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DEFCON Interview
PC Interview by Kieron Gillen
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If you're of that particular mindset, Introversion are the closest the 00s have to a genuine underground heroes. Its story is a dramatic one.
From an initial flush of success with hacking sim Uplink, to borderline insolvency as its sophomore masterpiece Darwinia's delays lead to all the team signing on - made worse by it not finding an immediate audience, to a rejuvenation through its games hitting Steam, critical affirmation by winning the Independent Game Festival Grand Prize (and THAT infamous acceptance speech) and most recently its first step into the world of multiplayer games with the Nuclear Wargame of DEFCON.
With that stepping off the internet, into tiny boxes and moving onto the high-street from June 15th (as well as the looming shape of Subversion and Multiwinia on the horizon) now would be a fine to catch up with the self-pronounced last of the Bedroom Programmers to see what's on their minds.
In an interview. Yes, that sounds like a fine idea.
Eurogamer: Start at the basics: in a fundamental way, what does a real retail release of DEFCON mean to Introversion?
Chris Delay: Although we often talk about the merits of online distribution we still believe that retail is an important avenue for the independent developer and definitely one that you can, and should, take advantage of. Publishers and distributors will have access to many more resources than the average independent and, if you are lucky as we have been with the DEFCON retail release, you will be able to work together with them to leverage alot more exposure and interest in your title. In that case, everyone's a winner. For us, its not really a matter of choosing one form of distribution over the other, and it shouldn't have to be - you can take advantage of both as each gamer will have a different preference when it comes down to how they choose to buy their games. So far we're very happy with the way the retail launch is progressing and we've got some cool things going on this summer, like our DEFCON LAN tournament which we hope will bring some new gamers to DEFCON.
Eurogamer: Speaking more generally, how do you feel about the game now?
Chris Delay: We've been delighted with DEFCON. It did great in the reviews, and its been really popular with our fanbase and a whole new bunch of people too. It's our most popular game to date. Opening up the Server Browser in DEFCON reveals between 20 and 60 games running at any one time, depending on time of day. On day one we had a couple of thousand game servers before our metaserver exploded, which shows the kind of interest people had in the game. Darwinia definately made the press aware of who we were, but I think DEFCON made the gamers familiar with our name.
Eurogamer: You've got an actual back-catalogue now. How do you think DEFCON fits into it?
Chris Delay: Comparing DEFCON to our other games is difficult. Uplink is rugged and buggy and ugly and still sells more than Darwinia every day. Darwinia is our oddball second album, our very own love letter to the Amiga and the Soul of great videogames, and the game I'm most proud of. DEFCON is a relatively simple multiplayer game idea and I think that's probably the key to its success. Most of our creative experimentation in DEFCON was in the audio - we really tried to build the atmosphere of a nuclear bunker through the use of sounds and ambient music, and to create that feeling of reckless and insane genocide in the minds of our players. Our audio guy Al Lindsay is a genius, and when your popution starts dying in their millions he made the audio hurt.
Retail onslaught in the highstreet
Eurogamer: Are there any aspects which you think the community overlooked?
Chris Delay: My own personal favourite game mode in DEFCON is Speed-Defcon, in which the game plays at the maximum possible speed and is time limited to 15 minutes. But you very rarely see people playing this mode on the server listing, and I'm not sure why. It's so wonderfully brutal.
Eurogamer: My favourite mode too, randomly. Generally speaking, while all your games have communities who've grown up around them, an ongoing, competitive community is a different beast from what you're used to. How are you dealing with that?
Chris Delay: It's very different, and the reason is that the game keeps changing. The current "best players" of DEFCON use very different tactics to the best players on launch day - tactics which have literally evolved over many months of practice and experimentation. We have a whole forum dedicated to discussions of different tactical ideas, and the results gathered from experiments. We've found if we try to play against the best players now, we basically get our arses handed to us.
One thing we are particularly proud of though - nobody has yet come up with a "winning" strategy. There is no Zerg rush that simply cannot be defeated. It was always our aim to make a wargame that was closer to a game of chess than C&C - moves and counter moves, different types of opening gambits, different types of end games, but never a definitive way to win. The way the units are balanced is kind of an extended paper-scissors-stone - every unit is essential and every unit is vulnerable. It's a tactical puzzle that can never be solved.
Are you excited about Multiwinia: Survival of the Flattest on PC?
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Related Games
Uplink
Darwinia
Defcon
Multiwinia: Survival of the Flattest
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Comments: 1-22 of 22 in total
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BlankOBlank!
26/05/07 @ 08:48
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I was going to post to say how much that slogan annoys me too.
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most recently on 26/05/07 @ 09:48
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Caspar_Esq.
26/05/07 @ 12:20
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Was the biggest fan of Uplink, Darwinia got a big 'meh' and didn't run properly, and I kind of gave up on them after that.
All I ever wanted was an Uplink 2! *sob* I guess I should actually try this Defcon malarky then.. |
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> Can someone tell me when the fuck Introversion were EVER the Last of the Bedroom Coders?
They weren't, they're just extraordinarily full of themselves. I suppose it's possible they somewhat have to be in order to function at all. It is amusing how easy their output is to dismiss as tending to rely on style over substance for impact, if you're feeling cynical, though. > I guess I should actually try this Defcon malarky then They won't do Uplink 2 because they're too innovative and edgy to make boring old sequels. Defcon's multiplayer-only* RTS, with the expected meta-game dependence and (imo) rather tedious micromanagement fiddliness. Presentation's beautiful, naturally. Decent game if you like the genre and have people to play with, but I wouldn't recommend bothering, otherwise. * Yes, you can play it vs CPU opponents. No, it's not worth it. Having managed to sound like they killed my dog, I feel obliged to note I'll still be keeping an eye on whatever Subversion turns out to be. Too few developers are willing to fool around much with procedural content generation; it'd be nice to see someone pull off a decent game using it for anything a bit more ambitious than a random dungeon-crawl map generator. |
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> Yeah, I was being sarcastic.
Indeed, and I was registering assent to your sarcasm. Bloody new-fangled text communication. > I don't see why they should have to be full of themselves to function, it's just that they are. Jeff Vogel habitually mouths off about one thing or another, including what idiots the people who buy Spiderweb games are. Stardock-bloke-whose-name-escapes-me seems fond of ranting about got-durned pansy liberals siphoning too much of the proceeds from his popular MOO knock-offs and desktop widgets to lazy poor people. You're right, it's not necessary, but getting anywhere as a small developer trying to avoid being bound to restrictive distribution contracts means taking on a lot of risk that many would struggle to countenance. Being an arrogant tosser probably gives you a head start. Microsoft aren't hip'n'indie, so obviously can't pull quite the same thing. Multi-million dollar global corporation Nintendo comes fairly close with its inclusiveness/innovation rambling, which a lot of the press buys into fairly uncritically. Again, though, it has a relative 'underdog' perception working in its favour. I'd be better disposed towards Introversion if they'd shut the hell up and concentrate on releasing games, or if large sections of the press didn't lionize them quite so excessively, but I don't think they're unbearable. As long as they don't achieve Romero or D***k S***t delusions of grandeur I'll assume whatever they churn out is probably worth a look. |
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FaceOmeter
26/05/07 @ 18:32
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Defcon's multiplayer-only* RTS, with the expected meta-game dependence and (imo) rather tedious micromanagement fiddliness. Presentation's beautiful, naturally. Decent game if you like the genre and have people to play with, but I wouldn't recommend bothering, otherwise.
I think this is a bit harsh! You're right about the computer opponents, but given the amount of micro-management you'll find in every other modern RTS I think Defcon brings a refreshing simplicity to things. I've had more than my ten quids worth out of it, and would happily recommend it as the ultimate "distilled strategy experience"... |
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el_pollo_diablo
26/05/07 @ 22:20
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I think the world needs more development houses like Introversion - their games really are a breath of fresh air in my opinion.
Not played defcon sadly, but a DS version would be incredible if they felt like doing one. Please do one. |
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The thing with Introversion games is that they generally make me "feel" something out of the ordinary (as far as games go).
With Uplink I felt paranoia. That game nailed the hacker thing for me, and so playing it alone in a darkened room was a supremely tense affair. No other game has come close on this score for me. With Darwinia I actually cared. Very few games make me care. (Aeris dying in FF7 was an annoyance at best, for example.) As the story unfolded I realised I was a God to the Darwinians. I really cared for those little fellas. With Defcon I spend each game scanning enemy cities for the highest population count in order to annihilate them for score. 2 million ain't worth the punt. 20 million is. That still feels SO wrong. And that's what makes it SO right. I commit atrocities for fun. :) I wouldn't claim any Introversion game is perfect. I can't think of too many other games that have actually made me care as much though. I'm not keen on the posturing of the "bedroom coder" slogan, but I love their games to bits. Long may they continue. |
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Stardock-bloke-whose-name-escapes-me seems fond of ranting about got-durned pansy liberals siphoning too much of the proceeds from his popular MOO knock-offs and desktop widgets to lazy poor people."
Uch, one of those... I'm glad I pirate Windowblinds then! Microsoft aren't hip'n'indie, so obviously can't pull quite the same thing. Multi-million dollar global corporation Nintendo comes fairly close with its inclusiveness/innovation rambling, which a lot of the press buys into fairly uncritically. Don't forget Apple! As for Introversion; I'm not terribly interested in Defcon, but I liked Darwinia, as far as it went. Unfortunately, that wasn't terribly far -- Mr Delay's aversion to 'content', as 'twere, makes for a game that's a bit too simplistic for my liking. Good thing they're cheap. Maybe I'll be interested in Subversion once they decide what it is, but it'll have to be a bit more versatile than Darwinia was. (And it'll help if that Trash80 bloke does the soundtrack again -- 'Schroeder's Failure' is brilliant.)
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most recently on 27/05/07 @ 11:38
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cobracotton
29/05/07 @ 02:37
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I think they are cool, there are definately similarities between these guys and the shithouse speccy games of yesteryear, so thats why I think the claim...
would it be fair to say that actual bed room coders are now refurred to as home brewers? and for introversion to assume the tag line "the last of the bedroom coders" IMO is a fair description especially in this corporate driven hell hole we call the western world? its pretty much the same as Dennys selling Mom's apple pie slices when in actual fact it wasn't made by my mother at all! it was mass produced by some factory which bears no resemblance to my mother... Now roll over and accept your halo injection! Go introversion and your neat little ten quid games! |
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Defcon is great, I play it quite regulalrly. In fact it has been the game I have played most this year by a reasonable distance. This is because its a pure MP RTS which meets the middle ground between RISK, chess, and C&C. And that's exactly what i want to play at the moment.
IV seem to have great ideas so it's nice to see them get exposure, subversion seems like it will be pretty interesting. To the guy moaning about how they are "full of themselves" - it's called PR matey. In case you still don't understand - independent companies need to make the most of every selling point they have in order to grab column inches and promote their product. Seemingly you would prefer every single game we play to be published by one company?
Edited 2 times,
most recently on 29/05/07 @ 19:38
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> What's with all the hate?
A few 'I found their games so far a bit meh' and a couple of 'decent company, shame their slogan's so wank' is a fair distance from 'hate', no? > If you think you can do any better.. Is that humour, or are you saying independent game developers should be subject to criticism only from other independent game developers? > Seemingly you would prefer every single game we play to be published by one company? Where on earth are you getting this? I acknowledge PR as, at the very worst, a necessary evil, and I think poor marketing, whether through over-optimistic reliance on word of mouth or simple lack of resources, is one of the most common failings of independent developers. I'm saying Introversion's PR, while they're clearly doing a better job of it than most comparable shops, could use some work, since I think it creates an unfortunate impression. Can't speak for Shrimp, who brought it up, but what I take issue with is their self-proclaimed status as lone saviours of the independent scene. The most casual interest in freeware, shareware and direct distribution is enough to know there's a lot of independents out there. Of course the slogan's realistically just wanton hyperbole, but taken at face value it can't but be read as ignorance or arrogance. |
Comments: 1-22 of 22 in total
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