Games like WorldBox for people who want to play god

WorldBox lets you build a world, fill it with life and then wreck it. Black and White, Spore and Reus 2 give you the same power in different ways, and Townscaper scratches the calm building side. Roam has two god games where you are the hand or the volcano.

What WorldBox is

WorldBox is a god simulator sandbox by Maxim Karpenko, a solo developer. It runs on iOS, Android and PC through Steam. You paint land and sea, drop in humans, elves, orcs and dwarves, and watch them build villages, form kingdoms and go to war. Then you can hit them with meteors, plagues or a dragon.

There is no goal you have to reach. That is the point: it is a toy box for stories.

God games and sandboxes like WorldBox

Black and White. Lionhead's 2001 classic. You are a god with a giant creature that learns from how you treat your people.
Spore. Maxis' 2008 game. Start as a cell and guide a species all the way to space travel.
Reus 2. Abbey Games' 2024 god game. You guide giants that shape the planet, and humans build on what you make.
Townscaper. Oskar Stalberg's calm town builder from 2020. No people to rule, but tapping a town into being feels great.

Ideas for your next WorldBox-style story

Give one small island a single village and see if it can survive a stronger kingdom across the water. Or set up two races on equal land and change only one thing, like the weather.

Many players like to keep a world running for a long time and act only when things get boring. A small disaster every few minutes keeps the story moving.

Roam god games

Roam is a free iPhone app with thousands of short games.

Volcano Creator. A voxel god-sim. Raise a volcano and burn the camp below.
HANDFUL. A god game village builder. You are the hand, and they are the village.

Play it on Roam

Make your own god game with Roam

Describe the world, the people in it and the powers you get. Roam builds it, and you can add a new disaster by asking.

Try: "god game on a floating island, my friends are the villagers, I can drop rain, lightning and giant pizzas"

Create it with Roam See Roam

Questions people ask

Who made WorldBox?

Maxim Karpenko, a solo developer. It is on iOS, Android and PC.

Is there a game like WorldBox on mobile?

WorldBox itself is on iOS and Android. On Roam, Volcano Creator and HANDFUL are short god games for iPhone.

What is a god game?

A game where you control the world instead of one character: the land, the weather and the fate of the people in it.