Goshen
A god game you play in your browser. Shape the land, help your villages grow, and hold off two rivals.
Version 0.45.1 alpha
Free. No account. Counts plays anonymously; no names, no cookies.
What Goshen is
You don't control anyone in Goshen. You raise and lower the land, and your followers do the rest: they settle the flat ground you make, farm it, and grow huts into towns. Two rivals, Evil and Gloam, are doing the same on the other side of the island. You have storms, floods and a volcano to slow them down. They have the same for you.
It's inspired by Populous, the 1989 game from Bullfrog Productions that invented the genre. I played it as a kid and wanted to see if I could build something like it.
What it looks like
Nineteen islands, one Play button. 
Or build your own island and rules. 
Your people find ruins and build beside them. 
A storm coming in over the villages. 
A volcano, aimed at Evil's towers. 
Night falls and the towns light up.
How it got built
I've been a gamer since I was a kid, starting on a friend's Apple IIGS. Populous was an early favorite. I've forgotten most of the details. What stuck was the feeling: playing for hours as a benevolent, lowercase-g god, helping my followers. Years later my sons grew up playing Minecraft with me, and that stuck too. I'd been thinking about making a game like this for about a year.
I'm not a developer. I lead marketing technology at a health system. What changed was Claude Code. I'd used it to move my two personal sites off WordPress after years, and my confidence grew with each one. So I took on a game. It started with a planning session: the basics, the pillars, a little of the vision. One rule came out of that session and hasn't changed: fun first. The first commit was November 1, 2026. Less than two weeks later it was on version 0.44.
The routine is simple. I plan in the evening. Claude builds overnight, usually about three versions. The next morning I check that the game updated, and when I get time I play it on my iPhone with the Notes app open. Bugs, ideas, screenshots. Then I paste all of it back in. Most days I keep the work moving from my phone, by voice when I can and by text when I can't.
One line in my notes for version 0.43 read "next big idea: island configuration." The next build had a Custom island screen. I haven't finished testing it.
Why do it at all? People learn tools by using them. This is my playground, away from everything I have to weigh in the day job. It doesn't make me an expert. But you start to be able to tell who's a talker and who's a doer, and I wanted to be a doer.
How it changed
Same game, four moments. Pick one.
Join the testers
You can play right now without signing up. Sign up if you want to help make it better.
- Play an island or two.
- Tell me what confused you or broke.
- Get an invite when the iPhone version is ready to test.
What's new
- 0.44 Custom islands: pick the mission, the size, the rivals and the miracles, then play.
- 0.43.2 A News list keeps the messages you missed, and roads now run through town gates.
- 0.43 Ruins of those who came before: find one, build a town beside it and unearth a relic.
- 0.42 The land takes sides: holy ground around your towns, blight around Evil's, and a front line between.
Quick questions
- Is it free?
- Yes. No ads, no purchases, no account.
- What can I play it on?
- Any recent browser on a laptop, tablet or phone. I test it only on an iPhone, so it’s comfortable on a small screen.
- Does it save my progress?
- Yes, on your own device, in your browser. Clear your browser data and it starts over.
- What does it collect about me?
- Nothing that identifies you. The game counts plays anonymously (how many games start and how far they get). No names, no cookies.
- Will it be on the App Store?
- That’s the plan. Join the testers above and you’ll get an invite when the iPhone version is ready to test.