Baldies

Baldies is a real-time strategy game with simulation and god game elements that is primarily played from a top-down perspective, similar to SimCity, Populous, Lemmings, and Mega-Lo-Mania. The main objective is to advance the Baldies' civilization across 100 levels, each one taking place across various locations and increasing in difficulty. The player has god-like powers capable of changing the outcome of Baldies. They interact with the game's world and manage a community of Baldies using a hand cursor in order to build structures, increase their population, and create weapons to fight against enemies known as Hairies.

The player does not have full direct control of the Baldies themselves and their actions or movement. Instead, they will wander around the playfield until they are picked up with the hand.

Baldies was created by Creative Edge Software, an Edinburgh-based game developer founded by David Wightman in 1989. Creative Edge had previously worked on titles such as Euro Soccer (1992), an adaptation based on the 1993 family comedy film Surf Ninjas for Amiga, and Soccer Superstars (1995). It was co-produced by Faran Thomason, Larry Pacey, and Vince Zampella of Atari Corporation. Wightman served as the game's lead programmer and designer, with technical manager David Elliott as well as Daniel Leyden, Duncan McDinhln, and former Imagitec Design staffer Sean Connolly providing additional hardware and programming support. Alan Duncan, David Brown, and Paul Docherty were responsible for the artwork.

Baldies began production in February 1993 for the Amiga platform, intended to be published first by Mindscape and then by GameTek. Wightman designed the game's concept from scratch to have the gameplay depth of the god game Populous (1989) and accessibility of the puzzle–strategy game Lemmings (1991). Wightman described it as a cross between Populous and Lemmings, as well as SimCity (1989) and the real-time strategy game Mega-Lo-Mania (1991). The claymation cutscenes were produced in-house by Creative Edge.

Baldies garnered generally favorable reception from critics. VideoGames compared the game with Cannon Fodder (1993) and noted its advanced artificial intelligence, but found the claymation sequences to be bleak. Next Generation highlighted its "cute" graphics, numerous levels, and novel premise. They also found its greatest strength to be the freedom of gameplay, which allows the player to delegate responsibilities any way they like among the baldies or enjoy the unpredictability of what they come up with when given only general guidance. Marc Abramson of the French ST Magazine commended the game's easy controls, sympathetic sounds, help system, thematic, and longevity, but faulted the compressed Wallace and Gromit-style introductory sequence and lamented the lack of a two-player mode.

Electronic Gaming Monthly's four reviewers deemed the graphics as mediocre and the controls difficult to get used to, but said that the game was "a step in the right direction" for the Jaguar, citing its gameplay and amusing tactics for defeating enemies. GamePro said the graphics were excellent and found the simple controls easy to master, but felt the music was too repetitive. MAN!AC's Oliver Ehrle labelled it as a cute Populous clone, citing its varied levels but expressed mixed thoughts regarding the overall audiovisual presentation. PC Entertainment's Christopher Lindquist noted the game's sense of humor and accessible gameplay, but complained about the same objective on every level and lack of additional difficulty levels. GameSpot's Chris Hudak called Baldies "the single weirdest game I have ever played", criticizing the concept as well as its execution.

Baldies was one of several projects by Creative Edge Software planned to be published by Atari for the Jaguar, but was the only one released prior to the platform being discontinued. The others were near completion prior to cancellation: Battle Lords (a Gauntlet-style hack and slash dungeon crawler), Chopper (a Choplifter-esque action game), Green-Thang (a run and gun platform game), and a soccer title. A follow-up title to Baldies named Skull Caps was developed by Creative Edge and published by Ubi Soft in 1999 for Windows.