In the beginning, there was nothing...
And that was quite boring, so DOODLE GOD created earth, air, fire and water. Then, Doodle God did say that thou shalt make a game documenting his exploits and that it shall be filled with Ham and Awesome...
And there was much rejoicing.
Doodle God is a game on Newgrounds, Kongregate and iOS produced by Badim
. The mechanic is simple enough, you start with four elements and, by combining them, you create new elements. You combine the new elements to make newer elements, and so on. Sounds simple? There are right around 250 elements in the game at the time of writing. Needless to say, it's not easy.
The 2010 Halloween season debuted a spinoff called Doodle Devil. The mechanic remains the same (although you start with two elements instead), but the premise is different in that you are creating sin and destruction. More than 100 elements are available for Doodle Devil as of this writing.
In May 2011, Doodle God 2, a flash game containing the first 3 episodes of the iOS version was released by Badim. Around the same time, Doodle Farm, in which the player creates animals, was released. The latter was rereleased in 2016.
There are also Doodle Kingdom, Doodle Creatures Doodle Mafia and Doodle Tanks.Compare Scribblenauts.
Doodle God provides examples of:
- Aliens Never Invented the Wheel: It's possible to create the upper echelons of technology like airplanes while not knowing how to make bread or clothes.
- Anachronism Stew: You can have dinosaurs and airplanes at the same time. It's possible to create a boiler before even creating life. Later episodes attempt to avert this.
- Assimilation Plot: Alien + Human = Alien + Alien
- Back from the Dead: Philosopher's Stone + Corpse = Human
- Bizarro Elements: You start with ordinary elements like Fire and Water, and then you end up with elements like Steam-Engine and Vodka.
- Bread, Eggs, Breaded Eggs:
- Unlike some of the more Moon Logical puzzles, Poison + Weapon = Poisoned Weapon.
- Fire + Water = Fire Water. Also known as alcohol.
- Combinatorial Explosion: With hundreds of items to combine and few recipes that make something productive, the game quickly leads to this.
- Dinosaurs Are Dragons: If you combine them with Air or Fire, that is.
- Elemental Fusion: The player begins with 4 elements and must find different ways of combining them to create new things.
- Evil Lawyer Joke: Lawyer + Money = Greed.
- Element No. 5: There are several elements beyond the original four, including balance, simple life, animals, plants, humans, supernatural entities, machines, architecture, food, and vehicles. The sequel adds even more.
- Exactly What It Says on the Tin: The Spell Book. Sunflower, and other such things are made by combining...well, it should be obvious based on the trope name.
- Forced Transformation: Warrior + Wizard = Worm + Wizard
- Interspecies Romance: Apparently, dragon + hydra = sex.
- Last Lousy Point: Some of the Open Feint achievements require completing the episodes without using the hint system. Use it even once and it's Permanently Missable even on a reset of the game.
- Moon Logic Puzzle: Several of the combinations only make sense in hindsight, and often by a stretch.
- Fire + Cthulhu = ...Wrath?
- Snake + Worm = ...Lizard?
- Demon + Soul = Money?
- There are often multiple paths to the same result, often because the player might be following Moon Logic. For example; Frankenstein's Monster + Cthulhu = Friendship.
- As Yahtzee said in his review of iPhone games (which included Doodle God)...
Yahtzee: Fish plus Knowledge equals Octopus?!note That's not logic, that's fucking batshit on a sandwich! I'm a little disappointed that Cat plus Internet doesn't equal YouTube. - Mushroom Cloud: Mushroom + Bomb = Nuclear Bomb in Devil.
- Our Ghouls Are Creepier: It's Zombie + Corpse (a zombie that eats corpses).
- Puzzle Thriller: The game doesn't give any indication of what elements need to be mixed or how to create the new ones—or even which are missing.
- Retool: Doodle Farm was completely redesigned in 2016 to be less about animals and more about nature as a whole.
- Schizo Tech: It is very possible to invent the boiler before creating humans, and build houses and rockets and skyscrapers before inventing clothing.
- Seven Deadly Sins: All seven of them can be created in Doodle Devil.
- Side Quest / Brutal Bonus Level: After inventing Games, you get to play a combination of Doodle God, and Tetris. Episode 4 adds a mix of Doodle God and Bejeweled.
- Shout-Out: The quotes for the "Water + Bacteria = Plankton" combination are nothing but quotes from that Plankton, and the artwork for the intro for the "Save the Princess" sidequest in the iPhone version has, inscribed on the ground in the second scene, the words "3. ???, 4. Profit!"
- Also, the quote for Computer + Human = Cyborg.
- Pie + Sex = Censored
- Airplane + Snake = Censored
- Vampires + Book = Censored
- In Doodle Devil: Weapon + Inferno = BFG 9000.
- And to drive the point home: BFG 9000 + Demon = Ash.
- Shown Their Work: Stone and shell make limestone, cement is made of limestone, etc.
- Take That!: Apple + Cellphone = Gold + Gold + Gold.
- On the Windows Phone version sex has been omitted, but the iPhone joke is intact. Either it slipped through, or the combination of the two was too important to leave out.
- Episode 3 changes this to Apple + Cellphone = Religion.
- Tank Goodness: Doodle Tanks is entirely dedicated to it, as you get to combine elements to create tank components and eventually tanks from USSR and the Third Reich.
- Try Everything: Getting stumped is easier than you think.
- Video Game Demake: Doodle God 8-Bit Mania, which is practically the same game but with 8-bit style graphics and chiptune music.
- The Vitruvian Pose: A simplified version of the Vitruvian Man is used as the icon for the human group of elements.
- When Trees Attack: Tree + Life = Treant.
Human + TV Tropes = Zombie
