Doodle God is a puzzle game where the player plays god. Clicking on two different elements creates a new product that can be used in a different recipe to create even more new elements. The game starts out with the basic elements: fire, water, earth, and air. Then, through the power of combination, end elements like good and evil are introduced as the world is populated.
This formula is not new. There have been a few games like this one out on Google platforms like Elements and Alchemy which had the same mechanics. Doodle God added story and challenge modes, as well as a really pretty interface that builds the Earth as the game is played.
Doodle God has also been released on iOS, Windows Phone, and Windows 10 gaming platforms. It has seen a few different incarnations including Doodle God: Blitz and now the Ultimate Edition. But does this version do more than any other version in order to warrant the $9.99 price tag?
I do not believe so, especially since on the other platforms the game is free. On Windows 10, I could download essentially the exact same game for free, complete the whole game in two hours, and never spend a penny. On Xbox One, the game costs $10 and still includes the microtransactions from the previous editions. I think that is a slap to paying customers that the only thing they truly gain from giving the developer money is the lack of ads every once in a while.
It is pretty clear how I feel about repurposing iOS games for the Xbox One. I am not for it. I am actually completely against it. Very rarely do the games come out better, if ever.
The game suffers heavily from the lack of a touch interface. The left analog stick moves the cursor on the left side of the screen, while the right analog stick moves the cursor on the right side of the screen. Then the left trigger opens and closes the left menu while the right trigger does the same for the other side. This is not that confusing until it comes to selecting an element.
The A button is used to select each element, which the game recognizes as the last item selected. So when I moved the left cursor, it selected the left element. Then if I clicked A again it would automatically select the right element. Then pressing B would close everything I did and send me to the closed menu. While it sounds pretty straight forward on paper, it is incredibly confusing and awkward in practice. I regularly selected the wrong elements and combinations, and repeatedly closed the entire menu while trying to exit from the wrong selection.
The game is still very short at around 2 hours to complete the main storyline, and another couple hours to defeat the quests. Hints are given freely by logging in and playing each day, or they can be purchased with lightning bolt points that can cost real money. With all of the walkthroughs available online for this game, I do not know why anyone would spend more money on a game that they already spent extra money on.
The game is pretty, I will definitely give it that. The world that is built glows brightly and comes alive with each new element constructed. The sound design is a bit more hit or miss. God keeps announcing how incredible the discovery was, or how impressive my choice was. The same couple lines of dialogue were repeated hundreds of times.
While the booming voice sounded good the first few times, I eventually turned the sound off and completed the game listening to a podcast. I really wish the developers put more effort into making this game special for Xbox owners. We in the console space should demand to be taken seriously and not just be “another” platform to release a game on.
Summary
While I was a big fan of the free version of Doodle God, I cannot recommend Doodle God: Ultimate Edition. The main reason is that there is not enough of a difference to consider this game “Ultimate.” The lack of some ads and the ability to complete the game without waiting for my “energy” to recharge is not enough to warrant a premium version of the free game. This is only amplified by the awkward controller inputs. I really hope the next Doodle God puts Xbox players first if they want to be taken seriously on our platform of choice.
Joshua was a regular ICXM contributor between 2016–2017, publishing 42 articles across game reviews, and Xbox news. Their work focused on hands-on reviews, platform commentary, and breaking-news reporting during the Xbox One X launch year and Microsoft’s wider Play Anywhere / UWP gaming initiative.