Utopia

Two islands, two rulers and limited resources over which a merciless fight for prosperity is waged. Utopia is a work that many historians of the gaming medium today consider one of the very first strategy and building games on a home console, and that as early as the start of the eighties.

Instead of shooting and reflexes, here you decide where to place schools, hospitals, factories and residential houses, where to sow crops and how to react to storms, pirates and famine. The goal is to raise the satisfaction and prosperity of your island's inhabitants more than your opponent does. The game runs in real time and forces you to make decisions about investments whose results only show up after some time — a visionary concept by the standards of the era.

Utopia was designed by designer Don Daglow, and the game appeared on the Intellivision at a time when no one knew exactly how to classify such a title at all. It wasn't action or a race, but a thoughtful clash of economies and planning. It was precisely this originality that made it the forerunner of the whole genre of building and management games, which later blossomed in the form of titles like SimCity or Civilization.

The cultural significance of Utopia is therefore enormous. It showed that video games can offer an intellectual challenge, long-term planning and a battle of minds instead of finger speed. It was years ahead of its time and became an inspiration for generations of strategy-game designers.

Even today Utopia rewards players who enjoy thinking over numbers and long-term strategy. It's a fascinating study of where the roots lie of genres that millions of players around the world now take for granted.

Why play: Probably the first building strategy game on a console ever. A forerunner of SimCity and Civilization that was years ahead of its time.