Molyneux launches Project Godus Kickstarter

Peter Molyneux has launched a Kickstarter project aiming to reinvent the god game genre.

Project Godus is asking for £450,000 of funding and the title is due for release on PC and mobile devices in September 2013. Depending on how successful the Kickstarter project is, it might also be taken to additional platforms.

Molyneux's studio, 22 Cans, is intending to bring the god game genre into the modern era and make the most of modern technology. Molyneux is credited with creating the genre in the first place with Populous whilst at the iconic Bullfrog Productions.

'Populous was created over 22 years ago, and we believe that to date, nothing has come close to emulating its powerfully godlike experience,' reads the Kickstarter pitch.

As a hint of how the game will play, the studio claims it is aiming to combine the scope, growth and power of Populous with the construction and multiplayer elements of Dungeon Keeper.

'What I would love to do is go back to those glory days of Bullfrog, go back to when we focused ultimately on the game play,' said Molyneux. 'I don't want to promise anything, I just want to deliver the glory of the old days in the new format of today's world.'

Available backer packages range from £5 to £5,000 with rewards including making of features, in game pets, a personalised title screen and your name placed in 22 Cans' mobile experiment, Curiosity. Backers putting down £5000 will also receive a VIP ticket to E3.

Guildford-based 22 Cans was founded in March this year after Molyneux left Fable-studio Lionhead. Its first title, the experimental Curiosity: What's inside the cube? has been unexpectedly popular and with the developers astonished to see up to 500,000 trying to access their servers simultaneously.

Godus will be the studio's second title and is the project that Molyneux has previously referred to as "Cooperation" during interviews.