Trivia
Cross-platform multiplayer
One of the few games produced during the first 15 years of the PC gaming industry that allowed modem or serial-cable gameplay across different platforms (ie the PC version could play a game over a modem with the Amiga version).
Development
- During the design phase, LEGO was used to build landscapes so that the game could be visualized before it was programmed.
- This was one of the few games of it's time to be written mostly in C. Most games of the time on the Atari ST and Amiga were written in 100% machine-code.
- At one stage during development, a nasty hard-drive crash deleted most of the game. Fortunately, this did not stop the developers from starting anew. In fact, this was a blessing in disguise, as the new implementation was much faster than the old implementation.
- It was only decided that Populous would be about gods when somebody from a magazine came over, looked at it and said "so it's a bit like being a god". Before that, there was no plot to explain what was going on, and after that comment, the whole plot had a direction.
Awards
- Computer Gaming World
- September 1990 (Issue #74) - Strategy Game of the Year
- November 1996 (15th anniversary issue) - #30 in the “150 Best Games of All Time” list
- GameStar (Germany)
- Issue 12/1999 - #23 in the "100 Most Important PC Games of the Nineties" ranking
- Power Play
- Issue 01/1990 - Best Computer Gaming in 1989
- Issue 01/1990 - Best Game Idea in 1989
- Issue 01/1990 - Best Strategy Game in 1989
Information also contributed by
ElectricMonk and
PCGamer77
