Home /
Sega Genesis

Populous

Sega Genesis

Sega Genesis

Now it's your chance to play God! Create the world in a week and destroy it in a heartbeat. Conquer 5,000 hostile worlds. Unleash floods, volcanos, swamps and earthquakes. The player has the ability to shape the landscape and grow their civilization with the overall aim of having it conquer an...

Download

0/5 Votes: 0

Report

Developer
Bullfrog Productions

Released on
1990

Size
1 Player

Version
Sega Genesis

Requirements
Sega Genesis

Downloads
Strategy

Publisher
Electronic Arts

ESRB Rating
Not Rated

Wikipedia
View article →

Report this app

Images

Description

Now it’s your chance to play God! Create the world in a week and destroy it in a heartbeat. Conquer 5,000 hostile worlds. Unleash floods, volcanos, swamps and earthquakes.

The player has the ability to shape the landscape and grow their civilization with the overall aim of having it conquer an enemy force, which is led by an opposing deity.

Populous

Overview & History

Released by Electronic Arts in 1991, the Sega Genesis port of Bullfrog Productions' masterpiece brought the genesis of the God game genre to 16-bit consoles. Developed under the creative vision of Peter Molyneux, this tactical title abandons traditional hero roles, tasking you instead with acting as an unseen deity. Your sole objective is to nurture your worshippers across hundreds of isometric, grid-based worlds while utterly annihilating a rival deity and their followers.

Gameplay Features & Mechanics

Unlike twitch-based platformers, Populous focuses on terraforming and population management. Players act from an isometric perspective, spending "Mana"—generated by the growth and devotion of your followers—to alter the landscape. By raising and lowering terrain, you create habitable flat land, which causes your people to build larger huts and advance from simple peasants into powerful knights. The ultimate goal on each of the 500 distinct levels is to multiply your civilization until your population dominates the map, or until you unleash divine wrath in the form of swamps, volcanoes, and floods to wipe out the opposition. The Genesis version adapts the notoriously complex mouse-driven PC interface into a responsive, menu-based console layout well-suited for the standard gamepad.

Keyboard Controls

Arrow Keys / D-Pad: Move the cursor across the isometric landscape
Action Keys: Raise or lower terrain, cast divine miracles, and select menu options
Enter: Start / Pause and access the world map overview