:
Could you please introduce yourself and tell us about your history in the gaming
industry?
Philip Veale: My name is Philip Veale and
I am the Technical Director here at Slitherine. I have been in the industry
for nearly 10 years, during which time I have worked as a Lead Programmer on
games including Azrael's Tear, Dune 2000, and Emperor: Battle for Dune, as well
as a Technical Director role on many others. I joined Slitherine in January
2003 and am responsible for all the programming on Spartan and Gates of Troy,
as well as our upcoming new games.
:
What inspired you to make the games you've worked on?
Philip Veale: I've been lucky enough to
work on games ranging from completely original through to licensed, and they
all have their own pros and cons. At Slitherine we are lucky to be able to use
Iain McNeil's World Champion experience in wargaming to try and create Turn-Based
Strategy games blending depth with the elusive 'one-more-turn' factor. I've
known Iain since university and we both have a desire to create the best games
we can.
:
Were there any major difficulties that had to be overcome during the development
of Spartan?
Philip Veale: The biggest new challenge
in Spartan was implementing the multiplayer aspect of the game. Multiplayer
introduces many problems which simply don't come up developing single player
products.
:
Do you feel that there might be competition in the future, from Strength and
Honour, Civilization, or the Total War series for example?
Philip Veale: I'm a strong believer in
the fact that game development isn't a zero-sum industry. Every game that comes
out encourages us all to try and be better. In terms of sales, if another game
gets a player hooked on strategy, then he will be out looking for more games
in that genre, which can only be good.
:
Why did you choose to let the player switch between a 2D and a 3D engine, at
the costs of having a great looking 3D battlemode?
Philip Veale: Having a 2D mode didn't really
hurt the 3D. We committed to retaining our 2D mode to support our players who
were either unable to run in 3D, or who preferred the 2D experience.
For the 3D, we wanted to get a look that differentiated the Spartan experience.
In hindsight we were probably too cautious in terms of our 3D approach, using
billboarded sprites on a 3D landscape. This approach was difficult to author
and also used a lot of memory. The engine for our upcoming line of products
uses fully 3D units and looks great, even at this early stage!
:
Why did you choose to let the player have an indirect control of their own men
during a battle, rather then the Total War approach where you can control different
battalions?
Philip Veale: There are a number of reasons
for this. Firstly it is more realistic for the era, once a battle started it
was chaos, and getting orders to engaged squads would have been very difficult
- you certainly could not give instantaneous orders in the manner of an RTS.
Secondly, we wanted to avoid the 'click-fest' that can put some people off.
And lastly, it's fun! We find it genuinely exciting to watch the battles play
out over 4 or 5 minutes to see if our tactics have paid off.
On the other hand, we accept that there is an expectation amongst players that
they will have control over every aspect - realistic or not. It was also sometimes
difficult to provide helpful feedback to the player on which tactics were working
in battle and which were not. This can lead to some players feeling that the
deployment makes no difference, which is certainly not the case! For future
games we are trying to balance all the various feedback we get to keep on improving
the experience for players.
:
Do you have any idea in what theme (the age) your next Empire Builder will be?
Philip Veale: This is the subject of a lot
of thought and debate at the moment. We have to balance the desire to explore
interesting periods with the fact that some periods are more popular and well-known
than others.
:
And do you have any idea what will stay as it is and what will be enhanced?
Will the player still be able to choose between 2D and 3D or will it specialize
in one of the two in your next Empire Builder?
Philip Veale: The most agonizing part of
game development is trying to decide which of the thousand ideas you come up
with will actually get implemented! We want to improve nearly every aspect of
the game experience, the AI, the diplomacy, trade, battles - and that isn't
taking into account all the completely new features on our list. Even in the
Gates of Troy expansion there are a number of significant new features.
I think we are likely to continue supporting 2D in at least the next generation
of products. However, the 3D will tend to be the 'lead' with the 2D making use
of assets where appropriate.
:
Slitherine listens to its players more then most other developers when making
patches, additions, and new games. Why did you set up this attitude? Have any
members of the press or any other developers ever commented on this approach?
Philip Veale: We can't really see any other
way to act towards our players! Despite thousands of hours of beta play from
our dedicated band of beta testers, it's always important to listen to feedback
once a game gets out into the wild. Our forum is a great place for us to listen
to peoples' feedback on the game, and for players to discuss the game amongst
themselves. I think most of our players realise that we patch because we want
the gameplay experience to be as good as possible for as many players as possible.
:
What can we expect from your newest expansion to Spartan, "The Gates of
Troy?" Is it a coincidence that you announced the game around the same
time that the movie "Troy" hit theaters?
Philip Veale: We knew that with the film
coming out, people would have a renewed interest in the period and the characters.
With Spartan being set in Greece already, it seemed logical to create some new
scenarios, which gave players the chance to experience these settings. Hopefully
there may also be some people who have never tried strategy games before who
will be tempted by Gates of Troy thanks to the current interest.
Gates of Troy also includes a variety of other new scenarios, including some
more scripted scenarios such as Thermopylae, which is really great fun as you
try and hold out against wave after wave of Persians! On top of this there are
new features such as vassalization, and Gates of Troy will also find Spartan
if it is installed, allowing you to play all the Spartan scenarios with the
new Troy features.
:
Have you ever thought about using your experience to make games of another genre
other than Empire Builder?
Philip Veale: We are all fans of a wide
range of games. For example, I am a huge CRPG fan, and would love to do one,
but there are only so many hours in the day! I think that getting more people
to buy online, directly from developers, will allow us to try out new styles
of game. In fact, online in general is something we are spending a lot of time
looking at…
:
Is there anything else you'd like to tell our readers?
Philip Veale: Anyone who wants to take a
look at Spartan or Gates of Troy can grab a demo from our website at www.slitherine.co.uk
. And remember, playing pirated games is fattening and makes you smell bad -
I'm not kidding…
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