this post was submitted on 23 Jun 2024
79 points (96.5% liked)

Patient Gamers

8912 readers
7 users here now

A gaming sub free from the hype and oversaturation of current releases, catering to gamers who wait at least 12 months after release to play a game. Whether it's price, waiting for bugs/issues to be patched, DLC to be released, don't meet the system requirements, or just haven't had the time to keep up with the latest releases.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
79
Populus (1998) & "god games" (en.m.wikipedia.org)
submitted 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) by GrappleHat@lemmy.ml to c/patientgamers@lemmy.ml
 

Happened on this 1998 game by sheer chance and I'm really digging it! As far as I can tell it was never popular. It's a mixture of an RTS and a "god game" where one unit (your shaman) is very powerful & special (chess analogy: sort of like mixing the central role of the king & with the power of the queen).

Strong "tribal" vibes that were popular in the '90s (think Deep Forest music, the game Riven, etc). Very nostalgic for me as I was a kid at the time. I'm playing the PSX version, looks like the PC version was even better!

Has anyone ever heard of this "Populous" series? I'm curious to try other titles, and to try more in the "god game" genre (a genre I never even knew existed!). Any other "god games" worth checking out?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] CrypticCoffee@lemmy.ml 20 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (2 children)

I played this. A great game. That era and Bullfrog in particular were incredible. Dungeon Keeper is one of the best games I played. Theme Hospital and Theme Park were great. It was the golden age of strategy games. Age of Empires 2, Heroes of Might and Magic 3. Red Alert games. Railroad Tycoon. I have no idea why this type of game became unpopular.

I strongly recommend Dungeon Keeper 1 (ideally gold with Deeper Dungeons add on) and Theme Hospital. Can get them on Gog.

[–] LEMMINGTONS_SPA@lemmy.ml 6 points 4 months ago

There is an updated mod called keeperfx and it's amazing

[–] AnarchistArtificer@slrpnk.net 2 points 4 months ago

Theme Hospital is one of the greats of an era. (N.b. there's a mod called CorsixTH which fixes a lot of issues with the original game (mostly age related clunkiness)