Molyneux's broken promise to his 'god' fulfilled by another developer

Godus has been a string of broken promises to its backers, but no one was let down more than Bryan Henderson. The young man won the contest at the heart of the strange game Curiosity, and was told he would become a god in the then-upcoming game Godus.

That never happened, and now another publisher and developer are trying to make things up to him, at least in one small way.

When power becomes nothing

"It took a really long time for it to sink in, the fact that I had won, along with finding out about Godus and my involvement in it," Henderson told Polygon when he first won the contest. "Seeing my name across the Internet has blown my mind, and I think it's still sinking in."

He was promised fame and future for winning, but according to a recent report from Eurogamer he was quickly forgotten. The story put him back in the spotlight, and now other gaming companies are stepping in to try to help with the situation.

"We'd known of the whole saga from the start, I was one of the many people tapping away at the original Curiosity game..." Nigel Lowrie of Devolver Digital told Polygon.

"Eventually I felt like I was harassing them, because they seemed so uninterested in talking to me"

"When the news came out that Bryan might not see his grand prize come about it was pretty disheartening and felt that it makes the rest of us behind the 'game development curtain' look bad. To have this promise of being in a game so publicly lauded and then have it seemingly taken away is a tough story to read," he continued.

"We then thought we should help make good and get him into a game, however minor that may be, and knew that our developers would be sympathetic. We reached out to Roll7 and, feeling the same way, they immediately said they'd do it."

They reached out to Henderson, and are now adding him into the upcoming game Not a Hero. They also gave him some pretty godlike powers in his scene in the game, although the character won't be playable in the game, or at least won't be ready at launch.

"The world of Not A Hero is a godless place, that much is certain, but the next best thing is BunnyLord — an anthropomorphic rabbit from the future running for mayor," Lowrie explained. "Roll7 is going to put Bryan in the sort of employees lounge where BunnyLord stashes his heroes / henchmen as an NPC. It's not exactly becoming a god but it's the best we could do."

We spoke to Henderson himself, and his zen-like attitude about the situation was admirable.

"The whole 'laid-back' thing is just me. I'm quite a calm person. Maybe it's also just because of how things happened after the Curiosity Cube," he said.

"After the Curiosity Cube was over it all slowed down. How frequently they would get back to me, I mean. Or how infrequently, rather. Eventually I felt like I was harassing them, because they seemed so uninterested in talking to me. When it came to that point I just gave up."

If nothing else, he'll now be in a game, as another developer tries to make up a bit for Molyneux's broken promises. "I didn't really know what to expect when I was waiting for the email from Devolver," he explained. "So when I got asked to be a character in the game I just thought 'Well this is pretty cool. I'm up for this.'"