Series : Populous
Developer : Bullfrog Productions
Genres : Real-time strategy
Randomized Levels
Features : Password Save
Graphics : Isometric graphics
Metagame Class : FCU
Ports : Populous (1990 SNES)
not completed.
The first god game was created in 1989 by Peter Molyneux and Glenn Corpes. It was the second game released by Bullfrog, developed on Amiga 1000s. Seeing this game in 1989 was a revelation. The grandfather of simulation games, SimCity, came out earlier the same year, but the graphics was much more simplistic. In populous, you can mold a small world, rendered beautifully in isometric graphics of a quality unlike anything that came before it (Marble Madness being the only real contender). Little dudes walk around and build little buildings on your created landscape, and you are tasked to lead them to victory over other small dudes that worship a different god. The game has 5000 randomly generated levels on different tilesets.
Image source: mobygames.com
Passwords / Cheat Codes
- WEAVHIPHAM.
- SHADTED.
- SADWILLOW.
- World 40: EOAMELAS
Analysis
- According to SMS Power!, which contains a Populous world name generator, the game has 5119 worlds, each with a unique password. If the ROM is patched with this incredibly simple change:
ROM[305B]=81, it supports up to2^15=32768worlds. - Which must mean that the worlds are randomly generated.
Log entries
- I love building little worlds and seeing the little dudes go about their life in Populous. I played it a lot, even without fully understanding the mechanics of the game; very indicative of future games involving Peter Molyneux.
- Completed world 1, 'GENESIS'.
- Whoa, sinister looking dude. Next world is 'SCOQUEMET'.
- Completed that one. Now for MORINGILL.
- I actually fell asleep during that last one. Maybe I should go to bed.
- 'SADWILLOW' is level 23/500 - around 5%.
- I played a few levels on MiSTer. I'm continuing from the last world code I unlocked.
1989-00-00
2014-09-01
2014-09-02
2015-12-13
2022-10-04
MiSTer Amiga