A tribute to Bullfrog Productions: the creators of Syndicate and Populous

Syndicate was one of the first games I saw on the Amiga. A friend of mine from grade school had it and when I went over to his house after school one day he told me “a lot of research is going on” and he directed me to look at a screen with a graph on it. I was like “Whaaaaaa” and he was like “Get better weapons, man!” and then I was like… you get the picture. As soon as we finally got around to playing the game properly, only one thought popped into my head: wow. If you haven’t played Syndicate on any platform, I advise you to do so now. His lack of regard for the general public (you’ll see what I mean) laid the foundation for many of today’s popular titles.

Syndicate was developed by Bullfrog, whose iconic logo will be etched in my brain forever. Bullfrog’s magic didn’t just stop and start with Syndicate, no no, his back catalog is impressive and without some of his inventions (as stated above), many of today’s popular titles wouldn’t exist.

Bullfrog was founded in 1987 by Les Edgar and Peter Molyneux. His team also included legendary designers Gary Carr, Glenn Corpes (whom we’ve interviewed here), and Paul McLaughlin. They had to wait a few years for their first big hit and I just need to say one word: Populous. To say that Populous was innovative (ho ho) is an understatement. 90% of retro gamers know what it is, the first widely recognized “God Game”. The isometric view, along with the world map encased in a book, really made you believe that you were working like a god in his “office”. One of my favorite actions in the game was to “do a bit of landscaping”, meaning flattening some mountains (because I felt like it) and also making some of the land of the enemy’s followers disappear. There is no barley for them this year!

Released at the same time as “The Satanic Verses”, the Daily Mail warned Bullfrog that they might also receive a fatwa like Mr. Rushdie’s; thankfully, it never materialized and Bullfrog was allowed to continue.

The next Bullfrog game I remember was Powermonger, another “God Game” but one that introduced a 3D game engine and looked fantastic. I think this title laid the groundwork for the iconic black and white PC title (also designed by Mr. Molyneux) with its “artificial life” engine and a population with its own stats. The game took a different approach than Populous, focusing less on the terraforming aspect (almost nothing) and more on keeping a population alive (or not!). Thus demonstrating that innovation does not have to involve a completely new idea to work.

The inevitable sequel to Populous followed (which was again excellent), but it was during 1993 and 1994 that Bullfrog produced two of my favorite games. The aforementioned Union and also Theme Park.

Syndicate’s main concept was global domination (I see a theme here Bullfrog… ) through the conquest of territories (Bullfrog!). In fact, the game has turned out to be a pretty crude satire on the world we live in. The player would guide their team of four cyborgs through said territories, annihilating enemies, setting many buildings on fire, and gently (or not so gently) persuading the population. Then you would need to tax the population to raise money for research, as I mentioned earlier. All this, in an entertaining computer game, from 1993. The fact that the Mega Drive port worked as well as the Amiga version is attributable to the extremely talented team at Bullfrog.

And so, to the next wonder: the theme park. Show me a kid in elementary school who doesn’t want his own theme park and I’ll show you a liar! After visiting Alton Towers one summer, the first thing I drew on my first morning back to school was the “Super Looper” or something similar sounding. Although the main goal of Theme Park was less fun, spending money to make more money, the freeform nature of each theme park’s creation was a joy to partake in. Do you want to put a big saucepan right next to the burger shack? Be my guest! In all honesty, my theme parks paled in comparison to some created by my friends and cousins, but you’ll be glad to know I now have another copy to put this right! Roller Coaster Tycoon has been praised as its successor, but do you see a 16-bit version anywhere? The Mega Drive version of Theme Park still stands, which again is simply amazing given the limitations of the console.

Bullfrog was also responsible for the magnificent Magic Carpet on PC and the timeless Dungeon Keeper (also on PC), but I’ll always remember them for the innovation and life they brought to 16-bit, regardless of the obvious limitations. If anything, it meant that we poorer gamers didn’t miss out, stifling the taunts of our PC-owning friends.

Electronic Arts deserves a mention here because they were the ones who published these flagship games with Bullfrog. The inevitable merger with (or addition to) Electronic Arts occurred in 2001, 14 years after the company was founded.

So we give thanks to Bullfrog, for their innovation and desire to stay relevant. We’ll be enjoying your titles for years to come, just don’t hold your breath for more real-time research.