| Populous | |
|---|---|
| Genre(s) | God game |
| Developer(s) | Bullfrog Productions |
| Publisher(s) | Electronic Arts |
| Creator(s) | Peter Molyneux |
| First release | Populous 1989 |
| Latest release | Populous DS 2008 |
Populous is a series of video games developed by Bullfrog Productions and published by Electronic Arts. The first game in the series, Populous , was released in 1989. At the time, it was hailed as revolutionary, and it coined the term "god game". [1]
The games involved the player taking on the role of a deity and leading followers into battle against opposing deities, and intervene by using a variety of "divine intervention" that affect the world and indirectly, the people.
The first two games were similar. In Populous and Populous II: Trials of the Olympian Gods , much emphasis was spent on flattening the terrain. The view of the game-world was isometric. Populous: The Beginning was more like a conventional war-game than a god-game and uses true 3D instead of isometric 3D. In Populous: The Beginning, the player is set in the role of a shaman instead of a god, but at the end of the game attains godhood.
In an interview, the series creator Peter Molyneux, said that "Populous was like it was due to my incompetence as a games programmer ... the reason the feature (raise the land) was there was because I couldn't get the little people to navigate around the coast". [2]
The series includes: [3]
In 1996, Next Generation listed the series as number 16 on their "Top 100 Games of All Time", commenting that "aside from single-handedly creating a new genre overnight, Bullfrog's Populous is a great marriage of war-game strategy, resource management, and pure originality." [4]
