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I keep thinking about the way many of the gods are kind of paired: Bauhauzzo and Huzzle Mug, and Thespius and Click Clack are the obvious ones. They have complementary domains that bolster each other: Bauhauzzo's history and memory and Huzzle's art and invention are intertwined and necessary for each other - which is why they absolutely cannot be separated, while Thespius and Click Clack's partnership is representative of the writing process itself, with them also filling in each other's stories in a way.

When I first played the game, I had wondered if Inspekta and King were similarly meant to be complementary gods. Leadership and eloquence of speech complement each other very well, and it is Inspekta's increasing reliance on orders and manipulation that makes things fall apart for him. But a lack of communication is really what happened with everyone in this game. It's King's loss more than Inspekta's letters alone that triggers the plot.

Moreover, King is quite literally paired with Miss Mitternacht, and that makes a lot of sense, really. Oldest and newest, dark and light. The way the quiet, soothing ambiance of the night is comforting, and how a carefully chosen phrase can illuminate our thoughts, feelings and next steps. They have that shared imagery of an open heart, and both are excellent at choosing the right words. Both are in the domain of bringing people together - Miss M is the mother, King, the folk hero. Moreover, they provide each other a necessary balance: Miss Mitternacht is a well of deep emotion that can quickly flood her over without some much needed perspective or clarity - but once she has that to work with, she spends much of the game behind the scenes putting two and two together, importantly, still driven by her big heart to believe in a person others have given up on. Fascinatingly, it is Miss Mitternacht who eventually finds the words to stop Inspekta's rampage spiral, when King could not. (<- I think about this all the time, btw.) They are the complement to each other. Both are masters of the domain of getting to the "heart" of a matter.

And besides, I keep coming back to poor Cobigail.

Most chapters of the game have two gods. Milldread has only one, adding to the visualization of Cobigail's isolation and loneliness, and really, the whole town's. No one works together. Their god is one of the harvest, but no one seems to remember what that means. There's some horrific implications to what's happening here. No one has visited Cobigail in twenty years. The townsfolk genuinely begin to believe rumours that she drinks blood. Cobigail can't remember whether or not this is true. No one shares any knowledge, so everything, their history and their memories as a community, are fragmented.

This must have started much earlier, before everyone stopped visiting Cobigail. What the reason for this is, we don't know, but there is something deeply concerning about the way that memory starts to fail, even in a god. Especially, even - do the memories of a god start to fail when the community forgets their importance? When the god is forgotten, do they lose themselves too? How terrifying. We never get a hint that Cobigail is scared, per se, but all the same, the loneliness is palpable, she just doesn't let on. She ends off every conversation with a scare, like she's trying to get as many pranks and jokes in as possible. She's hungry, like everyone else in the town; starved not just of a full harvest, but also of interaction and community.

And this is exactly what we later learn that Inspekta is so terrified of.

I wonder, did he have something to do with the initial dissolution of Milldread all those years ago? Or perhaps, was he simply witness to it, fueling the fear within him?

Cobigail and Inspekta make a lot of sense as complementary gods. One rooted, one constantly moving. Both are sustained/"fed" by their people. A leader without a community has no one to lead, but a community without some sort of unifying presence or goal will start to fracture or stagnate. Unity is what we learn Inspekta initially brought to the Bizzyboys - a chance to live better lives, a "poipose", a place to belong. That's... community. It's community he gave them. But along the way his fears took over his good intentions, and the Bizzyboys became a facsimile of a community instead of an actual one.

In Milldread, everyone forgot their god and their community as they detached further from each other, individual to the point of losing any semblance of cohesion. Meanwhile, the Bizzyboys' comradery becomes increasingly predicated on serving their god and becoming a singular group with no individuality, quite literally losing their own names and having to "earn" them back. And as Inspekta falls apart, so too does even this comradery.

The Bizzyboys are barely a cohesive group by the time we meet them in game - held together more by hero worship, fear of punishment, loyalty, and (in Capo's case) desperation more than anything. And for Inspekta, this is just not enough, further feeding into his spiral, and causing him to seize more and more power and control.

...where was I going with this? Right. This is my long-winded way of explaining why I think Cobigail and Inspekta's domains as gods are somewhat complementary, and I will now be forever wondering what their dynamic was like, or whether they ever really interacted much at all.

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get it twisted

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are the locations in Great God Grove larger communities abstracted for gameplay/presentation reasons or are they conceptualized as small, tight-knit communities with only a few people?

They are meant to be bigger than what you see! They're all small'd up like a town in an old Pokemon game. It just wasn't realistic for the games' scope for us to draw & write hundreds and hundreds of buildings and characters haha

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so that new click clack trading card huh

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THE CARDS OMG THEY’RE BEAUTIFUL RRRAAAAAAAGGGGHHHHHBBNGDFHHCV

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I’M SHAKING SO FUCKING HARD.

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🚨 HOWDY! 🚨 GREAT GOD GROVE is coming PHYSICALLY to Nintendo Switch from Super Rare Games!! It'll come with unique trading cards featuring NEW art and more 🤠 Copies will be limited, so STAY PRIMED, GODPOKES! Orders open on August 7th ⚡️ (and yes, it'll be compatible with Switch 2 as well) AAAAH!!

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hobo chic vs dark academia. or whatever

the inspirations

jordan arthur smith // yohji yamamoto

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the kids from yesterday

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i love doodling these freaps on my phone

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Bizzyboys Tournament, Semifinals

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(drawing by @clickety-clacker)

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Bizzyboys Tournament, Semifinals

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(second time i use this meme...at least it's for a happier reason!)

i really should be doing NOT that but, thought if I'd let the demons win for a bit they'd go easier on me. some design sneak peeks :]

oh and these tags got me. i'll do a better one some time later i just really wanted to try my hand at angry 'ekta. "you know how much i sacrificed?!" or smth like that hahaha

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"Drawing exercise" i.e. doodling Huzzle in outfits from my pinterest 'outfits to draw' board

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only way to go

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(drawing by @clickety-clacker)