Populous | |
---|---|
Genres | God game |
Developers | Bullfrog Productions |
Publishers | Electronic Arts |
Creators | Peter Molyneux |
First release |
Populous 1989 |
Latest release |
Populous DS 2007 |
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".
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".
The series includes: