Superhero Sandbox: ‘Project Demigod’ Lets You Mix & Match Powers on Meta Quest

With 10 ability sets and counting and dozens of possible combinations, Project Demigod lets you live out your superhero fantasies with satisfying physics-driven combat. And with over 100,000 copies sold to-date and the publishing prowess of Fast Travel Games game behind it, the brain child of solo indie dev and Omnifarious Studios Founder Cory Robertson lets you step inside the pages of a comic book saga like never before. It’s already built an impressive community on App Lab. And today, it graduates to the Meta Quest Store.

Toss cars into ninjas with super strength, fry robots with a bolt of energy, swing through cityscapes, or master tactile melee weapons. With the ability to assign a unique power to each hand, there’s virtually no end of over-the-top fun to be had.

New for the full launch, the game introduces a Hero Events system, integrated mod support, optimized performance, and the promise of more to come—including the impending arrival of a brand-new enemy type. And it’s still available for the same price of $19.99 USD.

We sat down with Robertson to learn more.

Cory Robertson: I’m originally from Texas. After finishing up my time serving in the military, I got accepted to Columbia University where I majored in Computer Science with a focus on VR development. Once I learned the basics, I started building my dream game in my dorm room. After I graduated, I worked for Street Smarts VR where I helped build training simulations for first responders, and I worked on Demigod in my free time.

CR: Project Demigod came from my lifelong obsession with superheroes, as well as my goal of having much more player freedom in combat. I was so tired of games with simple attacks and repeated animations. Originally, I wanted to keep it “street-level,” where the powers would be on a slightly smaller scale and there would be a bigger focus on hand-to-hand combat, similar to Batman and Spider-Man level fights. But as the game (and the player base) grew, I realized there was so much more potential in opening up the power sets even more and giving players the freedom to be whatever hero they dreamed up. Now there’s flight, super speed, lightning, and more on the way.

CR: Being a solo developer and having a lot of plans for the game, I knew it was going to be a long time before Demigod was in a position I’d call “ready” for full release. Early access let me get the game in players’ hands much, much faster and help build a community around the project.

Equally, player feedback and suggestions have been absolutely vital to shaping the game over the past few years. It’s allowed me to properly focus on the aspects of the game people value the most and ultimately made for a better game at launch.

CR: It’s been really great to say the least—not just from the usual areas like store reviews or social media responses, but even just seeing players get really creative with the powers and traversal. Ultimately that’s what Project Demigod is all about—allowing players to do whatever they want as a superhero—and the community has really leaned into that.

Our mod support has been a real highlight for players, too, and it’s been so awesome to see people bring their own personal touches to the game. Having integrated Mod.io support within the game’s UI itself is definitely one of the things I’m proudest of with Demigod.

CR: I’ve always wanted to bring the game to as many people as possible just as soon as I thought it was ready. We’ve spent a ton of time polishing the existing features and getting Demigod to the state where we’re confident any budding superhero fan can jump into the game and start having a great time. The Quest version of the game is already incredibly popular with over 100,000 units sold,so it was the obvious choice to focus on getting onto the official store.

At that same time, that doesn’t mean the game is finished! This really is just the beginning of what we’ve got in store for Demigod, so it’s exciting to start this new chapter on the full storefront.

CR: Patrick Liu from Fast Travel’s publishing team reached out to me to talk about the game, my plans for future development, and if I’d be interested in having a publisher. It was an easy decision for me. They have an amazing track record focused on VR games specifically, and they’re all great to work with.

CR: Sure! Previously the only way to experience action in Project Demigod was to hand-pick waves of enemies to take on. In our full release, we have Hero Events dotted around certain maps. These let you tackle different types of enemies without specifically selecting them yourself. It adds an element of surprise to the combat and keeps you on your toes, so we’re really excited to see players get to grips with that. There are also a few Time Trial Events, where you race through checkpoints using your favorite movement powers, destroy objects as fast as you can, or chase some robot drones around the city.

We’ll also have some new features launching very soon after our core release. We can’t wait to share more about our Giant Enemy Update that’s right around the corner. We’ll have more news on that imminently.

CR: For me, it’s really two main things: power combinations and physics-driven combat. For the latter, we really lean into lots of realistic actions and giving the combat a lot of weight. Almost every enemy in Demigod has active ragdoll physics. The harder you physically punch an enemy, the harder that hit will land in-game. The more effort you put into throwing a dinosaur across the map, the farther it will fly. The experience is really rooted in these 1:1 actions that make the game so much more immersive.

As for the combinations, it’s where the community gets most creative. You can assign a power to each hand, so you might shoot flames out of one hand and rock spikes out of the other. It leads to these really unique and special moments, like inflating your arm to a massive size with the Stretch power, then grabbing a sword with the Weapons power for a new type of long-range combat. There’s over 40 possible combinations in the game, and with that comes hundreds of different ways to mix powers up. Each power has its own strengths, weaknesses, and unique abilities that give each of them a different playstyle.

CR: I can’t quite believe I’m saying this, but it’s been about four years at this point. Like many games, it started out as a side project while I was in school at Columbia and quickly became my passion project.

When I finally released it on App Lab, I was blown away by the reception and how many people really loved what I was building. It still feels surreal to me.

CR: The most amazing time was probably in June 2023. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse had just been released in theaters, and a few days later I released my first Mod Support update using Mod.io so players could add their own avatars to the game. It proved to be incredible timing, because the game went viral on social media and we sold more copies in a month than we had in a year! By the end of the summer, we had crossed 100,000 copies sold on App Lab alone.

CR: We have a lot of plans for the future of Demigod. Our Giant Enemy update should show you a bit of how we plan to mix the game up with big additions. But you can also expect more in the way of powers and environments. We’re currently busy working out exactly when we can deliver what, but we’ll have a more complete roadmap to share soon.

Beyond that we’ve also got some pretty ambitious ideas for new features, but we’re not ready to talk about those quite yet. Plus, with the library of mods growing basically by the day, it feels like there’s always something new to check out in the game.

CR: Well firstly, a huge thank you to anyone who’s supported the game. It really has meant so much to me to not only see you enjoying Project Demigod but also to be getting so much feedback on the game too. Demigod’s future is bright because of you!

And if you’re yet to check out the game, please do give it a try! I realize it can look a little intimidating at first, but once you get to grips with your first few powers, it really is so much fun to jump into and start causing havoc (or saving the day, however you want to see it). We hope you’ll join us on our journey!