusing and is an easy way to completely lose track of time". iPhone App Reviews gave the updated version of the game 4.8 out of 5 having given the original version 3.92 out of 5 Appvee gave the game 4 out of 5 after episode 11 was released, having originally given the game 1.8 out of 5.

Controversy

The game was subject to controversy when some Pacific islanders and anthropologists protested to Apple Inc. claiming the game was racist. The game's creators defended the game, saying "it depicts no specific race or nationality." Pocket God's programmer Dave Castelnuovo got in touch with one of the original Pacific Islanders and came up with some compromises: The islanders would be called Oogs instead of Pygmies, and the Moai statue would be replaced with a statue of an Octopus God. On May 27, 2009, Dave Castelnuovo announced that the characters would no longer be called Oogs, as 'Pygmies' was a more suitable name, and didn't actually cause any friction between Pacific Islanders.

In Other Apps

Doodle Jump

On May 22, 2009, a new version of Doodle Jump was released that allowed users to play as a Pygmy from Pocket God. To unlock the Pygmy, players must change the high score name to one of the characters from Pocket God: Ooga, Booga, Nooby, Dooby, Klik or Klak. Also see Pocket God episode 22 Ooga Jump for the Pocket God version of the Doodle Jump crossover. and use bunny as a neme and be a bunny. also use creeps as a name and see creeps enimeis. X_X

The Creeps!

On July 3, 2009, an update was released in the Super Squark Software game The Creeps! that allows Pocket God characters. To get the Pocket God Pygmies on "The Creeps!", a player must go to the Credits Page on the Main Page.

Harbour Master

Imangi studios' Harbor Master episode 'Pocket God Attacks' allowed players to unlock swimming pygmies in place of the normal boats. To unlock this, players must hold down the Harbour Master logo for at least 3 seconds Also see Pocket God episode 23 for the Pocket God version of the crossover.

Spin-offs

According to the Pocket God Blog, the developers of Pocket God, have "about ten ideas for standalone Pocket God games". They also noted that even if sequels are developed, Pocket God will still receive updates, but at a slower rate. The developers are in talks to bring Pocket God to other platforms, such as the Nintendo DS, and a digital comic-book tie-in will be released in May. Also a ported version of Pocket God will appear on Verizon Wireless Cell Phones this year.

External links

• Bolt Creative Homepage
• Doodle Jump Tips & High Scores