The Deer God Reviews
The Deer God is a breathtaking 3D pixel art adventure that will challenge your religion and your platforming skills. It's a game about survival, reincarnation, and karma; all set in a breathtaking and unique 3D pixelized world. Feast your eyes on the beautiful lighting, day and night system, and vast landscapes.
App ID | 328940 |
App Type | GAME |
Developers | Crescent Moon Games, Cinopt Studios |
Publishers | Crescent Moon Games |
Categories | Single-player, Steam Achievements, Co-op, Partial Controller Support |
Genres | Indie |
Release Date | 27 Feb, 2015 |
Platforms | Windows, Mac, Linux |
Supported Languages | English |

474 Total Reviews
306 Positive Reviews
168 Negative Reviews
Mixed Score
The Deer God has garnered a total of 474 reviews, with 306 positive reviews and 168 negative reviews, resulting in a ‘Mixed’ overall score.
Reviews Chart
Chart above illustrates the trend of feedback for The Deer God over time, showcasing the dynamic changes in player opinions as new updates and features have been introduced. This visual representation helps to understand the game's reception and how it has evolved.
Recent Steam Reviews
This section displays the 10 most recent Steam reviews for the game, showcasing a mix of player experiences and sentiments. Each review summary includes the total playtime along with the number of thumbs-up and thumbs-down reactions, clearly indicating the community's feedback
Playtime:
52 minutes
"Did...did I just make a baby? Dude, where the fuck is my baby!? ...yo, fucking snake just ate my baby! Oh well, back to being irresponsible" - Bob, while playing this game.
[u][url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ciH8GJo7ZBo&feature=youtu.be]Don't feel like reading all of this? Check out my review in video form here[/url][/u]
Pros:
_Beautiful: I don't usually care much for artistic design, but goddamn this game looks good. The pixel art is well made with lots of details in both the environment and the characters. Colorful, too, with the ambient lighting and mood changing with the time of day. In short, it's purdy.
_Great soundtrack: Don't know what else to say here. The music is good.
_Interesting concept: You play as a deer hunter reincarnated as a deer by the deer god. Then you go and eat food to grow into a big deer then have deer babies. If you die, you get reincarnated as one of your babies. What I'm trying to say is the game is weird in the best posible way.
_Tight control: the game feels great, jumping is nice and solid, and attacking is impactful.
Cons?
_It's... boring: Here's the part where the discussion happens for this game, or at least I hope. Mechanically speaking, this game is boring. You just run right, then run right some more. Tired of running right? Keep running right, then, until you're not tired of running right anymore. There's an inventory system here that doesn't do much, and a quest system that's pretty bare-boned.
But does that matter?
Now that's the million dollars question, isn't it? I feel a lot about this game the way I feel about Sunless Sea. In term of minute-to-minute gameplay, I cannot recommend this game in good faith. There's no game here. But somehow I don't feel like it's a bad game. I find myself strangely attached to it. For such a boring non-game game, it's... good. it's immersive, beautiful, and interesting.
Overall, you'd like this game if:
_You like pretty game with good music.
_You like tight jumping control with lots of platforming. Cuz this game has tons.
_You want to fulfill your lifelong dream of being a deer. Majestic creatures.
Is it worth $15? I think from the first glance at the game, you already know this answer. If you the type of person that would like this game, then you're already at the checkout screen. If you're a more mechanic-minded person, however, this won't be the game for you. But for the cost of 5 cups of coffee, you might find yourself surprised at how much you like it. I certainly did.
Shameless plugs time! Did you like my review? I do more than just that. I also have a YouTube channel where i do Let's Play as well as more reviews like these, but in video form. Come check it out here. My channel is small right now, but I play on making it a regular thing, so hit that subscribe button to see more content. Thank you!
👍 : 60 |
😃 : 18
Positive
Playtime:
677 minutes
You start as a hunter, staying up late and looking for a deer to shoot for an easy meal; two come along, a big stag and a young fawn, and you line up your shot! Unfortunately for you, wolves attack and lightning strikes you at the same time and the baby fawn is shot instead. You definitely died; but the next time your eyes open it’s directly into the floating form of The Deer God, and they look pretty miffed. Appalled by your accidental cruelty, they reincarnate you as a baby deer and the only way to become human again is to redeem yourself. Good luck?
3-7 hour pixel platform side-scrolling adventure game where you play as a deer. Start as a baby and stumble your way to adulthood, complete easy push puzzles to gain various power ups; and use them and your platforming skills to beat some simple bosses. There is a karma system in place, if you’re good other deer will assist you in fights and follow you, but if you murder too many bunny rabbits you get reincarnated as one next time you die. I didn’t experience any bugs, and while the game is pretty easy, you could still die in a moment of carelessness. The only thing “unbalanced” is the Hail skill, where you have a Hail AOE that lasts a couple seconds you can actually stack/spam; I recommend it against one of the last flying bosses. Overall, The Deer God is a fantastic game and I don’t understand why the current reviews are mixed.
👍 : 7 |
😃 : 1
Positive
Playtime:
80 minutes
The game is really beautiful. However, if you are looking not for sightseeing, but an actual game to play, you'll have to look elsewhere. Deer God is a game about running right, jumping over spikes and wondering what is going on and what are you supposed to do. Gameplay literally falls apart. You get attacked by foxes and skunks, but can easily outrun any enemies. There are NPCs with rudimentary quests like "please bring my children a nut from that barrel". Sometimes you run across a primitive puzzle and get rewarded with a power like fireball, which you have no enemies to use on. Sometimes you run across bosses with no reason to fight them. The game is a terrible mess pretending to be a work of art. Avoid it.
👍 : 16 |
😃 : 2
Negative
Playtime:
756 minutes
This is a "game" best played on some weed when youre really tired. Its extremely relaxing and lovely to look at- a perfect title to unwind with.
Its AI is rather ignorant and all battles amount to "charge- jump over their charge- charge the other way- jump over their charge- ETC" so theyre pretty simple.
Quests are nonsensical (a man asks you to recruit members into his church? Wuh...?? Oh, theyre literally right outside the door, cool) and require little to zero thought, which makes this even more of a title to relax to.
Theres supposed to be some message about reincarnation or killing nature or something, but I never really "got it" (because aside from the intro screens and some asinine quests theres no real story progression).
If you treat it like the "laser light show" that it is- AKA "kick back, let your brain go into neutral and look at the pretty things"- you may enjoy this one.
Otherwise, if youre looking for "legit" platforming, story, quests or enemies, well....this unfortunately doesnt have much of any. Keep running right til the game ends.
As a member of the Cervine blood, I really wanted to like this game more than I did. It had lots of potential. Optimally, this shouldve been a "Metroidvania" type of game- a maze which you couldnt progress through without "X" skill.
Unfortunately, as a member of the gaming community since the mid 80's, Id suggest you pass on this one unless you really, really like deer or those type of quiet, pretty games that ultimately put you to sleep.
I wish Steam would allow a "NEUTRAL" recommendation, cuz I honestly cant approve or disapprove, depending on how you take the title. Youve heard what I have to say about it at least!
👍 : 57 |
😃 : 4
Negative
Playtime:
112 minutes
Beautiful graphics! A wonderful sense of speed! Relaxing music!
*BUT WAIT...!
Any positive traits that could possibly be bestowed on this game have the misfortune of being attatched to a design that is pretty baffling if I am being totally honest. And I dont write negative reviews. I rarely have a reason to complain, if at all.
Well good job then Deer God. I can't, not, talk about you.
So here is what you can expect to be doing in Deer God:
- Jumping. No like, endlessly harrasing your gamepad's A button to get over obstacles that you eventually learn to do with your eyes closed. That is, after seeing them for the 7,000th time.
- Retracing your steps through the same handful of endlessly repeating maps, just waiting to come across an NPC with more than fairly dissapointing dialogue.
- Do a fetch quest. For nearly every NPC. The items or actions for which may be located 10 feet away from them. Don't have the item they need? Tough! You'll be seeing them as you run past them again and again within the next 30 seconds as the game decides to spawn in the same encounter again and again instead of one of the other current, applicable ones.
- Mate with female deer. Which produces an offspring that will follow you, because? Then either Alpha, or Beta occurs: A: It gets stuck shortly after being born, or B: Immediately jumps into the nearest hole with spikes in it.
- Eating over and over and over and over again. If eating in Minecraft was ever an annoyance, Deer God cranks it beyond levels we have not even begun to fathom.
- And Basically evading every element of danger with ease. Because by the time they know you are there, they are either STUCK or the programming is removing them to save resources after you leave it 50 yards to the west.
There is another point worth mentioning. The game wants to think that it is about survival, thus it only gives you one life total for each adventure. However, due to the IMMENSE non-difficulty of the game and thanks to an overwhelming abundence of resurrection items, it is never really a danger. Ever. Unless of course one of the resurrection items - which must be reactivated from inventory after every demise no matter how many you have - puts you into a death loop, whereby you spawn back on top of the same thing that killed you -- to die again and restart the adventure from the absolute beginning. Thus is the only real danger in the game.
The different levels that this title might work on are maybe worth a 25% investment. The other 75%... just doesnt work. And with so little time left in beta before release, it is very unlikely that this game becomes interesting by then.
Deer God... I am so sorry. I wanted to like you. :(
👍 : 135 |
😃 : 7
Negative
Playtime:
80 minutes
ENG:
The game is visually appealing and a great idea! Action game, the player is only supposed to eat the food to grow, so can not exceed the new barriers. Player can open environment in order to move forward platformer like manner, in which fields in the game change every time you play.
The game ends and starts from the beginning that after death, but you can compare the performance of growth or the distance to justify to you. Referral! :3
FIN:
Peli on visuaalisesti ja ideana loistava! Toiminnaltaan pelissä pelaajan on vain tarkoitus syödä ruokaa kasvaakseen, jotta voi ylittää uusia esteitä. Pelaaja pääsee avaamaan ympäristöä siinä edetäkseen tasoloikka maisesti, jossa pelin kentät vaihtuvat joka peli kerralla.
Peli loppuu ja alkaa alusta joka kuoleman jälkeen, mutta voit verrata suoritustasti kasvun tai etäisyyden perustella mihin pääset. Suositteluni! :3
👍 : 22 |
😃 : 0
Positive
Playtime:
218 minutes
I can't understand how this has even mostly positive reviews.
Deer God, is monotonous, repetative, glitchy and overpriced. I stupidly bought it because of the visual design and the soundtrack but £11 is not worth a game that only consists of jumping and running right with minimal shoddy combat.
They've sold it on having some sort of profound spiritual content in the story but the story barely exists. You're a hunter that has shot a baby deer and is turned into one to find redemption, you'd hope there was some environmental meaning or something about the barbarism of recreational hunting but no theres nothing, just simplistic platforming and holding the right directional arrow. You dont even need to engage in combat really.
Don't waste your money on this game.
👍 : 33 |
😃 : 0
Negative
Playtime:
95 minutes
This game seems beautiful, to offer a good gameplay, but at the moment it is unplayable :
You play some minutes and right after the world stops to generate, despite of the game you are playing (solo/online), your game is broken, you have to reset, there is no solution for the moment.
I played less than 2 hours and it happened 5 times on 6 games ! On the first game, I died before. Was my first 1.6 hours on this game, so you get the idea.
It is not an isolated bug, I had a contact with the editor, he said they know this horrible bug, and still not fixed, the developper does not know from what it comes...
So if you buy it, you have to know, you'll probably won't be able to play it more than some few minutes every try.
I can't advise you to buy it.
👍 : 15 |
😃 : 0
Negative
Playtime:
99 minutes
This game is broken. A couple times I'd die and then not be able to progress through the game because certain ledges require you to be at least a teen deer before you can reach them. Sometimes very small platforms are obscured by objects in the foreground, making it very hard to land the jump and not die immediately.
Also I got stuck under the turtle boss TWICE and couldn't get out because he just sits on top of you. Died of hunger. The AI is dumb as all hell, the dash costs too much mana and is hard to control, dashing near spikes is not recommended.
Once you're an adult, the game becomes almost too easy, but if you die and turn back into a baby deer because you ran out of those extra life things, you're screwed, buddy. You can't jump or hit for crap as a baby and by that point all the enemies are meant for the adult deer.
This is not good game design!
Aside from all that, the game looks gorgeous and the music is good. The platforming is fun when it's not game-breaking and infuriating, which is a minority of the time. I want to like this game, please, fix it!
👍 : 196 |
😃 : 15
Negative
Playtime:
218 minutes
So far this game has been enjoyable, but to be honest there are some features (or issues) that have made gameplay irritating, I'll start off with the good bits- the pixal art, the music and the story. The scenery is gorgeous, it's been a long time since I've played a game that put this much thought into a pixel art game. The music and the sound effects are very good, there's been a pretty decent mix of relaxing music and more complex/energetic tunes. And the story has been entertaining, who wouldn't love to play a deer? So far, I have enjoyed the story but with just 2 hours of gameplay I haven't made much progress.
As far as complaints go, mine aren't very harsh. Gameplay with the controller is good - intuitive and fluid. Later, I played with a keyboard and mouse for awhile and the controls were awful (weird key assignments and awkward movements). A menu screen to change key assignments would be very helpful. My other chief complaint is the learning system, there is essentially no guidance for this game at all. Attibutes menus and rules are not explained, I was 40 minutes into the game before I realized you could assign fireballs to the antlers. Just a " press Y to open attributes menu" would have been nice.
Also,the permadeath, I hate it. I'm not hardcore enough for permadeath so the ability to save would be an improvement. I'd rather see permadeath as a hardcore setting instead of the default. But you probably shouldn't listen to me, I'm too old to be a gamer nowadays. I better stop typing and get my fish oil and prune juice for the day.
👍 : 86 |
😃 : 12
Positive