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“Factorio, but you’re baking stuff”: Firaxis and Civilization veterans share their dream strategy projectsThe creators of Ara: History Untold pitch their pipedreams
The creators of Ara: History Untold pitch their pipedreams
Image credit:Xbox Game Studios
Image credit:Xbox Game Studios
Yesterday I had a lovely chat with the brainy folk of Oxide Games, developers ofAshes of the Singularityand the forthcomingAra: History Untold, a historical 4Xstrategy gamethat puts a baroque spin on the classic Civilization format, with each player’s turn unfolding simultaneously once you’ve queued up a bunch of commands.
There’s a lot to sift through there, which we’ll get into next week, but we also found time towards the finish for some off-the-cuff chinwaggery about dream 4X or strategy game projects. What would the Oxide team make, if they didn’t have to worry about budget, audience expectations or any of the other commercial factors that guide the creation of videogames? The answers may surprise you. They might also make you hungry.
First to answer was Oxide’s, as it transpires, appropriately-named chief graphics architect Dan Baker, who worked onCivilization Vand Civilization Revolution as graphics lead at Firaxis, and has made extensive contributions to the evolution of Microsoft’s D3D technology.
“I don’t think I would need much budget,” he said. “I would just make these very weird, niche games that at least I would love playing. Like, I just want to doFactorio, but you’re baking stuff. You’ve got to get the time right, because the bread’s got to rise, to have freshness, all that stuff.”
I find a 4X baking sim disturbingly easy to envisage. Perhaps it could be a post-apocalyptic experience that take cues fromTraption Bakery, an “upcyclepunk” affair in which you fashion bits of old fairground machinery and sailing ship into bread-making apparata. Or perhaps it should be a straight adaptation of the Great British Bake-Off - Graham dida whole interview feature on British Bake-Off Gamesback in 2015.
Oxide design director Michelle Menard - a former Firaxis associate producer and Zynga systems designer - also has telly on her mind. “The old thing I pitched around the office is Farms of our Lives, which is an episodic soap opera-based farming simulator!” she said.
I’m scrambling a bit for specific parallels here, but there’s overlap aplenty between the worlds of soap opera television and gaming.The Simsis a soap opera sandbox in which the Surprise Guest is always Accidental House Fire. Management sims in general often foreground warring personalities - some would argue thatCrusader Kings 3is essentiallya spectacularly bloodthirsty interpretation of Coronation Street.
Ara: History Untold Gameplay Reveal TrailerWatch on YouTube
Ara: History Untold Gameplay Reveal Trailer
Last but not least, there was lead designer Michael Califf, a former Stardock and Mohawk Games developer. “My answer’s more straightforward,” he said. “I have one game on my list: I want to make a Warhammer 40K grand strategy game. And that’s it. Other than that I do what’s asked of me. If I had infinite budget and was allowed to do whatever I want, that’s the game I would make. I feel like there’s already a rich world present and you don’t need to reinvent the wheel.”
Elsewhere in the chat, the Oxide trio had extensive thoughts on the market for strategy games, which they consider to be blossoming thanks to a mixture of approachable design, a receptive publishing partner in Microsoft specifically, and PC gaming at large being in rude health. There was also an animated discussion of bedsheets. Again, I’ll bring you more next week. In the meantime, do you have any pie-in-the-sky or as the case may be, loaf-in-the-sky strategy game concepts you’d love to bung in the oven?
