
Bullfrog After Populous - doppp
https://www.filfre.net/2020/09/bullfrog-after-populous/
======
richardjdare
When people ask me what game developer I'd like to work for I used to say
either Lucasfilm Games in 1987 or Bullfrog in 1990. Bullfrog had a huge amount
of prestige amongst Amiga gamers. It might not look like it now, but
everything they did appeared original and innovative at the time. Peter
Molyneux was seemingly up there with Sid Meier as one of the great designers
of the era. It was only later that he soured his reputation.

I remember Bullfrog's programming tutorials in Amiga format [0]. If that was
all you had (it was all _i_ had) then it wasn't enough to let you write your
own games or learn enough to get a job.

I got my parents to buy me a book on 68000 assembly to go with it, only to
find that the Devpac assembler from the tutorial didn't come with any of the
OS include files, so I couldn't get past the second chapter. These kinds of
setbacks were typical.

When I think back to those days, I loved the Amiga community and magazines, I
loved the seemingly accessible, informal world of game development, but it was
so damn hard to just climb the first step and learn to code if you didn't have
much money.

[0]
[https://archive.org/details/AmigaFormatIssue039199210_201901...](https://archive.org/details/AmigaFormatIssue039199210_201901/page/n61/mode/2up)

~~~
simonebrunozzi
For me it would be Steve Barcia [0], the creator of Master of Magic (MoM) and
Master of Orion II (MoO 2). (MoO 1 wasn't as great as the 2).

I surely played thousands of hours just with these two games, over 20+ years.

A while ago I tried to get in touch with him (among other things I started a
tech podcast and I wanted him as a guest), but I couldn't find any way to
contact him. I messaged him on Linkedin, but never responded.

What a pity. I would have loved to ask him how was his life when he developed
these two games.

Fun fact: MoM has an incredible mod, called Caster of Magic, built by this
lonely Japanese developer. [1]

[0]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Barcia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Barcia)

[1]:
[http://seravy.x10.mx/Wordpress/?p=2027](http://seravy.x10.mx/Wordpress/?p=2027)

~~~
tekkk
Master Of Magic was and is such a masterpiece (and MoO 2 as well). Some of the
older games, while often heavily unbalanced with clunky user interfaces, have
so much better atmosphere and setting than many of the newer games. Maybe it's
that it used to be much more about craftsmanship and telling a story, than
just trying to make as much as money as possible.

My all time favourite game is Alpha Centauri and I would have loved to be
around to see how they designed the tech tree among other things. It still
feels like an excellent sci-fi novel wrapped as a game. Wish newer games could
attempt something like that. Although I have to say many times an RPG game
attempts something like that, the quality of their story leaves a lot to hope
for.

Darkest Dungeon is one of the newer games that has successfully created great
atmosphere, similar to those older games. Yet sadly I at least got very
quickly tired playing it, with dull grinding of the characters who would keep
dying by random crits.

I guess also because multiplayer has become so prevalent that it's not even
necessary to create great storylines anymore. People will be satisfied by the
interactions they have playing other humans and its never-ending challenge by
the changing metagame and such.

~~~
haolez
The attention span of players today is much smaller than it used to be and
there is a lot of money to be made in this industry, so I believe that these
facts changed what mainstream games are supposed to be. But we have the indies
:)

------
Smerity
A random fun note about how Peter Molyneux was able to start Bullfrog, sourced
from Wikipedia[0] and mentioned in this blog's previous post[1]:

Molyneux tried to sell a game years earlier but failed so instead started a
baked bean export company called Taurus Impex Limited. Commodore International
mistook it for Torus, an established networking software company, and offered
to provide Molyneux with ten free (still unreleased) Amiga systems. Taurus
then designed a database system for the Amiga and the profits let Molyneux and
Les Edgar found Bullfrog Productions.

[0]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Molyneux#Early_career](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Molyneux#Early_career)

[1]: [https://www.filfre.net/2016/06/peter-molyneuxs-kingdom-
in-a-...](https://www.filfre.net/2016/06/peter-molyneuxs-kingdom-in-a-box/)

------
seanwilson
> For all the changes it evinced over what had come before, Syndicate was a
> typical Peter Molyneux game in other ways. It started out thoroughly
> entrancing, but went on way too long, with only a handful of fixed mission
> types on offer as you slowly — very slowly — took over the world. By the
> mid-game, you had discovered most of the cool gear and cybernetic
> enhancements, and what had started out fresh and exciting had begun to turn
> into a bit of a grind. Thus Syndicate became another Molyneux game that far
> more players started than finished.

I'm not following this part, and a similar comment with Magic Carpet. I
completed both games and never had this feeling at the time. There's enough
new stuff and variety in the missions to keep it interesting until the end.

> At bottom, Theme Park is a nasty, cynical little game, amoral if not
> actively immoral — a game where your concern isn’t with the happiness of
> your guests at all, but strictly with the amount of money you can extract
> from them; a profitable theme park with miserable patrons is not only
> possible but the only practical road to success. This is the kind of game
> where you over-salt the patrons’ fries to get them to buy more soda, which
> cups you stuff to the brim with ice to… well, you get the picture.

I just took it as silly fun as opposed to some kind of social commentary.

~~~
sedatk
He is partially right about Syndicate. You used to max out your characters
mid-game and the gameplay after that was usually "just persuadertron everyone
until you have a goblin army and attack". There wasn't much variety in
missions. However, I don't remember getting bored by the game either. I was
just sad that it got too easy and repetitive after a certain point.

~~~
b0rsuk
Minigun was the default weapon from somewhere around mid game.

Some levels had enemy snipers. The last level had gauss gun enemies. That's it
as far as level variety goes in that game.

------
pixelpoet
Peter Molyneux cut my hair once at a Friday meeting in 2003 while I was
interning at Lionhead on Black and White 2.

It was a very interesting company, full of brilliant people. Demis Hassabis
wasn't there anymore, but Alex Evans was, and he was my demoscene programming
idol at the time. I didn't hesitate to get both their autographs before going
back home!

~~~
lubonay
...cut your hair?

~~~
pixelpoet
There were a bunch of internal mailing lists including the "water cooler"
lhsocial, and one day (I was 19, please forgive me) I wrote that I had no idea
where to get a hairdresser and anyone with scissors is welcome to have a go.

So he called me out in the middle of a Friday all hands meeting and, well,
kept his side of the deal :)

~~~
bovermyer
That is so cool. I love serendipitous stuff like this.

------
corysama
There's also the "Populous Classic Game Postmortem" from GDC:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIaK6y5kdro](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIaK6y5kdro)

Tons more vids like this:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMakingOfGames/](https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMakingOfGames/)

------
lubesGordi
The flamethrower in Syndicate was the best. I can still hear the screams. Also
being able to 'persuade' large groups of people to form a human-crowd shield
was quite delightful.

~~~
sharken
Indeed, and while it sounds very violent, Syndicate is an awesome game that
still holds up extremely well.

------
coderholic
When I was 16 I beta-tested Black & White at Lionhead Studios, and met Peter
Molyneux and his team. They were my heroes at the time, as I dreamt of one day
being a game developer. I stayed by myself in a B&B, testing the game all day,
reading my coding books and copies of EDGE magazine :)

I remember Peter telling his team that if the game went well he'd take the
whole team (around 40 people, IIRC) on a big yacht. It was all very exciting!

Peter came and chatted with me and the other tests (most of who were about 10,
and friends of the kids of the other developers), and asked about my interest
in programming. I told him I'd been working on a snakes like game, and he said
he'd love to look at the code, which sadly I didn't have (no laptops back in
those days, and I didn't bring a floppy).

I never ended up becoming a game developer. I discovered web development, and
startups, and never looked back :)

------
kaidon
If this caught your interest, I highly recommend the Kim Justice youtube
series on Molyneux.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DAuvaAGnqQw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DAuvaAGnqQw)

~~~
zantana
I was just watching another mostly Molyneux centered documentary: 30 Years of
God Game History | Populous, Dungeon Keeper, Black & White, Spore and more
[https://youtu.be/gt4-tBFIcsI](https://youtu.be/gt4-tBFIcsI)

------
marcus_holmes
Populous, Powermonger, Magic Carpet, loved them all. Dungeon Keeper (which the
article doesn't mention) is still one of my top 10 games.

Black and White... OK, yeah, I enjoyed them, but it always felt like the full
experience wasn't developed. It talked the talk but never walked the walk.

then... Godus. Yeah. Good concept, I played > 50 hours on it. but it never
delivered at all.

It's like the more able the hardware and software was to deliver Molyneux's
vision, the less deliverable his vision was.

~~~
detritus
> Godus. Yeah. Good concept, I played > 50 hours on it. but it never delivered
> at all.

That was a painful year or so. So many restarts and hopeful explorations only
for it to.. never in any useful way ever give the game it promised.

A shame, as the basic mechanics were seemingly all there - I never could wrap
my head around what went wrong.

The worst of it though is I now can't stand to listen to a childhood hero's
bullshit.

It's ok, I still have Populous II and Syndicate on WinUAE

~~~
hinkley
The first time I heard a musician refuse to interpret their own song, I found
it odd. It made a little more sense as I got older and heard more examples.

When I started seeing people talk about the personalities behind video game
franchises, it made a _lot_ more sense. We don't need all of your vision, just
some clues.

------
boomskats
So, I don't have much else to add to the discussion, apart from that my
company is located in a co-working space in Guildford, in an office one floor
directly below where the Bullfrog offices moved after Populous. We do have
their original floormat [0], and a lot of stories, courtesy of the original
Glenn Corpes who worked on the artwork for that game.

[0] [https://imgur.com/a/YBzp0tc](https://imgur.com/a/YBzp0tc)

------
shawnz
No mention of my favourite game of all time Theme Hospital, or project lead
Mark Webley :( Nor the company he and Molyneux started which lead to the
widely popular game Fable

~~~
DonHopkins
Barf cascades! ;)

------
untog
I have to say, I loved Theme Park more than the author did. Even at the age of
12 (I think?) when I got it I understood the cynical take it took on the whole
industry and found it endlessly entertaining. I haven’t replayed it since (and
judging by the article, won’t!) but I’ve got a lot of happy memories. By
comparison Rollercoaster Tycoon never grabbed me, despite the fact that I
enjoyed Transport Tycoon a lot. It just didn’t have the spark Theme Park had.

~~~
adanto6840
Same here. I tried to replicate the experience when developing SimAirport; I'm
happy with the way the game turned out overall, though there will always be
lots of things I want to tweak/change/improve. That said, Theme Park was and
still is probably the most memorable & engaging gameplay experience I've ever
had. I can still _vividly_ recall building the "water slide" around my park to
improve guest happiness, etc. Many prefer Theme Hospital or similar, but Theme
Park will always be the game that really had an impact on me far more than any
other game ever has.

~~~
LoSboccacc
I knew it must have been a man of culture behind it, sim airport strikes that
nostalgic cord of mine like few other modern tycoons

------
billpg
"How do you play this game?"

"The area shown has lots of hills and valleys. Your first job is to raise and
lower the land to make it flat."

"That's the game?"

"Just for the first few minutes."

------
ricardo81
Powermonger was a cracking game, played it on the Amiga. Definitely unique
graphics of the time, decent gameplay. I remember that and Mega lo Mania being
great games of that time and genre. Populous I never got into that much,
seemed like Elite in the procedurally generated sense but with Elite it was
less obvious.

~~~
stOneskull
oh man, megalomania.. like nuclear war, so simple but so fun..

------
godot
Theme Park was one of my favorite games as a child.

I enjoyed it immensely building out a theme park at first, for a long time. I
constantly didn't do well though and always end up pretty much bankrupting on
my first park, let alone expanding to other cities.

One day I read some sort of cheat/guide that to have a profitable park, you
build Duck Shoots, and make the prizes worth less than the cost for each play,
and make the winning percentages 100%. I put the Duck Shoot right at the
entrance of the park and build the rest of the park around it. Every guest who
comes in plays the Duck Shoot first and is happy they won, and I make a profit
from every guest, and everyone is happy with a balloon prize.

This was my first lesson about its immorality. Strangely, the game became less
fun after that. I was able to make profitable parks and expand to other
cities. Then I stopped playing; and over the years, every time I tried to pick
back up the game again, I find myself going through the motions of setting up
that Duck Shoot trick because it was the only way I know to make money running
a park, and then I quickly lose interest after that because all the researches
and stuff were just a lot of work and it was boring having the same 4 rides
until researches complete. It was a little bit like real life...

------
bratsche
I really loved Powermonger when I was a kid. I'm surprised it didn't take off
to be more popular than it was.

~~~
zantana
Yes, there were so many little details like looking for pigeons leaving to see
if there is a spy in your town.

------
boomskats
Ahh I've gotta find my buddy Glenn and tell him the game he did the artwork
for, artwork which Royal Mail then minted _on a stamp_, is top of HN!

------
nfoz
I played a bunch of Populous on Amiga as a young child, thinking a lot about
ideas of God and civilization. It was a very unique experience for me to play
that game; an awesome and terrifying feeling. It didn't explain anything. You
push a button, sometimes it does nothing (not enough mana or whatever),
sometimes the whole earth would shake and lives are destroyed. The feeling of
satisfaction when castles are formed.

I remember the launcher desktop icon would be a hut. But when you double-click
it turns into the castle. So friggin cool. Just the sense of _mystery_ behind
it all.

~~~
zantana
The early EA games on the Amiga really had some magic about them, down to the
box designs and the tone of their ads. It really felt like a whole new era
with new possibilities was on the horizon.

------
kebman
For me, Syndicate really changed my life. I had a Commodore 486 SLC, with 2 Mb
RAM. But I'd seen the game at my friend's house, so I _knew_ that I _needed_
this game in my life. There was only one thing to do, and that was to kill
sweet pink piggy, and off to the store I went to buy 2 more megs of RAM. And
then... Minigun-toting cyborgs!

------
pm90
I expected to see Dungeon Keeper on that list. A remarkably cheeky, dark and
funny game which I played way too much as a kid.

~~~
seanwilson
I liked a lot about Dungeon Keeper but there was just zero strategy or
challenge to it. The combat ruined it for me - if someone invaded your
dungeon, all you had to do was pick up 20 odd high-level monsters and drop
them on top of the invader. All the monster stats, spells, special abilities
etc. became meaningless.

Not sure how it would work with RTS style movement or even turn based combat
but being able to instantly teleport your units to where you needed them
didn't make any sense to me in terms of game design.

~~~
b0rsuk
Yeah, the combat was pretty much an afterthought. They didn't even bother to
rework it in the sequel, they just added a token nuisance in the form of
monster dropping stun.

------
dleslie
Hi-Octane remains one of my favourite racers, and Syndicate Wars (yes, post-EA
purchase) is still a fantastically fun game.

~~~
dividuum
Hi-Octane was great. And it was built in just 6 weeks[1].

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hi-
Octane](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hi-Octane)

------
Causality1
There's a little too much hero worship in this article for my taste. Molyneux
is not some wide-eyed dreamer whose hopes keep getting dashed by the mean
nasty world. He's a serial liar who may have started out simply being too
hopeful but has spent the last fifteen years lying to gain investors and
happily screwing as many people on the back end as he can get away with. For
example, he built the entire premise and hype over his Cube mobile game about
having one single winner who could share or keep the prize. Bryan Henderson
won it and the prize turned out to be a major role in Molyneux's next game
Godus. Except giving out prizes doesn't make Peter any money so he told
Henderson to go fuck himself and never contacted him again.

~~~
yreg
Henderson didn't receive money since Godus was not profitable — which is not
surprising, since it wasn't that good.

I don't think it's fair to call a developer a `serial liar` when they say they
are working on a great game and then fail.

Failing is commonplace.

~~~
Causality1
That is not true. Henderson was promised a role as "God of gods" and one
percent of revenue during his tenure. Molyneux simply decided not to implement
the role of God of gods in the game and gave Henderson nothing. In his BAFTA
acceptance speech he admitted he "makes up game features on the spot to keep
game journalists from falling asleep". Peter Molyneux is so full of shit his
eyes are brown.

------
Krasnol
I used to hear Magic Carpet sounds in TV shows and movies quite often once.
Not anymore though.

~~~
MontagFTB
Yes - the speeding "whoosh" sound reminds me of it every time:
[https://youtu.be/m3zsPl4Ampw?t=607](https://youtu.be/m3zsPl4Ampw?t=607)

~~~
Krasnol
Yes. That was it!

I always wondered how that happened. No copyright?

~~~
corey_moncure
There were sound effect samplers that went around on CD back in those days.
Presumably purchasing the CD came with a license to use the effects in your
projects. There was also a wind noise sound that found its way into many
different game and motion picture productions that I always instantly
recognized.

~~~
arprocter
I remember the pig noise (farm?) from Warcraft 2 would crop up in all sorts of
random places

------
sien
Flood is treated unfairly. It has a nice difficulty increase and is an
enjoyable platformer with a few twists. Water fills the levels gradually and
you can stick on most of the walls. It has a really neat aesthetic too.

I've actually gone back and played the game and it's held up surprisingly
well.

Long play video of the game :
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8EbGjm_x808](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8EbGjm_x808)

------
DonHopkins
Where is Project Milo?

We may have Final Fantasy 15 and The Last Guardian, but who cares when
mankind's greatest achievement is still nowhere to be found?

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czcSxnBlW0A](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czcSxnBlW0A)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Milo](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Milo)

------
snicky
As little kids we used to play Theme Park with a friend of mine. After we got
bored with the game we used to create parks called sth like "Filthy sh*tter"
and try to make them the most hideous places ever. No cleaning service,
garbage lying all around, kids throwing up on the pathways and so on. For some
reason this felt as rewarding as building a fully functional park...

------
bovermyer
Populous II was one of the first video games I remember loving wholeheartedly.

Molyneux rolled big dice and often lost. When he won, though, he won big.

------
DonHopkins
Peter Molydeux:

[https://twitter.com/petermolydeux](https://twitter.com/petermolydeux)

[https://twitter.com/PeterMolydeux/status/1287527427355410439](https://twitter.com/PeterMolydeux/status/1287527427355410439)

@PeterMolydeux: Imagine a dating sim where you answer questions about yourself
but then find you’re playing as the love interest. You discover that ‘you’ are
actually an amazing and wonderful person and fall in love with yourself.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Molydeux](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Molydeux)

Peter Molydeux is a Twitter account presented as a parody of the game designer
Peter Molyneux. Created by game artist Adam Capone in 2009, it posts audacious
game design ideas in the style of Molyneux. The account presents Molyneux as a
tragicomic character with unrelenting, creative ideas that are continually
received by an apathetic audience. Over time, the account evolved from a
Molyneux-based persona into a list of potential game concepts. A common theme
of the tweets is the untapped potential of emotional game experiences.
Molyneux came to appreciate the parody, and has since met Capone in person.

I imagined him going through the supermarket with a digital recorder and
coming up with ideas while shopping ... And over dinner, he's rearranging his
peas and saying. 'Is this giving me a game idea?' And his wife is saying,
'Shut up, Peter. Just eat your food.' –Capone (Molydeux) on Molyneux

Some of the parody account's proposals include:

A racing game in which the player controls the road instead of the vehicle

A Kinect game in which the player must cry to open a gate

An eight-person online multiplayer game in which each player controls one leg
of an octopus

The final segment of a war game, in which the player pauses in silence at the
tombstone of each KIA recruit

A 3D adventure game in which the amnesiac player awakens in a museum with a
room dedicated to each year of the character's life

The player holds a radioactive baby, which acts as a torch in a dark
environment; rocking the baby increases its luminescence

The player pretends to be blind and must walk into objects to avoid suspicion

A bear must hug people in order to live, but crushes the people he hugs

A pigeon carries sentimental objects to businessmen to persuade them not to
kill themselves

A divorced father sneaks into his family house to help with chores without
alerting them

When the player kills henchmen in one game, the player sees recurring images
of those henchmen's crying children in an unrelated sports video game

A version of Street Fighter in which streets fight other streets

~~~
toast0
> An eight-person online multiplayer game in which each player controls one
> leg of an octopus

This could be fun. Depends on the controls and lag. Offline mode please!

~~~
DrPhish
Octodad has an offline 4 player mode like this. It’s actually pretty
hilarious. I’ve played it with my 3 sons a few times, and it’s especially
great if you randomize who has what limb after each achievement

------
Vaslo
Have there been any recent games as good as populous? I was thinking about
this and how good the game Dungeon Keeper were

~~~
stevenicr
Empire Earth II (and I guess one as well) - is a similar experience that I
have enjoyed for many hours since retiring the Amiga.. not so modern these
days sadly. I found one of the cdroms for it not long ago.

If someone would please make Empire Earth III happen, it would be greatly
appreciated.

~~~
brnt
Empire Earth III did happen. But even the studio who made it tried to bury any
trace of it. It was huge flop.

~~~
stevenicr
So we need an EE 4 then! EE 1 and 2 were really good and I'd prefer to play
them over most games I've looked into since.

Wonder what similar / modern current RTS would be close?

------
amai
I still remember beating Zeus in Level 999 of Populous II by spreading the
plague to all his followers. This memory feels strangely up-to-date in our
days of a world wide pandemic.

------
jslakro
Just one piece of art that I miss in the article

[https://fr.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullfrog_Productions#/media/...](https://fr.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullfrog_Productions#/media/Fichier%3ABullfrog_Productions_Logo.jpeg)

------
Quarrelsome
Speaking of weird old and unique games, does anyone remember Lords of Chaos?

Its a 1v1 Wizard game where you spend the early game summoning creatures,
exploring the map and picking up ingredients before brewing potions and
fighting your enemy before the map explodes around you.

~~~
Malcx
Loved that as a kid on the spectrum, a great sequel to chaos. Iirc you could
actually hot seat 4 players on some maps?

Check out chaos reborn on steam for a reasonable modern update.

------
mothsonasloth
I wish they had gone into to talk about Dungeon Keeper.

"Micro piglets stalk your dungeon, beware!"

------
djsumdog
> new genre which the media labelled the “god game”

I haven't picked up PC Gamer in a while, but I remember a few years back, all
the "Sim" and "Tycoon" type games were under the genre: Management

~~~
myself248
From now on, I shall think of "prayer" as "speaking to the manager".

------
AndrewDucker
It astounds me that there isn't a mobile version of Populous.

It seems like the perfect interface for it, and I can't understand why there
wouldn't be a market for it.

~~~
detritus
I think this is what they really intended Godus to become - a sort of idle
clicky grind game with pleasing, but essentially shallow, interaction, and no
more.

Unfortunately, some of us were caught up in Molyneaux's breathless inflatory
hype and thought it was going to be Populous X.

\- ed

------
locusm
Syndicate was their best game - thanks Sean Cooper

------
dep_b
Nobody liked Flood? I loved it! Dropping tons of bouncing grenades into a
shaft was fun!

------
DonHopkins
I love his earlier games (especially DK), and his games deeply influenced The
Sims (especially Theme Hospital, which I stayed late at work playing
obsessively into the night while working on The Sims architectural tools), but
how Peter Molyneux neglected that poor kid who he promised to make a god was
unnecessarily and unforgivably cruel. How hard would have it been for him to
simply pick up the phone and apologize?

>The Game Designer Who Promised to Make a Man God. It's not going so well.

[https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/nze9gg/the-game-
designer-...](https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/nze9gg/the-game-designer-who-
promised-to-make-players-gods)

>The God who Peter Molyneux forgot. For Curiosity winner Bryan Henderson, the
prize inside the cube has been anything but life-changing.

[https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2015-02-11-the-god-who-
pe...](https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2015-02-11-the-god-who-peter-
molyneux-forgot)

>The god who Peter Molyneux forgot wants his cut of a new game bundle to go to
charity instead. "It felt very bizarre to me."

[https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2016-02-26-bryan-
henderso...](https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2016-02-26-bryan-henderson-
the-god-who-peter-molyneux-forgot-wants-his-cut-of-a-new-game-bundle-to-go-to-
charity-instead)

>The Man Who Promised Too Much

[https://kotaku.com/the-man-who-promised-too-
much-1537352493](https://kotaku.com/the-man-who-promised-too-much-1537352493)

>Serial over-promiser Peter Molyneux promises to stop over-promising. Designer
breaks a year of self-imposed press exile with reflective interview.

[https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2016/02/serial-over-
promiser-...](https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2016/02/serial-over-promiser-
peter-molyneux-promises-to-stop-over-promising/)

>Peter Molyneux's God Game Is Looking Like Yet Another Disappointment

[https://www.wired.com/2015/02/molyneux-godus-
kickstarter/](https://www.wired.com/2015/02/molyneux-godus-kickstarter/)

>Peter Molyneux interview: 'It's over, I will not speak to the press again'.
The veteran game designer is at the centre of a raging controversy over his
new game Godus. He says he is finished with the press.

[https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/feb/13/peter-
mol...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/feb/13/peter-molyneux-
game-designer-interview-godus)

>The Lesson of Peter Molyneux. “Sooner or later the bullshit has to stop.”

[https://techcrunch.com/2015/02/15/the-lesson-of-peter-
molyne...](https://techcrunch.com/2015/02/15/the-lesson-of-peter-molyneux/)

>Why Peter Molyneux's Godus is Such a Disaster

[https://www.techspot.com/article/964-peter-molyneux-godus-
di...](https://www.techspot.com/article/964-peter-molyneux-godus-disaster/)

------
29athrowaway
Peter made such great games: Populous, Dungeon Keeper, Black and White.

------
ekianjo
I don't understand why the article claims that Theme Park's view on such parks
is cynical, as if "theme parks did not focus on user experience". They don't.
Every single theme park out there has hours of waiting lines to do just
anything. How is that even a good experience to begin with?

~~~
koheripbal
This comment is such a broad generalization that it boarders on useless.

