Peter Molyneux is
one of the most famous game designers around. Some of his work includes the
Populous series,
Dungeon Keeper, and
Black & White, scheduled for a Spring 2001 release and maybe the most anticipated
game of the year.
Molyneux, the son of toy shop owners, was involved with games all his life. He worked on games for the Commodore 64 and Amiga systems. His first major production, also the first game released by his company Bullfrog, was the Amiga conversion of Druid 2.
The first big success for Bullfrog and Molyneux was Populous, a great example of his signature genre, the "god game". After the sequel Populous II, Bullfrog's major titles were Syndicate, Magic Carpet and Theme Park. These games weren't great commercial successes but are all considered as some of the most well-built and innovative games of the nineties.
Another Bullfrog title, Dungeon Keeper, was a very interesting twist on the standard fantasy game, casting the player as the god of the dark side, torturing your creatures and managing dungeons to keep out the heroes.
When Bullfrog was bought out by Electronic Arts, Molyneux formed Lionhead Studios and left his former company, unhappy with the pressure EA was imposing on Bullfrog. The first game to come out of Lionhead is Black & White, scheduled for release in the Spring of 2001.
Other games by Bullfrog and Molyneux include Entrepreneur, Powermonger, Flood, Theme Hospital, Syndicate Wars, Gene Wars and Hi Octane.