Civilisation is not exactly the sort of game I'd immediately associate with the Neo Geo Pocket Color. SNK's lovely little handheld, released in 1999, is probably best remembered for its excellent fighting games, Metal Slug outings and that clicky directional stick everyone raves about. Not enormous, turn-based strategy games about guiding a civilisation through thousands of years of human history. But homebrew developer Chris Ahchay has other ideas.
His latest project, Civilisation Pocket, is an attempt to bring the familiar empire-building experience of Sid Meier's original 1991 Civilisation to the Neo Geo Pocket Color. And while it's still very much a work in progress, he's already released a playable version that you can try for yourself.
An Empire in Your Pocket
What immediately interests me about this project is how much of the original game's structure Chris is attempting to preserve. You begin with a settler and a military unit, just as you'd expect, and from there you can establish your first city, explore the surrounding world and begin building your civilisation.
It isn't simply a little map with a few units wandering around, either. Chris has already implemented working civilisation-management screens, allowing players to allocate workers, assign citizens as specialists, manage scientific research and adjust taxation policies. Units can be fortified or ordered to rest, with the latter leaving them more vulnerable to attack.
That's a surprisingly substantial amount of Civilisation to squeeze into something with a screen resolution of just 160 × 152 pixels, especially when you remember that the Neo Geo Pocket Color has only two main face buttons and its little directional stick to work with.
There's something quite appealing about the idea of stripping a game like this back to its essentials. Civilisation has grown enormously since its original release, with each new instalment introducing additional systems and considerably more visual complexity. Going in the opposite direction, and trying to make those familiar decisions work on a handheld from 1999, presents a rather different challenge.
Of course, it's not finished. Chris is quite upfront about that. Only a handful of military units and city improvements have been implemented so far, and the current version doesn't even recognise when you've completely lost. If all your cities and units disappear, the remaining civilisations simply carry on playing without you.
Which is rather funny, admittedly, although perhaps not something you'd want in the finished game.
Keeping the Neo Geo Pocket Color Alive
What makes this project more interesting to me is that Chris isn't a newcomer to developing for SNK's little handheld.
He's been creating games for the Neo Geo Pocket Color for years now, documenting his development experiments and sharing tutorials along the way. His previous work includes Gardenia, Horatio Goes Snowboarding, Judge Dredd in House of Death and several adaptations of classic arcade games.
In an older post about his homebrew work, Chris explained how much he loved the system, and how disappointed he'd been when official support disappeared. His solution was beautiful: start making games for it himself.
There's also a nice connection between the developer and the game he's chosen for this latest experiment. On his personal website, Chris describes a lifelong enthusiasm for video games, going all the way back to the earliest days of the arcades. Among the various gaming accomplishments he mentions is having beaten Civilisation on Deity difficulty. In other words, this is someone who seems to know both the game and the handheld rather well.
Chris also explicitly states that he doesn't use AI or large language models in his development process. With AI-assisted coding becoming an increasingly common feature of homebrew projects, it's an interesting distinction, although I'd argue that the more important thing here is his continuing enthusiasm for a handheld that lost its official commercial support more than two decades ago.
The Neo Geo Pocket Color has always struck me as one of those machines that deserved a little longer in the spotlight, early this year I even did an article on how it is one of the forgotten handhelds. It had some wonderful games, an excellent design and more character than many of its competitors. It's lovely to see people still giving it new things to do all these years later.
And although Civilisation Pocket is nowhere near finished, the foundations are already there.
You can play the current development build in your browser or download the 2 MB ROM from Chris's itch.io page. It's available on a name-your-own-price basis, and Chris is welcoming feedback while development continues.
I'm particularly curious to see how far he manages to take it. After all, there's something rather amazing about the prospect of conquering the entire known world on a handheld that fits comfortably in your pocket.
Just one more turn, perhaps?