(except the last two) and grouped into ten epochs. Each epoch contains three islands and represents a different era in time (starting at 9500 BC and ending at 2001 AD); conquering the three islands in any order will allow the player to proceed to the next epoch. The player receives one-hundred men in each epoch. Any unused are carried over to the next epoch. The only exception is the tenth epoch, which contains only one eponymous island and does not grant extra men to the player. Development The Amiga and Atari ST versions of Mega-Lo-Mania, as developed by Sensible Software and published by Image Works, began development in November 1989, and were released in the Spring of 1991 for the Amiga and Atari ST; a DOS version wasn't planned at this stage in development. In a January 1991 issue of British gaming magazine The One, The One interviewed team members from Sensible Software for information regarding Mega-Lo-Mania's development in a pre-release interview. Mega-Lo-Mania was originally conceived under the title Alien Empire and later My Little Warhead, but these names were scrapped in lieu of the final title of Mega-Lo-Mania. The game's original concept had the player taking the role of an operator of a spaceship who needed to combat robots located on an island, with the island being split into 16 sections. The goal of this original design concept was to combine scrolling arcade action gameplay with real-time strategy; this concept is vastly different from the final product due to lack of publisher interest, as they considered the game to 'not fit into any specific category'. Jonathan Hare, Mega-Lo-Mania's graphic artist and one of its designers, expressed that the game was changed from its original concept to make it more marketable to publishers; he stated that the ultimatum became that the team needed to "drop the scrolling or drop the strategy", with the team deciding to scrap the game's arcade scrolling aspect. Upon scrapping the game's original concept of robots, the team considered a fantasy theme, but decided against it. Upon being asked about Mega-Lo-Mania's similarity to Populous, Hare expressed that while it looks "a little" similar, it differs significantly in its gameplay, particularly in its combat, stating that he thinks that Mega-Lo-Mania doesn't play "like Populous at all". Further expressing his belief in how the game differs from Populous, Hare stated that the gameplay concept of human evolution isn't