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Populous
Developer(s)	Bullfrog
Publisher(s)	Electronic Arts
Designer(s)	Peter Molyneux
Release date(s)	June 5, 1989
Genre(s)	God game
Mode(s)	Single player, Two player
Platform(s)	Acorn Archimedes, Amiga, Atari ST, DOS, PC Engine/TurboGrafx 16, Game Boy, SNES, Sega Mega Drive/Sega Genesis, Sega Master System, Sharp X68000, Mac OS
Media	Cartridge, Floppy disk
Input	Keyboard, Mouse

Populous is a computer game developed by Bullfrog in 1989 and is regarded by many as being the seminal god game. In 1991, Populous won the Origins Award for Best Military or Strategy Computer Game of 1990 as well as 1990 Computer Game of the Year in American video game magazine Video Games & Computer Entertainment. It was the first game in the Populous series. It preceded Populous II and Populous: The Beginning.

In this game, first developed for the Amiga, Atari ST and PC, the player adopts the role of a deity and assumes the responsibility to shepherd people by direction, manipulation, and divine intervention. 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.

As the game progresses, the player rules over a variety of different civilizations, including Prehistoric, Ancient and Medieval.

Populous was extremely successful, and spawned a number of sequels of increasing complexity. It was also released on the PC Engine (as both a HuCard and a CD-ROM), SNES, the Sega Mega Drive/Sega Genesis, the Sega Master System, Sharp's X68000computer and the Acorn Archimedes. An expansion pack called Populous: The Promised Lands was made available, which added five new types of landscape (the PC-Engine CD port of Populous includes these five extra worlds). In addition, another expansion disk called Populous: The Final Frontier which added a single new landscape-type was released as a cover disk for The One. A world editor for Populous for the Amiga developed by a third party was also made available called Populous Graphics Editor [1].

Peter Molyneux of Bullfrog studio led development, and mentioned in an interview that the reason the player could manipulate terrain was that he was too lazy to design the many pre-defined maps that would be required. The 2001 game Black & White, also led by Molyneux (but this time at his company Lionhead Studios), has been called the "spiritual descendant of Populous."

• Populous at MobyGames

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