Reprisal Preview

Fans of Populous, it’s time to get excited about Reprisal

For those of us who go back a long way with PC gaming, you won’t get far into reminiscing conversations about favorites before someone brings up Populous. The thrill of playing as a deity “influencing” your civilization by changing the world that surrounded them took many an hour away from many a gamer. This pixelated nirvana also captured the attention of a young Jon Caplin, so much so that he is now developing Reprisal, a browser Flash game inspired by and in homage to Bullfrog’s 1990 classic.

In Reprisal you take on the role of a once powerful leader of a distant tribe who could harness power totems of nature. Because of this, your people followed you and life was good for everyone. Three tribes rose to power, scattering your people and your power. Now you must gather everyone back together, regain your powers and overthrow the tribes who cast you and your people aside.

You do this by using a combination of your terraform tool and previously gathered power totems to guide your people around various islands as you make everyone real happy. Keeping your people happy is simple and produces mana, which you need to make any commands.

Obviously Reprisal keeps a lot in common with Populous, but creates its own little twist on the god game genre that Populous created in the first place. Reprisal‘s pixelated graphics and music remind you of an older age when we all had more time to lose ourselves in addicting games like this. You can play a beta demo on the game’s site that lets you go through six islands in two different modes. The game is currently aiming for a full release sometime in the first quarter of 2012 – so hopefully soon!

Kevin Alexander