Populous

Populous is a Strategy game in real-time on computer, developed by Bullfrog and published by Electronic Arts in 1989 on Amiga and Atari ST then MS-DOS. The play met an important critical and commercial success and was declined on various micro S and Console S. Imaginé by Peter Molyneux, the play is regarded as the prototype of the God range , a type of play in which the player incarnates a very powerful divinity.

Play

Gameplay

In Populous , the player with the responsibility for people which it must guide against that of the unfavourable divinity by handling the landscape, while making grow civilization and by using various calamities against the enemy.

The world on which the player intervenes is represented in isometric Perspective. Icons around the adventure playground make it possible to select the actions to be realized. This interface will be included in other plays of Bullfrog like Powermonger and Populous II .

Extensions

The Promised Lands

Populous: The Promised Lands (“promised lands”) includes/understands five new grounds (and their population), with the more or less whimsical tonality:
  • The Big Lime pits
  • The Wild West
  • Blockland
  • Silly World
  • French revolution

The extension, which proposes an increased difficulty, was marketed on Amiga, Atari ST and FM Towns at the price of £10 approximately. On PC-Engine, one second version comprising this extension left to the format Super CD-ROM ² under this title in 1991 to the Japan.

Final The Frontier

Populous: The Final Frontier (“the final border”) is one second extension distributed free in November 1989 in the English magazine The One. Intended for the Amiga and the Atari ST, she proposes some landscapes supplémentaires.

Exploitation

Reception

Press review

The French magazine Tilt (18/20) estimates that it acts “without question of the most original strategy game and most fascinating since The Sentinel . ”

Sales

Populous was marketed towards April 1989 on Amiga and Atari ST. At the end of the summer, the sales of the play rose with 65.000 specimens in Europe, which constituted one big hit at the time.

Rewards

The innovating character of Populous was rewarded by various prices:
  • Origins Award 1990 of the “best strategy game”
  • European Computer Leisure Award 1990 of the “best strategy game”, the jury being composed of a panel of writers of the European specialized press.
  • Tilt of gold Canal+ 1989 of the “best play of reflection/strategy”
  • “Play of the year 1990” according to the American magazine Video Ranges & Computer Entertainment

Versions

The series

The success of Populous gave place to several continuations or extensions:
  • 1989 - Populous
  • 1989 - Populous: The Promised Lands (extension)
  • 1989 - Populous: Final The Frontier (free extension)
  • 1991 - Populous II: Trials off the Olympian Gods
  • 1998 - Populous: The Beginning (in 3D)
  • 1999 - Populous: The Beginning: Undiscovered Worlds (extension)

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