It’s been something of a mixed week.
On Wednesday, I wrote a lengthy Dev Blog, analysing the turn-based mechanics of the original game, and detailing our proposals for how this would change in FOTWO.
I finally finished it around 11 at night, proof-read it thoroughly, then pressed the button to publish it. WordPress promptly crashed. Nothing was recoverable. Making a mental note to save local back-ups in future, I stomped off to bed.
Thursday, on the other hand, was considerably better, as it was the first time I got to speak with Delnar Ersike.
Delnar, as I’ve mentioned earlier, is the person who created the unofficial patch for the game, which addressed numerous problems that the original dev team never got the chance to.
Nearly all of the improvements he made to the game were changes to the work that had been implemented by myself and the other designers. This is because our work was freely editable via a LUA text file, while the rest of the code remained impenetrable.
Yesterday, Delnar and I spoke for about four hours (occasionally interrupted by a temperamental router), and it was a profoundly interesting experience to discuss an old project with someone who not only knew much more about it than I did (it’s four years since I had hands on with the code), but could also explain in precise mathematical detail some of the errors that we’d made.
This was not the only subject we discussed; our conversation was far-ranging, encompassing everything from the roots of gonzo journalism to multiplayer strategies in Civilization 5, and why Venture Capitalists don’t like funding games you pay for.
He spoke knowledgeably and at length about the strategy games closest to his heart; game mechanics that did the best job of modelling diplomacy and economics; what works well for multiplayer and what doesn’t; which games stood out for modelling the terrible social impact that war has.
For my part, I shared reminiscences of the original development, giving him some insight into some of the decisions we made, and why certain parts of the game turned out the way they did.
In truth, we could have spoken several hours longer, but real life intruded, so we suspended discussion for the meantime.
I took two key points away from our talk: firstly, there is no doubt in my mind that Delnar’s involvement in the sequel is highly desirable, and likely to make it a very good game indeed. Secondly, it looks probable that this is something we can make happen.
Klaude and I will be discussing a draft contract for Delnar next time we speak. In the meantime, you could spend a few interesting minutes heading over to the Facebook page, where Klaude has posed an extremely salient and complex question: What, if any, role should religion have in FOTWO? We look forward to reading your opinions.