Chris Stewart on Sword of the Stars

Feature

When we published our preview of Sword of the Stars back in May, we felt that it didn't quite do the game justice. Some of its unique concepts were begging for a better, more in depth explanation. We contacted Kerberos for an interview.

July 17th, 2006 by Sergio Brinkhuis

Hooked Gamers: Balancing the four factions is one of the most challenging tasks when it concerns gameplay. At this point in development, would you say that any of the races has an advantage over the others in for instance the early or later stages in the game? Would you for instance say that one race is hard to get going but is hard to stop when it reaches full steam?

Chris: As the project is wrapping up, the four factions are very well balanced � they each have their cons to balance against their pros, but this is constant throughout the game, early, middle. Any player that grasps the unique nature of the races has the same shot at winning the game with any of them � so the Humans can travel node lines very fast, even at the beginning, but their movement is limited to the node lines. The Hivers take time to reach a planet, but in that time, unlike the other players, they can concentrate more on research and saving money, so once they make planet fall, they�re already more advanced as a race than they were when they first set out. These advantages and disadvantages aren�t specific to any epoch of the game, they are always there throughout the game, to challenge players of a given race and the players fighting against them.

Hooked Gamers: Will the player also encounter other, minor races? If so, what kind of interaction is possible with them. If not, well.. Why not? :)

Chris: Minor races, as they�ve been traditionally done, have been kind of boring � we weren�t interested in just adding speed bumps for the player. We have a whole array of threats and menaces for the player to encounter, but as for running into planets filled with people, it�s something we may look at later in the series if we find something cool and interesting to do with them.

Hooked Gamers: The game doesn't have an overall storyline but does contain a number of 'scenario campaigns'. Could you describe one of the campaigns for us to give us an idea what they are like?

Chris: Each scenario is different - some are a marble grab, as players try to find and hold important planets. Others are about finding and keeping an artifact. Each has their own little back-story, special rules, and so on - but my favorite is The Hungry Children, in which a Hiver invasion fleet advances on the galaxy and the other three races must work together to repel the indvaders. I like that co-operation is a must in the game. It�s all for one and one for all - the game doesn�t have any special rules built into it, like the other scenarios. The game just naturally creates a situation where three players have to actively work together, or they�re all lost.

And conversely, if you play the Hiver side, victory isn�t certain, but being in control of this massive fleet is a lot of fun.

Hooked Gamers: Other than "It's great!", what would you say is the most compelling reason for our readers to buy your game when it comes out later this year?

I think the game will appeal to strat gamers who are, like us, looking for something new and we also want to open it up to gamers new to the genre as well. There�s been this specialization in the genre over the years, making games that are designed for a single player to spend hours micromanaging a turn, and players are being told that�s normal, and that�s as good as it will ever get. But the way we see it, there has always been a lot of room to blow the dust off some old ideas and even better, to try some completely new things.

We put a lot of work into bringing new gameplay aspects to the genre, such as the tactical combat, while working to update other familiar features, so that they offer players something new, like the 3D starmap or an ever changing tech tree. And on top of that, we�ve opened the game up for multiplayer. You can play by yourself, but there are a lot of people who want to play with their pals - and now they can. SotS is about letting players stretch their tactical mind - we put all these tools and technologies into the game and then hand it off to the players to use them as they see fit. The whole point of the game is not to be handed the same unit every single time you play - the point is to build a unit yourself and then try it out in combat - and then if you think of something cool you want to try later, then go for it. You�re running an empire! You�re supposed to be powerful! So, we�re putting that power back into the hands of the players. At the start of the genre, 4X games were very approachable - and this is how we intend to bring more gamers back into the fold.

Sword of the Stars is due out in the 3rd quarter of the year and will be published by Lighthouse Interactive