Minmaxing Life

Who’s never heard of Sid Meier? Having designed Civilization is enough to make him a legend in game circles.
But that’s far, far from all he did. Here are my slightly reworked notes on his interview at GDC today (Italics are my added thoughts).

Standing the test of time: a Q&A with Sid Meier, questions by Noah Falstein.

On the development and design process:
Sid, born before video games, played board games as a kid (Risk and Monopoly - blech!). He feels game design has been more about evolutions than revolutions. So we should be cooperative on ideas and not be too protective. “Games are a series of interesting decisions” as he famously said. The development philosophy he follow is to make the historical research after the game is done. Fun comes first and build the game around that and only when that’s done, research the theme and make it fit the gameplay. Keep the cycle of play/improve during all development. It’s all about iteration and collaboration. “The more people you can have playing and giving you feedback, the better. I’m just the gatekeeper.” The audience today is much broader, not just hardcore gamers, so it’s important to also widen the scope of your design accordingly. The word “casual” is a tough one to pin down : it can be about either the cost or the complexity of the game. He’s personally not interested in “simple” games he’s interested in “complex” games (duh! He made Civ!), but he’s attracted to working with smaller teams. “Bring the player’s imagination in the game” : working with so much limitations in older games forced them to do that. And that imagination is still around but not being tapped as much now that we have fancy graphics. Extra stuff he said when replying to audience questions at the end:
Reward system : “people need some sort of validation at the end of the game”.
The prototyping process is not pretty but it’s important to try out as many ideas as possible in order to find what works. Having a working prototype is essential.
He draws a solid wall behind the “game logic” and the “presentation”.

On creating Civilization:
Like in Will Wright’s Sim City, the idea of creating and building was one of the driver behind Civ, as opposed to just blowing stuff up as was the norm in strategy games. Adding different systems, each clearly understandable on its own, increased complexity in a way that made the sum greater than the parts.

On the subject of narration: how do you feel about story ?
One of our key role as a game designers is to pay attention to “who’s having the fun”. The player should be having the fun and the game designer not so much. He feels the player is more interested in his own stories than the ones the game designer can come up with so he designs in this way (sooooo true).

On balance:
Balancing has a lot to do with iteration. It’s about allowing rich choices but keep the complexity at a level that’s manageable to the player. The computer can manage a very high level of complexity but the player can’t necessarily follow that. Later on, to an audience question: “Our approach is really to play the game and keep playing. And if something is imbalanced it will show up.” But balance is not the end all: a positive experience is more important overall.

On addiction: did you expect it would be that addictive and how do you feel about it?
He did not expect it and was scared about it at first when he heard stories of severe addiction. It was a revelation and at the time they felt that this gave a glimpse of the future and how people would be willing to spend a lot a time in games. As this was pre-internet, people came to convention with the need to speak about their “Civ experience”: they did not have any message board were they could express how they felt. “It’s always scary the effect your game has on people”. To the audience, later on: “I’m more confused by why people are not addicted to games! (…) What do we do with this industry/art form? We are already influencing people but do we take responsibility for that?”

On Dinosaurs: (a game project that was canceled one year in development because he couldn’t find the fun)
An idea that he has not given up on. “We all have failures and it’s important to recognize them early and let go as soon as possible.”

On Civilization Revolution: (the console port of Civ he is currently working on)
The approach with Civ revolution is to put you back in that “king seat”. Giving you the feeling that you are making important, high level decisions. Finding what is “fun managment” and was is “micro managment” and get rid of the latter so that “every decision is interesting”.

More opinions on games: (mostly extracted from audience questions)
- It’s kind of a golden age for gaming. Games he liked recently : Grand Tourismo, Mercenaries, Halo “of course” (Unbelievable! I would never have thought Sid Meier enjoyed twitch games…), “when you do something all day, you want something else” which is why he’s not playing so many strategy games.
- What motivates you to make games: “The fundamental desire to play a game that hasn’t been done before.”
- Would he collaborate with American McGee on “Trains in Hell”?: No, each designer has his own approach so two designer working together you’d probably get the worst of both as opposed to the best of both.

Last question:
Q: With Spore, Will Wright is attempting a combination of everything he’s done before. Do you have any ambition of making some kind of monumental game that would sum up all the mechanics you’ve build along the time.
A: “NO!”.