Gods Will Be Watching review: merciless difficultly brings big rewards

£6.99; Devolver; PC

Gods Will Be Watching began life as a Ludum Dare game jam entry, and due to critical and public acclaim, a Kickstarter was launched and a more complete version of the game was developed.

It's is a hard game to describe; part point and click adventure, part puzzle solving, part moral dilemma simulator. GWBW presents the player with scenarios where they must make decisions about how characters are to interact and what actions they should undertake.

Each scenario has a goal, for example, to finish hacking into a mainframe while holding hostages and defending against advancing guards. These scenarios require almost perfect management to complete and can be mercilessly difficult, requiring countless trial and error attempts, sometimes resulting in the player failing with no clear indication as to why. There are multiple ways to successfully complete each scenario and at the end of each level you are given a summary of how other players acted.

This is where the games true strength lies, in creating situations in which the player can understand why actions - which look cruel or inhumane in isolation - are made under the pressure and seem like a reasonable reaction at the time.

Gods Will Be Watching is punishingly tough, and the temptation to reduce the difficulty is constant, however the achievement felt from successfully negotiating a scenario, especially doing so without compromising your morals, is incredibly satisfying.