Bullfrog‘s classic ‘God game’, Populous, was first released on the Amiga in 1989. It broke new ground with its ingenious mix of real-time strategy and sandbox-style landscape-building.

The aim of the game is to beat a competing ‘God’ by rapidly restructuring and flattening land and allowing your population to expand onto it.

As your followers grow, so does your power, which enables you to try a few dirty tricks on your opponent (such as dropping earthquakes on them, or floods, or volcanoes), and try to gain the upper hand. When your (or his) population reaches saturation point: you can then start an ‘Armageddon’ war and slug it out to the end. And – as is usually the case in war – it’s all a numbers game. Whoever has the most followers usually wins.

Populous is still very playable and fun to play now. The rules are simple and the input responses on the mouse are just about fast enough on the Amiga to make it enjoyable.

A classic from Bullfrog and the game that really put them on the map. AND you can still buy it from GOG.com! Sweet.

More: Populous on Wikipedia
GOG.com: Populous on GOG.com