DEFCON Launches

Rob: What has the response been from gamers?

Chris: It seems to be going down really well. There was quite a build up about DEFCON beforehand. And now that the game has launched, we've been amazed. On our forums, people are already modding the game. Even though DEFCON isn't especially mod-able, people are working on making new maps and replacing all the in-game graphics. One guy replaced all the silos with gorillas and all the nukes with bananas. So they were working on crazy mods after less than a week, which is incredible.

Rob: How did you come up with the idea for DEFCON?

Chris: The movie "WarGames" was the key inspiration. I'm a big believer that there are lots of game ideas that haven't yet been created. There are even certain types of game ideas that are incredibly obvious and simple but would clearly make a really good game. So the idea of turning the "WarGames" end sequence [during which a simulated nuclear war takes place on giant screens in an underground military operations center] into a game is such an obvious idea.

Slide Show!

Rob: How was the game developed?

Chris: It was originally developed during Darwinia's time. We were working really hard on Darwinia and it was a three-year project. And I was getting pretty bored with Darwinia about two years into the development. It was kind of a low point, so I came up with this idea for a new multiplayer game based on "WarGames." And worked on it for about a week and put together a working prototype. Then I went back to Darwinia, so we had this prototype sitting on the shelf for ages just waiting to be picked up. After Darwinia was completed, we finally got around to it.

Rob: What was it like to work on DEFCON after such a big project like Darwinia?

Chris: It was a very different experience. DEFCON was about a one-year project. It was much quicker to develop and a much more controlled project in the sense that we had the original idea and the prototype done in a week and then about a year's worth of development to bring it up to the point where it was finished. But the core idea never changed. It was locked down in the first week. Part of the reason that Darwinia is so...bizarre is that the core idea changed constantly over many months. We kept experimenting with new things and trying out new ideas for about 18 months before we finally locked down the finished concept. And it still took us more than a year to finish after that. DEFCON is a much smaller game, too. There's one world map. There's no extraneous stuff on the edge. There's hardly any artwork. It's all just code.

The interesting thing was we were originally going to make DEFCON on a B-side of sorts. In other words, it was going to be a freebie that came with Darwinia. But we didn't finish it in time for the Darwinia release. When we came back to DEFCON, we realized that it would take a lot longer to finish. Originally we thought we could do it in a month.

Rob: That would have been one incredible B-side. No offense, but I don't think that would have been a smart business decision to give a game like DEFCON away for free.

Chris: Absolutely. It perhaps was a slightly ambitious idea for us to give the game away [laughs]! I'm glad we didn't. For the 12 months we were in development, we spent five months in beta testing because it was our first multiplayer game. So it introduced us to a whole new world of pain for developers. We didn't go nuts experimenting with game play ideas but it was big leap for us in terms of the technology.

Rob: So what lessons did you learn between working on Darwinia and DEFCON?

Chris: That both had their advantages and disadvantages. It's difficult to say, but I think Darwinia will probably be thought of as a better game. Darwinia seems to be doing a little better in its reviews, plus it was a much more ambitious and creative game. But it did take three years. And it wasn't three especially enjoyable years, either. It's a romantic idea, developing a game, but the reality is it's very stressful when it takes that long to finish something. We nearly didn't make it. DEFCON was much less stressful and less difficult to make. I'm not quite sure which is the way to go, but there must be a middle line between the two types of projects.