This is a pretty faithful reproduction of the old school game Populous, with the addition of worlds that brings in a touch of Populous: The Beginning. For new players, this is a God game. You can manipulate the land to allow your autonomous citizens to build bigger houses, generating more mana and allowing bigger God powers, such as fire, lightning and marshes. The general idea is to collect totems containing new powers and to wipe out your opponent! There are plenty of islands to keep you occupied and you are even able to partially amend the way later levels start once you complete them (this affects the islands for everyone as the changes are saved online)

You don't directly control your people. In fact there are only 3 actions they can perform: Settle (where newly 'born' people create buildings to increase population growth & mana rate), Gather (they head to the marker that you place as one of your powers), Fight (pick a fight nearby). Combining gather with the other two actions gives you enough control as you need. You can also force people out of houses, but this leaves the house open for invasion.

The game is much harder than I expected. The AI seems to very rapidly build up it's strength (I'm not sure how, but expect I'll learn with time) and begins attacking early. Thay naturally also have access to God powers and can lay waste to your houses if you're not careful. I've just started a world with all 4 tribes on it (apparently all against me!) and it's pretty much chaos! Fun, but chaos! The new update has introduced the option to turn off the 'kindle' option (which allows you to produce people from houses early), this makes the game much more playable and less of a click frenzy.

The latest update has also improved the UI in terms of allowing edge scrolling (phew). In addition there are some keyboard shortcuts but only for high level selection of the group of spells, not individual ones. Click sensitivity also seems to be a bit off, if you don't click the upper part of the spell icon it doesn't register. One gripe is that the ESC key turns off fullscreen mode, rather than the expected standard of opening a menu and skipping the intro (which you apparently cannot).

The terrorforming tool (which you use constantly) is normally available and automatically selected (e.g. launch some fire and you switch back to terrorforming immediately), except sometimes it's not (e.g. lay some marsh and you apparently have nothing selected). So there's a bit of inconcistency which may just be a bug that gets fixed later (hopefully).

The graphics are simple pixel art, but nice to look at, check out the pics & video! It can be unclear at times exactly which square your cursor is on, due to its shape, and as a result launching powers at exact points can be tricky (although exact aim doesn't really matter *that* much. The map edge is tricky to visualise because there is a blurred effect, particularly at the bottom of the screen, and anything built there is slightly obscured (again not *that* bad but could be clearer). The power effects are fairly reasonable although things like fire and lightning storm can obscure things behind them.

The sound effects are basic but well suited to the feel of the game. There is no music, surprisingly, but I never have the music on anyway. Find yourself some good tunes to listen to and forget about in game music!

So in summary, it's a good remake of the classic Populous game, fun and challenging, looks and sounds ok. The latest update has made the game more playable, with the edge scrolling and no kindle option. For the price it's definitely worth it. I expect it's going to bring many hours of fun and frustration and what more can you want!!

This is a pretty faithful reproduction of the old school game Populous, with the addition of worlds that brings in a touch of Populous: The Beginning. For new players, this is a God game. You can manipulate the land to allow your autonomous citizens to build bigger houses, generating more mana and allowing bigger God powers, such as fire, lightning and marshes. The general idea is to collect totems containing new powers and to wipe out your opponent! There are plenty of islands to keep you occupied and you are even able to partially amend the way later levels start once you complete them (this affects the islands for everyone as the changes are saved online) You don't directly control your people. In fact there are only 3 actions they can perform: Settle (where newly 'born' people create buildings to increase population growth & mana rate), Gather (they head to the marker that you place as one of your powers), Fight (pick a fight nearby). Combining gather with the other two actions gives you enough control as you need. You can also force people out of houses, but this leaves the house open for invasion. The game is much harder than I expected. The AI seems to very rapidly build up it's strength (I'm not sure how, but expect I'll learn with time) and begins attacking early. Thay naturally also have access to God powers and can lay waste to your houses if you're not careful. I've just started a world with all 4 tribes on it (apparently all against me!) and it's pretty much chaos! Fun, but chaos! The new update has introduced the option to turn off the 'kindle' option (which allows you to produce people from houses early), this makes the game much more playable and less of a click frenzy. The latest update has also improved the UI in terms of allowing edge scrolling (phew). In addition there are some keyboard shortcuts but only for high level selection of the group of spells, not individual ones. Click sensitivity also seems to be a bit off, if you don't click the upper part of the spell icon it doesn't register. One gripe is that the ESC key turns off fullscreen mode, rather than the expected standard of opening a menu and skipping the intro (which you apparently cannot). The terrorforming tool (which you use constantly) is normally available and automatically selected (e.g. launch some fire and you switch back to terrorforming immediately), except sometimes it's not (e.g. lay some marsh and you apparently have nothing selected). So there's a bit of inconcistency which may just be a bug that gets fixed later (hopefully). The graphics are simple pixel art, but nice to look at, check out the pics & video! It can be unclear at times exactly which square your cursor is on, due to its shape, and as a result launching powers at exact points can be tricky (although exact aim doesn't really matter *that* much. The map edge is tricky to visualise because there is a blurred effect, particularly at the bottom of the screen, and anything built there is slightly obscured (again not *that* bad but could be clearer). The power effects are fairly reasonable although things like fire and lightning storm can obscure things behind them. The sound effects are basic but well suited to the feel of the game. There is no music, surprisingly, but I never have the music on anyway. Find yourself some good tunes to listen to and forget about in game music! So in summary, it's a good remake of the classic Populous game, fun and challenging, looks and sounds ok. The latest update has made the game more playable, with the edge scrolling and no kindle option. For the price it's definitely worth it. I expect it's going to bring many hours of fun and frustration and what more can you want!!