I'm not saying there's a conspiracy or anything, but it sure seems like god-game Reus and Firaxis' 2012 XCOM have a lot in common. They may even be... the same game! Oh, you're laughing? You call me crazy? Well, how crazy is this?

1) Neither one is really fun. I loved XCOM. I thought it was a brilliant reintroduction to a game that blew my mind as a kid. It was simultaneously tense and intense, and made you really sweat every decision. Game of the year contender? Indeed! Fun? No! Playing XCOM, at least on Ironman/Classic as I did (which means no saves and an unforgiving enemy) was a stress-inducing nightmare, but it was all worth it, because every time I sent an alien packing with a dose of hot plasma, it was a little taste of heaven. The permadeath-laden tactical combat of XCOM was simply too terrifying to enjoy, but those moments of victory made up for it.

Reus is the same way. What starts as a joyous time filling the world with fish and blueberries turns into a hellish nightmare. As soon as you really have something worth protecting, your subjects will start fighting with each other and burning your carefully planned cities to the ground. There's so much to take care of that every decision, as reversible as they may be, feels overwhelming because even minor changes can quickly propagate and leave you in a real mess. Upgrading that shrub to a tree might seem harmless, but not if that shrub was providing a bonus to another plant which was in turn making your wolves more dangerous which in turn was keeping your city from becoming greedy and rampaging across the land. Not necessarily fun, definitely stressful, but crazy rewarding, just XCOM.

2) When it rains, it pours. Losing a veteran soldier in XCOM hurt. It could happen in an instant, usually just as you said "hmm, I probably shouldn't be doing that," and the game would just carry on as if nothing happened. The grizzled warrior you had raised from pup would lay in pieces,and all you could do was double down and unleash on the soon-to-be-ex-aliens that had done the deed. To add insult to injury, you had to then face the next mission's even more pressing odds without your star player, which inevitably lead to more fallen heroes.

Reus does the impossible by creating a death spiral even more spectacular than XCOM's. If you spoil your cities with too many riches, they head out and beat up the next city down the road. As an added bonus, though, cities that win a fight then become more likely to pick another fight. Furthermore, cities like to pick on weaker neighbors, so if one of your cities manages to destroy another, the odds are a cool hundred percent that they'll be back in a few minutes to wipe out the puny little village that springs up from the ruins. It's stupidly easy to reach a critical mass of angry villagers and defenseless victims, and when you do, you'll understand that some people simply want to watch the world burn. Your world, as it turns out. That you made for them. Ingrates.

3) Both put you in control of four characters at once. XCOM eventually bumps it up to six, but don't be fooled, people. Reus is just an XCOM palette swap. It's also pretty damn brilliant.

Also Reus and XCOM are both four letters. I'm getting chills.

Stay safe, believers, and be ever vigilant.