Interview | Talking The Universim with Crytivo Games

C3: How big of a team is behind The Universim?
 
Crytivo Games: The core team now stands at a respectable 22 members, with a number of volunteers and freelancers contributing on the side. The majority of the team is divided into art and programming, with the remainder filling in all remaining areas like audio, game design (which everyone usually contributes to), QA, and writing. However, many of the team members fill a number of roles and are often involved in other areas. We have a very multi-talented team.
 
C3: What is the origin story behind The Universim? How did you all come to decide this is the game you want to make?
 
Crytivo Games: Alex is the man behind the initial concept of The Universim. Once it was revealed to us what the game was and what he was hoping for, it took off from there. Most of us working on the game are god game fans, so it was sort of a dream come true to work on what could very well be the next big thing in the genre.
 
C3: What influences inspired the creation of The Universim?
 
Crytivo Games: There are so many good games that have inspired The Universim, but you can always trace it back to games like Populous, Black and White, and Sim City. Naturally, we use these games as somewhat of a benchmark, but we're doing our best to ensure that The Universim is entirely its own game. "It's not a reboot so much as it is a reinvention" is a phrase we like to use a lot. There should be enough in the game to sate the needs of diehard god game fans like us, but also enough new things to hopefully keep everyone playing for months on end.

C3: How long has the game been in production?
 
Crytivo Games: It's been in production since May 2013, but that was with very few people who were mostly focused on creating a proof of concept and nailing down the design elements of what the final game would be. The first implementation of the simulation engine was there, which offered a great foundation, but things like the game's AI and overall visual representation were pretty basic at the time. The production really took off after the Kickstarter, which allowed us to hire additional team members, purchase assets and licenses, and focus on making an actual high-quality game. We had some issues receiving the funding, though, which did delay us somewhat. Luckily, it was all sorted out eventually.
 
C3: Now that the game is out in Early Access, what are some of the big updates we can expect as The Universim comes closer to a future release?
 
Crytivo Games: Shorter-term updates include things like the new road system (which is hugely important for future eras), the complete AI overhaul (smarter Nuggets and better performance), more dynamic events and Creator Powers (great new challenges and toys), and the load/save feature that the game has been lacking for quite some time (we're cleaning up our code and repositories to allow for quicker implementation). In the future, new eras, like the Medieval and Modern/Space Ages, will be implemented. We're still in the Stone Age now as we're getting pretty much all of the functionality ready, so later eras are implemented with more ease. This means less backtracking, which can be VERY expensive if all of the eras have been designed and implemented when a change is made.

C3: An important part of any creative endeavour is knowing what to remove from a product. What are some of the biggest things that ended up on the cutting room floor?
 
Crytivo Games: Things change continuously throughout development in any given project. The Universim has changed dramatically since its initial reveal on Kickstarter, thanks to community feedback and internal testing. Some things just don't work out very well or end up being boring, so they're either reworked to give them new life or scrapped and redesigned entirely. One example is the balancing of player interaction vs. natural simulation. We initially gave players too little micromanagement, which resulted in a very lacklustre experience, and then we later added too much and are now scaling it back a bit.
 
A lot of code and art assets are basically cut out of the project when something like this happens (they're archived, of course, in case we need to revisit it). The same thing can be said for the Research System redesign, which saw a number of assets become almost redundant. However, no one really ever feels cheated or disheartened by this because they understand that it is necessary. It makes the game better, and that's all that matters.

C3: As you've watched others play your game, has there been anything interesting you've noticed that perhaps you didn't expect/anticipate?
 
Crytivo Games: It's always a blast seeing what players do, especially since the game is very dynamic and random in nature. We've seen some pretty whacky base builds, a few players attempting to become a farming empire, and even a bit of evil where they've built a single cemetery and nothing else and slowly watched the population die out. We even saw one guy furiously attempting to stop Nuggets from mating in a previous patch that caused mating to occur too often. Let's just say he took some of his ideas to the extreme.
 
C3: What are your thoughts on bringing the game to consoles?
 
Crytivo Games: The game is definitely best at home on PC, so that's always going to be the main platform. We haven't ruled out the possibility of bringing the game to consoles in some capacity after launch, though. However, it's definitely going to require some major design changes, which will offer us some exciting, new challenges if we decide to pursue it. It might even become a completely different game from the PC version. We don't ever plan on dumbing one version down to account for another. If we ever made the game multi-platform, it would be designed to best suit the platform it's on without compromising others.