Utopia

INTELLIVISION CARTRIDGE [Mattel Electronics #5149]

Release #33 June 3, 1982

Working Title: Island

Design & Program: Don Daglow

Graphics: Kai Tran, Don Daglow

Sound: Russ Lieblich

Package illustration: Jerrol Richardson

Instructions Posted Here

1982 CATALOG DESCRIPTION

You and your opponent each have an island to rule. Points are accumulated based on the welfare of your island people. You can choose to be a benevolent ruler or an aggressive dictator. Your people need food, housing, and industry for clothing and other essentials. What you cannot manage are natural disasters. A single hurricane could wipe out your crops, sink your fishing fleet, destroy all the homes and factories you've built. Rebels may automatically appear should the welfare of the people drop. They could attack. Classic dilemmas in a game that is sure to become an absorbing classic in its own right.

• One or two can play, either competitively orcooperatively.

• Colorful computer graphics and special sound effects.

• Computer measures your people's well being through a sophisticated scoring system that weighs ALL island conditions.

PRODUCTION HISTORY

In college, Don Daglow had been a fan of mainframe computer simulation games, so it was only natural that he would try a simulation game for the Intellivision. His result, Utopia, was hailed by reviewers for its originality: it wasn't another arcade rip-off, and it wasn't just a video version of an existing game or sport. It was even educational without being boring.

Although Marketing didn't put much of a push behind the game (they preferred graphically splashier, no-brainer games like Star Strike), the reviews (Playboy Magazine put it in their "Video Game Hall of Fame") and word of mouth pushed sales to a respectable 250,000.

Today, Utopia is one of the best-remembered Intellivision games, with some people referring to it as Civilization 0.5, a reference to Sid Meier's later breakthrough computer simulation game.

An Aquarius version was also released.