The Developers Behind the Indie MMO “Empire” Game…

Ty, from Fun Forged, talks about their online Flash MMO, “Empire”…

You can download the podcast here…

http://www.indiegamepod.com/podcasts/funforged-podcast.mp3

Or listen to it here…

[wp_youtube]lutnfJjzg2M[/wp_youtube]

Show Notes:
Interviewer: Hi, welcome to the show. How about you introduce yourself?

Ty: Hi, I’m Ty from Fun Forged.

Interviewer: What does Fun Forged do? What game are you guys working on?

Ty: Well, currently we’re in the beta stage of the Empire Game, a massively multiplayer, online strategy game. It goes a little deeper than that, but I’m sure we’ll expand on that.

Interviewer: What inspired you to do that?

Ty: Well, the initial concept came from a long, long time ago, at least, three and a half years ago. It’s an attempt at resurrecting a genre of games that since–well, for the most part–have become extinct. They’re kind of from a time before the Internet where computers connected to each other through a modem and some information at an incredibly slow speed.

But, yeah, we thought that with the birth of the Internet and all these things that this genre could easily make a comeback if done properly and really, that’s kind of what we’re doing. So, hopefully, we’re breaking some new ground with it.

Interviewer: Yeah. So, when you decided to make this game, did you envision this as a downloadable game or a Flash game or PHP-based?

Ty: Well, the idea was to make it, well, a Flash game for sure just because it allowed us to use some pretty cutting edge animation, and now that Flash is standard in just about everything from cell phones to every kind of new browser to Wii, et cetera, yeah, we just thought the game would be accessible on most platforms if made this way.

And, yeah, Flash is really fun. It’s a great platform to develop on, and it’s very friendly to both programmers and the artists which is one of the things we could have encountered through this process.

Interviewer: How long ago did you get started, and what were some of the challenges that you encountered as you guys were developing this game?

Ty: About three and a half years ago our first programmer, Andrei, met with the designer of the game, that’s Jarett Cale, and together they began formulating an idea that Jarett had since his childhood when he played these games before the Internet. Yeah, it just kind of came from there.

As of May, 2008, a second developer joined and at that point full-time work started, and it’s been nonstop development until today, basically. All along the way we’ve collected a member here and there, and now our studio stands at five core members and we have a few support staff as well that keep the loose ends together.

Interviewer: OK. Were there any other challenges as you were developing the game?

Ty: I mean, basically, there’s challenges with everything, but I guess our biggest hurdles were that–well, I mean, all of us were very new to this.

Interviewer: Sure.

Ty: Most of us just got out of school, post-secondary school pretty recently, and also all of our fields that we came out of weren’t exactly . . . We’re all basically trying new things with this, especially working with Flash and an action script and all these different things. So, it was a lot of learning involved and pretty much, for anyone that’s worked with Flash, when you’re trying to do something, it’s . . .

We kind of relate it to voodoo magic. You’re basically trying to create something from nothing, and there aren’t a lot of things in place to kind of do that. There was a lot of testing and trying really interesting things and also creating the website, all sorts of PHP and asp.net and all kinds of things to grapple with that we had no prior experience with on this scale.

Interviewer: How did you guys decide to do it? So, is it a turn-based game or is it real time?

Ty: It’s actually both which is the interesting part. It’s primarily a turn-based game. So, how the game works is every two hours by default you are handed a turn and playing a turn that’s kind of what drives the production of your empire. [?] forums are going to grow. The real time aspect of the game is really to primarily . . . So, any time you want to attack another nation [?] you use time settings.

So, it really adds a different element to the game that a lot of games don’t have. So, if I wanted to attack you, I would do that real time any time I wanted, but if I wanted to say “grow my empire” I would kind of be restricted to when I’m given turns. And the other beautiful thing about this method of play is that if you’re not always at your computer–let’s say, you can only ever get to your computer once per day, you can save all of your turns up to 36, which is three days worth, and get them all at once. So, it really requires no investment whatsoever, maybe, five minutes a day.

Interviewer: So, it’s a play queue, like . . .

Ty: Essentially.

Interviewer: You know, what were some of the game design challenges that you guys ran into, and did you test out this intersection between turn-based and real time?

Ty: Well, basically, the real time versus turn-based kind of simultaneously is an element that’s kind of borrowed from the original games. They were called BBS Games, Bulletin Board Games.

Interviewer: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Ty: And they had very similar kind of aspects, but now that everything is real time on the Internet and fast connections and everything like that, we really did kind of push the envelope in terms of allowing people to connect whenever they want and just play and launch attacks any time. If you launch an attack at four in the morning and, you know, a guy on the other end of the world it’s a completely different time for him.

A lot of thought went into that and how people on teams can co-ordinate with different time zones and everything. So, yeah, we found our players really enjoyed the ability to compete and play anytime they want but also not worry about missing game play or missing turns or anything like that because they only need to connect, you know, once a day or every other day and they’re going to be at no more of a disadvantage to anyone else.

But, to kind of answer your question, it was borrowed from the original games. With this new kind of technology we were able to really make it real time as well as turn-based, kind of in the [?].

Interviewer: Why not, why not go completely turn-based? You know, the thing about real time is that means that another person has to be online at the same time then to do a battle. And turn-based, you’re able to, you know, it can be asynchronous. It can be like, you know, you have to do this battle within a certain amount of time, or you’re just looking at the RPG points when you’re actually doing the real battle.

Ty: Yeah, basically how it works, essentially imagine you have an army in Empire and it’s currently at home. So, another player on the other end of the world decides they want to attack you, so they queue up their army and they send it at you. And basically what it is, it’s kind of a virtualized idea, but it takes one hour for their army to reach you and one hour for it to return to them.

So, after one hour has passed, their army has basically reached your army. A calculation takes place, and wins and losses are added up. Now, if while their army is on route to you, you decide you want to attack someone else and you send out most or all of your army and your army just leaves as theirs arrives, that can be pretty crippling. When you check back, you realize that.

So, now there’s other things in place that kind of [?]. You can send out spies, and you can spy on enemy empires. You can find out when they’re attacking, when they’re winning and losing. You can find out all about their army and everything like that. They can also catch your spies, interrogate them, find out who sent them.

So, by creating the simple idea of the one hour each way and being able to launch attacks freely, we’ve also added the extra level of depth where you can use covert operations and even elements of terrorism and different things like that to really find interesting ways of attacking your opponents, not just directly attacking with an army.

The beauty of that is it’s opened a lot of different strategies that wouldn’t normally be apparent until you’re kind of deep in the game and you realize, hey I don’t necessarily just need to just have a huge standing army and attack my enemies. I can attack them kind of from within with propaganda and all kinds of things like that.

So, yeah, I mean, merging real time with the turn-based has really opened up a bunch of different avenues, and it’s all about a lot that you wouldn’t normally [?] this kind of game and really get into it because, you know, it’s kind of both. So, if you’re into real time it has that element, but it also good for the relaxed, turn-based player who doesn’t necessarily need to be at their computer every moment of every day.

Interviewer: Let’s talk about co-operatives. Do you have any elements to inspire people to form alliances together? How does that work?

Ty: Well the game, by default, is a team-based game, so teams can be anywhere. So far, we’ve experimented with 5-player teams all the way up to 15. So, when you join the game, you join a team. Either you choose its name or have the game choose one for you.

Interviewer: There are different available games, right?

Ty: Oh yeah, at any given time we have many games running. Currently, we have nine games, and we’re still in beta. So, at once we’ve many, many games going and all with different rules and all kinds of different things.

Interviewer: Yeah. What’s the motivation behind having several different games instead of just one main game and everyone joins that main game and then, you know, battles within their . . .

Ty: Well, actually it’s a number of things that kind of are in our whole model for making this kind of game. So, the short answer is that by having lots of different styles of games we can appeal to a larger audience.

Interviewer: When you say styles, are you talking about variances in game play, or are you talking about something else completely different?

Ty: I’m talking mostly in variances of the core rules. So, for instance, where I said an attack takes one hour each way and things like that, kind of the default rules, but by changing those for different games, it really changes the pace and some of the strategy.

For instance, we’re going to be launching games that take place . . . So, by default a game lasts one month. So, it’s kind of a long term game. Let’s say it started on the first day of the month. It would end on the last day of the month, and all the drama and action would take place in between there. But we’re also going to be speeding up rounds so they last one weekend, meaning you could play–essentially, sit down at your computer and play every 10 minutes and you get a turn every 10 minutes rather than every two hours.

That really turns the game into more real time, fast paced kind of cutthroat experience where co-ordination is absolutely necessary. You need the other players to kind of be around. So, that would be more for, you know, the hard core player who really wants to sit down and play the game whereas by default the game is a much more of a casual experience where it’s always in the back of your head you can always come back to it. But there’s no need to be there every moment of every day.

The other thing I was going to get at was that by having several different games running, it kind of touches on the financial model we’ve been working with. We believe that a true gamer wouldn’t appreciate a person with a credit card and is willing to pay to somehow be better than them in the game.

Interviewer: Sure.

Ty: So, by paying to [?] the game you aren’t actually given any in-game benefits. Basically, what it means is by paying you join more games overall whereas you only need to be in one game at any time to win. Anyone can win a game. [?] and wants to use different strategy and really wants to play our game, basically they have the option to pay, or a frugal player can play usually one game at a time. [?] equivalent to any other player.

And so far, that strategy has worked really well, and it keeps the integrity of our game where so players know that if they don’t have a hundred dollars on their credit card they aren’t going to be any worse off than a player who does.

Interviewer: Once a game completes, do all players reset or how does that work?

Ty: Well, we have global score boards in place that track just about everything, so right from the beginning of beta we’ve got . . . You can track your stats globally, and we’re also implementing leader boards that will track them right down to–like, it’ll get more and more centralized to the point where our ultimate goal is if you live in a city you’ll be able to go on to the leader board for that city and find out, you know, where you place amongst other people who are near you.

We want to really get it down to the point where you can find out if you’re–yeah–the best player on your block in your city. I know that sounds a little ambitious, but it’s one thing we’re really striving for because–like, if you look at a game, say, like World of Warcraft or something. I mean, if you just got into that game today, you’re going to be so far behind that if you are a competitive player it would be so daunting.

If you can centralize it down to the point where you can actually look at yourself versus your peers and your friends and kind of compete within your own circle that you choose, we really kind of want to promote that as well as have global leader boards so we can have players truly compete with the rest of the world on that level, too.

Interviewer: That’s true but do you have players that bring up the issue that they’ve invested all that time, and then when a new game starts they still have to kind of start from the beginning.

Ty: Well, I mean, we found that whenever we start a new game for whatever reason, even the players that are at the very top of the list and the players that are even at the very bottom of the list, it’s a point of excitement for just about everyone. Nobody ever complains because, often, the games are running concurrently, so after a few days a new game will start. A few days later a new game will start. So, at any moment any brand new player to the game can jump right into a game and not worry about being behind or anything like that.

And also, players who are established can also decide to play this new game and try out a new strategy. So, every time we open up a new beta round, we suddenly have a thousand people who just jump in. It’s really, really amazing to see that and, yeah, nobody’s complained. So far, it’s just been when a new game starts, everyone is excited and everybody jumps on board and they have a blast.

Like I said, because everything carries over, any progress you make in any game is carried over to your [skips]. So far, no, it’s been great.

Interviewer: You know, what have been some of the surprises that you’ve had as you’ve run this beta in terms of either game balance or surprises of what players are doing?

Ty: Definitely, some game balance issues. I don’t know the exact quote but we’ve [skips] ourselves a few times that [skips] at our own game and we’re not getting any closer at the moment. Basically, we’re [skips] everyone with something new. That’s the beauty. We’ve had such vast beta that we’ve worked with. It’s taught us so much.

So, for anyone out there who’s going to develop a game, I strongly recommend devoting as much time to beta testing as you can because we’ve learned so much about game balance. We’ve changed so many things, and it’s only gotten better. Our forums are flooded with user suggestions, balance issues and everything, and it’s just the five of us.

Interviewer: Yeah.

Ty: And yeah, I mean, a lot of the challenges we’ve come up with, different exploits and things, we’ve had obviously to close off but just different [?] and power build. It’s funny because a lot of us are big fans of games like StarCraft. How do you define how balance needs to be in the end and the amount of work that a game like that requires to keep balanced is amazing and then our game is proving that. But, again, it’s part of the fun. It’s just [?] and how we can equalize it amongst other things without destroying the game entirely.

That would be our main challenge balance-wise. But some of the other issues involved, like people using multiple accounts and things like that, and we’re working on different ways of just dissuading people from doing that so they stick to one main account. How we’ve been doing that is introducing an experience in the leveling system which–yeah, the more you play and the more active you are in the game, you gain an experience which leads to different achievements which could lead to earning in-game credits so you don’t actually have to pay to play in multiple games and different benefits.

But, again, nothing you do will ever benefit your in-game playing experience which, I mean, we’re sticking with to the bitter end so there’s no way anyone can be better than anyone else.

Interviewer: I mean, what’s wrong with a virtual goods model where people do pay? You know, it doesn’t have to be functional, but even style might be relevant. I don’t know.

Ty: That’s one other thing I was going to point out. That is one thing we are definitely going to do is allow people to customize their army visually. We’re going to allow things like avatars and custom flags and different skins for the interface and all kinds of things like that; [?] packs, different trophies. The sky’s the limit in terms of adding art to the game. The game will be a never ending pile of art that just keeps going on higher.

We’re completely OK with that because that [?] which we truly believe in our games. You don’t get a game but you can make your character look that much cooler or exactly how you want them. It’s definitely nothing that will imbalance the game play. You’re free to play a player but not be wary of a player that has a credit card. That’s just not fair.

Interviewer: Are you, maybe, then going to rely on your forum to just give you feedback as you roll something out, or do you guys have now a different process, maybe, even someone specifically working on the point systems or balance testing?

Ty: I mean, the lead developer, Jarett Cale, who kind of designed the game from the ground up and everything. He’s primarily our balance guy, so he’s [?] and as he hears from people in the forums to kind of make decisions based on where balance should shift. And he’s very, very talented at that. I mean, he’s been playing games longer than anyone I know and he’s very, very talented in that sense.

So, we’re never worried about him making the right decisions regarding balance and, I mean, it’s his game from the very beginning. And he’s had kind of the vision to drive it, yeah, from the beginning, so it’s been really good. So, primarily he keeps track of that, and then he just uses any other feedback given from us or from our players and kind of implements it. Like I said, it’s a pretty daunting task, and he’s a pretty busy guy but, no, it’s been working really, really well.

Interviewer: You guys started a few years ago. What inspired you to all of a sudden ramp it up this year to get it out?

Ty: Well, I’m not going to lie. Running out of money is a great motivation to drive you to finish something because we made this game on a laughable budget almost. Like there was some money in the beginning. Most of that went to software licenses, servers, I mean, all kinds of things that are kind of standard to making a video game or any sort of media, and then basically it’s just been . . .

We’ve all invested so much time and kind of our heart and souls into getting this game out. Every step of the way we’ve been encouraged by everyone we know to just keep going and finish it. We’ve got something amazing. So, that’s really been the fuel in just knowing that we have something unique and addictive and, you know, sort of merit-based. Yeah, that’s been our driving force in the last year and, like I said, running out of money really makes you push harder. So, like, well, we’re not going to make any money just sitting here letting the game stagnate.

Interviewer: How do you find players then? Do you just go to strategy forums and start promoting your game, or what’s the market?

Ty: Well, I mean, we have one huge benefit. Our lead designer, Jarett Cale, is also an Internet actor. He created the show–he’s a co-creator of the show, Pure Pwnage, which is a Toronto-based Internet TV show that is now going to TV, like actual television stations.

So, by kind of having him as our driving force, actually we’ve been very fortunate. As soon as he basically puts the call out saying, “Hey, we’re making a game”, thousands and thousands of people listen. So, leveraging the Pure Pwnage audience, it’s been no problem at all to get a massive beta testing audience. Like I said, that’s been a huge, kind of, ace in the hole for us is that we have this audience that’s been waiting to try our game and they really respect the guy who made the game from the beginning. So, it’s really helped us out.

Yeah, so far we haven’t needed to worry about promotion beyond things like this, like talking, doing interviews and game competitions and things like that to spread the word. Moving forward we’re obviously going to look at other viral methods of spreading it. But so far, we’re just trying to keep our servers from melting and trying to keep our players playing the game so that no one’s left out.

Interviewer: Yeah, so let’s talk about the servers melting. Are there scalability issues?

Ty: We, actually, are now.

Interviewer: Well, that’s good.

Ty: Absolutely. We’ve almost hit a critical mass, at least, for our beta setup currently. We’re looking into ways to expand, possibly new servers, different things like that. But, yeah, we’ve hit a critical mass pretty quick and, I mean, we’ve got as many as 3,000 players playing at any time right now.

Interviewer: Awesome.

Ty: Which for one little server is quite a load. And when I say our game is a Flash game, most people think of a Flash game as something that loads in two seconds and it’s a little like dinky [?]. That’s not always the case, but, no, our game is a pretty heavy duty Flash game.

Basically, it’s a pretty serious game in a sense that it uses quite a bit of resources on our end in terms of server and database and a lot of data, but it provides a lot more potential for, like I said, stats tracking and tons of different game play aspect and the ability to expand indefinitely. So, our servers are pretty stacked at the moment, but that’s only good. You can never really complain about having too many people that want to play your game.

Interviewer: Yeah. Are you guys then using the lap stack on the back end, you know, MySQL and . . .

Ty: Yep. We’re using Microsoft SQL 2008 Server.

Interviewer: Oh, you are. Wow. Is there any reason why you went with Microsoft stack versus, you know, the free Linux stack?

Ty: I may not be the person to ask that. I mean, I was involved in some of the processes and basically the reason we went with this particular one over another was compatibility. We basically needed . . . Our server could only support, I guess . . . It’s a long story. It was compatibility issues.

Interviewer: No biggie. So now what’s next in store? You have this thing. It seems like it’s a solid beta. What’s next down the line and how are you going to grow it, expand it, get the word out and make this totally empower the world?

Ty: Absolutely. Well, I mean, the current goal is to obviously pull ourselves out of beta and finish up all the loose ends, and then at that point we’ll likely look at hiring some more people, dividing the team somewhat. And then, we’re just going to push forward. We have lots of other ideas for new games, different platforms, things like that.

We know the people we’re working with are . . . The people I work with at Fun Forged are, I mean, some of the best people I’ve ever met in any field that would do this kind of thing, and I know anything that I work with them on is bound to be successful. It’s just it’s no question. Every step of the way has just been amazing. I mean, in the near future we’re going to get our game finished and really polish it and make it professional so that it can stand alone.

And then, yeah, we’re just going to push forward the . . . The sky’s the limit. We’re looking at iPhone applications and things like that, all these brand new platforms that are opening up. But currently, we’re just really focused on making the Empire Game as perfect as it can be and really paying attention to what our fans are saying and just going from there.

Interviewer: What do you play . . . Have you seen any other new games that you’ve been inspired by that you might learn from for your game because, you know, now there seems to be this huge explosion of these online MMO games. I wasn’t sure if there’s any other games you’ve come across that’s inspired you.

Ty: Well, we have all along since the beginning of this process, we’ve been playing a lot of these online strategy games and kind of seeing what they’re doing and taking ideas from that. But most of what we’ve been taking our ideas from isn’t specific to the style of game. It’s more about adopting other people’s strategies for things like payment and platform and whatnot which is why . . .

For instance, today in our store we introduced the ability to rather than pay actual money to buy in-game credits, you can now fill out a survey and that will also give you the equivalent which is actually a really big benefit for our players. For instance, like a lot of our players in Europe and a lot of our younger players don’t really have access to a credit card or anything like that, but by filling out a survey and putting in the time, they can get their money’s worth of in-game credits which I think is a fantastic model that any on-line game should adopt right away.

It takes a day to implement, and it’s a way for someone without even an income and just more time on their hands to, you know, be able to buy in-game products and things like that. Just things like that, we’ve been taking from other games and experiences.

Interviewer: Are you guys going to leverage your community for anything else besides game feedback? I mean, do you guys have them do art work or other things?

Ty: Well, currently we’re all scrambling around trying to get the game finished, but, yeah, so far we’ve leveraged our community to help us put together a Wiki which is, again, a brilliant innovation that’s come around, just being able to put up this kind of blank canvas and say, “Hey, go play our game and you can write the tutorial”.

So, basically, most of our strategy, because any strategy can be argued, it’s all player driven. Our whole knowledge base for our game is completely written by the players, completely moderated by the players, including our forums. Everything is just player driven, and it’s great for us because it gives us a chance to focus on fixing the game and not worry so much about, you know, enforcing or any sort of policing of our forums and silly things like that. It’s great and it really allows our players to feel empowered and like they’re part of a community. Yeah, it’s great.

So far we’ve leveraged our community in that sense to help us expand naturally but, yes, in the future we’re going to be looking at all kinds of things. We’re not opposed to, yeah, like, fan art and all sorts of contests and prizes and things like that and hiring moderators and things like that.

Interviewer: You know, in terms of . . . You mentioned your back end, that you have metrics. Do you then pretty much keep track of what’s popular, what’s working, what’s not. Do you have an extensive metric system within your game?

Ty: More or less. Basically, it’s hard to say right now because beyond extensive stat tracking and things like that, we have all of these things kind of ready to go, but we haven’t necessarily fleshed it out. I mean, when we look at our priorities list, at the top, obviously, is bugs and functionality and things like that.

But within the convoluted design documents for the game it’s just there’s so many things we have ready to implement at the end of the day, including things like player feedback and pattern tracking and all kinds of things like that, to really find out what aspect of our game is being used the most. What do players gravitate to? What feels the best in our game and really focusing on that feedback and expanding on that.

That’s one of the reasons why, like I said, we included an experience and kind of leveling the ranking system. And also, we’re going to be opening up a trophy and achievement system which we believe is really going to blow the doors off the game because any thing you do in any of the games you’re playing will contribute to this overall meta account and really expand. That probably didn’t answer your question but I did my best in that case.

Interviewer: That’s cool. My other concern is that you talk about these mechanics that actually help your in-game experience, but what are you guys doing to make it so that people want to invite their friends or other people into the game?

Ty: OK.

Interviewer: I know that’s just part of the design of actually getting new people in the game. I’m fascinated because this is kind of like a relatively new type of development, where it’s kind of live development, where you’re just constantly getting feedback from people every day and just adjusting your game.

And then, also, balancing the real time feedback that you need to adjust or handle immediately with the long term issues of either adding in new features, adding in new mechanics and getting more people in.

Ty: In terms of players telling their friends and then passing it on, I mean, so far our retention rate is staggering. That’s been the biggest shock so far. It’s a great thing, but it’s hilarious. When we look at our site traffic, it’s never, ever dipped. It’ll go up and then it’ll go completely level because obviously players have to log in every day and play their turns. But then, it’s just always kind of gone up in this steady kind of way with each beta that we release and we expand our player base.

We’ve noticed that our players that actually play the game are not leaving ever.

Interviewer: Nice.

Ty: It’s been great in that sense. And, yeah, they’re telling their friends because the game is so multiplayer in the sense that we have no geography in our game. So, one thing we wanted to avoid that some other games do is when you join a game, let’s say, you’re at Empire. Your little nation’s sitting on a map. If you want to play with your friend, your friend could be on the other end of that map and you may never be able to ally, to attack, to do any sort of interaction because there’s all these other empires in between.

Our game, we’ve kind of just ignored the whole idea of geography and everyone is just one hour away from everyone else in terms of an action. So if you and your friend wanted to join, you could immediately ally, immediately help each other out or immediately go to war and just essentially play your own little game within the game.

And that’s been so critical from the very beginning as we really wanted players to be able to join and play with their friends and communicate with their friends in the game and help each other out or attack each other or back stab each other right away without any sort of limitation that we’ve experienced in other games. Our certain games, they can be so big and so vast and so many people can join them. So far, the sky’s the limit in terms of our multiplayer base.

Interviewer: Do you think Flash is even needed? I mean, could you just have done it all completely text-based?

Ty: We could have, but like, for instance, I’m the artist in the game and I’ve loved working with Flash because it lets me put so many fun transitions and sound effects and animations. Our game is full of little animations everywhere, whether it’s a character sitting in the corner of your screen, like half asleep, because you haven’t been attacked in a while or whether it’s something like in one of the backgrounds. There’ll be planes flying around and like rays of light cascading across the sky, just subtle things like that, that I really think contribute to the sub-conscious experience of the game.

When you first load our game and you first hit the initial screen, it’s pretty eye-opening, like wow. OK, this isn’t a typical web game because there’s tons of stuff moving and there’s sound effects and it’s a really immersive experience.

Yes, I guess technically we could have made it a pure browser-based game, and I’m sure that would have been easier on our servers. And we would have encountered probably one tenth of the bugs and things that we have because of the animations, but I think the power that the animations, all the interactives in the game outweighs any amount of effort it would have taken to fix any bugs.

It’s just been such a great experience working with Flash, and I truly believe that Flash is the future of early indie game development, for sure, and being able to access as many people as you want. It’s just such a beautiful platform to work with.

Interviewer: So, now you guys are doing a game that you guys are passionate about. Do you have any other games in store, or are you going to focus mainly on this game or what’s next?

Ty: We’ve definitely got some games in store, lots of different ideas, especially with a lot of the new games that are coming out in the near future. I’m not going to really mention any specifically, but they’re including framework to allow developers to develop their own content within that platform. We’re really excited about that because we have so many ideas and to already have a stable, like, rocking system to just kind of expand on would be so amazing.

So, that’s definitely in store as well as other games that are kind of similar in a sense to the Empire’s framework, but perhaps focus more on an avatar, like a specific character that you can kind of grow and build, things like that. Yeah, we’re not stopping, that’s for sure. We are all committed to making games for the rest of our lives, and we’re just going to keep going from there, so big things in the future for sure.

Interviewer: Are you guys passionate about the strategy genre, or does it really even matter?

Ty: To me, it doesn’t matter. I’d have to say, when I began the process, I mean, I’m a fan of many different games. Strategy is not at the very top. It’s somewhere in the middle, but I’m beyond hooked on my own game.

Interviewer: Sure.

Ty: Which I think is really a lot of . . . If you’ve been working on a game nonstop, full-time, six-seven days a week for a year and a half, you should be sick of that game. You probably don’t even want to look at it, but I log into my game, like, when I wake up in the morning the first thing I do is I check my game. I’ve got to make sure if I’ve been attacked. I’ve got to find out how my team’s doing, you know. Check if I’ve been threatened by other empires, things like that. Everything I’ve heard from everyone else is, yeah, it’s the first thing they do when they wake up. They check their empire because it’s always in the back of their mind.

So, I don’t think that idea is specific to any sort of genre. I think it would work with anything, if it was an avatar game, if it was an RPG, anything like that, as long as there’s that persistent, real time element where things could be happening, relating to animal crossing, anything like that where the game keeps going when you’re not playing. I think that’s a really, really awesome element, and it’s great for developers because it keeps people coming back to your game.

If people can’t really rage quit a game, that’s always there because the next day they’re thinking, oh man, I’ve probably got turns. I should log in and see and then, bam, they’re hooked again. So, it’s been a phenomenal design model so far.

Interviewer: Have you thought about lifting or changing the number of turns people get, and how does that work?

Ty: Absolutely. I mean, that will just come to, like I said, the different kinds of rounds we play, the different rules. Currently, it’s every two hours but we’ll be playing rounds where it’s every 10 minutes and anywhere in between, all based on how fast or slow you wish to play the game and how many people you want to play with and how big the team is and everything like that. It’s just like, we’ve made the game so easy to just throw up another game in two seconds.

So, yeah, definitely everything will be varied right down to . . . We’ll even include different stats for units, like we could have games where it actually displays: these units have different abilities now for this game only and things like that. So, it’ll really cater to whatever you want to play.

In the same sense that if you played, say, a first person shooter on the Internet, you can choose the server that goes right down to exactly how you want to play and who you want to play with. By having that functionality we’re really excited to see how our players react.

Interviewer: Yeah. You know, in terms of the co-operative play, are you going to experiment with any of the mechanics there or change any of the ways people can work with each other to . . .

Ty: Certainly, we’re always expanding on that and changing things. Every day we’re looking at ways of driving the team-based element further and further, so whether it’s ease of communication within the game or it could be how easy it is to help another player, how quickly you’re notified of attacks against them and different things like that.

We have group attacks within the game where you can join up with multiple empires on your team and attack other teams or other players. So, the game is so team focused; it’s integral, yeah.

Interviewer: For the audience who may not have played the game yet, can you briefly describe the team dynamics within the game?

Ty: Certainly. So, you all start right from the meta game when you create your account and everything. You pick a game and you join it, and then you decide if you want to create your own team and just hope that people are going to join. Or if you’ve told your friends that you’re creating a team, you can just get in a group right away with your friends, or you can just say, “Oh, I’m just going to try this game blindly”, and you can hit, you know, “pick a team for me”. And the game will set you up with a team, and right from the first moment and I did this on my . . .

I kind of did an experiment recently, because you can change your name every game. So, I made a name that no one would recognize, and I just joined a random team of our players, and immediately the communication was staggering. As soon as I entered the game, people were just sending messages and emails right through the game, like nonstop, talking about strategies and how they wanted to help each other with different research and things like that.

It was so shocking to me. I’d been sitting, working on the art for the game, basically, and not really thinking about the big picture as much as I could have been and then to just walk into that and see wow, there was 15 people on my team and all 15 players are all talking about how they want to win and what strategies they’re going to use and things to do and don’t. And especially the brand new players who had just wandered in and were kind of overwhelmed, it was just telling them step by step, you know, here’s how to do everything. And I’m like, wow, I was so shocked that our players were running the game themselves.

Interviewer: Yeah.

Ty: I couldn’t believe the community feeling immediately; like I care about all these people. I have no idea who they are, but if I log in and I see one of them is going to attack, I just get in a rage and I’ve got to hit the enemies back. So, our game ends up having quite a bit of drama, to say the least. A lot of like, kind of, vengeance goes on; a lot of rivalries, teams following each other into other games and just little wars.

It’s great because it really keeps the game persistent on everybody’s mind, I mean, when you’re at work you’re like, man, I bet you that guy attacked me again. And I’m going to go home, and I’m going to have to, like, hit him back and can I get my friends to help me beat him and just all of those things go through your mind.

It’s stuff we didn’t necessarily predict when we were putting the game together. We just wanted to make a game that was fun and efficient and kind of mirrored the original experience back in the day. It’s just gotten that much bigger. With everybody, it’s just a team-based game, and I’m so happy for that.

Interviewer: Are you going to introduce your team mechanics to amplify that team experience or co-operative experience, or do you think right now that it’s at a level where it’s flexible enough and compelling enough?

Ty: Well, our next big thing we’re aiming on making is an in-depth alliance system. So, currently you join a team, and obviously the players on your team are your natural alliance, but within the game we have lots of people forming their own alliances, just diplomatically through the communication system. It’s amazing that, you know, they have treaties and “no attack clauses” and all kinds of things like that.

Interviewer: These treaties are verbal at the moment, right?

Ty: Exactly. That’s what I was trying to say basically and, yeah, they work. When you get back stabbed by someone it’s really enraging but, again, it just makes the game that much better to have. It caters to any play style, and we want to include an actual kind of alliance system where there’s benefits and penalties to upholding alliances and things like that. Maybe, you can flag empires that have broken alliances and just different things like that to see, to play with … like you said, the team play mechanic and see how that kind of factors out.

So far, yeah, it’s been really player driven in a sense that beyond your own team you’ve got to trust people which really makes the game interesting. How do you trust someone you don’t know at all, but so far it’s been amazing.

Interviewer: So, you guys are an indie team. What suggestions do you have for other indie game developers looking to make a game, only because you guys are doing something different, also? I know it’s shifting now, but most indies are used to a downloadable model. They’re used to make a product and release it and then work on the next game, stuff like that. You’re doing a lot of development.

Ty: Well, I mean, not to say there’s anything wrong with those other methods, they’ve certainly proved to be successful, but the one thing I would really have as advice to anyone is that if you’re going to make a product and you want to make it stand out, you absolutely have to be focused on quality.

Yeah, I know everyone wants to release the game as soon as they can. The original intention back in May of 2008 was to have the game out by January. It’s now, well, November and we’re in beta. So, we missed that deadline by almost a year, and none of us regret that for a single moment because [people are yelling in the background here] what we’ve come up with is so much better and bigger than we envisioned in the first place and it only gets bigger.

So, my one piece of advice overall is to not kind of get seduced by the idea of releasing your game ahead of time or releasing an inferior product or anything like that. If you can, not everyone can, but do whatever you can to take the extra time to make it perfect. I mean, adapt as much of the blizzard model as you can and just wait until it’s as perfect as you’re going to be able to get it logically and then think about releasing because . . .

The market is so saturated. Everyone wants to make a video game that if you’re going to stand out you have to put in the time and effort. Trying something different is great, but that’s not to say you can’t adapt–take a game someone else has done and put your own spin on it and make it that much better. There’s nothing wrong with that. Definitely, you’ve got to put the time in and let it sit for as long as it needs to, to be a perfect game and then release.

Interviewer: To be fair, a lot of the feedback that you get from the community can accelerate though the quality of the game. So, how do you balance waiting because you’re just five people and you’re developing your game. I know you want to reach a certain level of quality, but at the same time by introducing it to the community, even if you find 10 or 20 other people, they can give you so much more feedback to accelerate a lot of the development. So, how do you . . .

Ty: Absolutely.

Interviewer: I guess that’s where you have the beta tag.

Ty: Absolutely. Our beta tag, that’s kind of our stamp of approval right now. As soon as that gets lifted, that’s when we’re all satisfied with the game and we believe at that point it can be truly expanded beyond what it is now. Yeah, having the beta tag, I think, is really important and just that idea of letting people know it’s a work in progress. We appreciate any feedback. When people give us feedback, it’s not–we absolutely consider it. We bring it up in our meetings and we talk about, you know, how can we actually implement this because it’s a brilliant idea.

Like you said, I guess my other piece of advice for developers is get an alpha and a beta audience as early into the process as you can. Have people look at the game. Don’t be afraid that–like the more eyes you’re going to get on your game, the more feedback you’re going to get. They’re going to come up with stuff you could have never dreamed of ever, and it’s kind of been our model ever since that the more people we get looking at the game the better ideas we get.

Yeah, in terms of accelerating development, it’s true because you could be sitting there working on a task and then someone comes up with a brilliant idea that could just streamline everything. Then, it’s like: OK, put the gears up to 120 percent and let’s get it done. Then it’s a lot of sleepless nights, but in the end you end up with such a superior product than if you were developing it completely behind closed doors. Then, you release it to the audience, and they’re like, uh, you know.

I can think of quite a few instances in the past where that’s been the case. I agree, yeah, that the more eyes you get on it and the more feedback definitely accelerates the experience.

Interviewer: You guys seem to be pretty much on top of some of the new things happening in the industry. You mentioned potentially the iPhone. You’re using Flash and you’re using back endtechnology and you use those offer systems. What’s the process you guys use to just keep up on trends that are happening and ideas from other games that might be able to inspire you?

Ty: Well, we’re not afraid. Basically, we attend every possible kind of gathering of other developers we can; for instance, GDC earlier in the year, the Game Developers Conference. Things like Fan Expo and all sorts of conventions and anything we can get our hands on and any bit of knowledge we can get for free or for otherwise, we absolutely absorb.

For instance, the video game competitions we’ve attended recently, we didn’t necessarily compete because we were too far along in our development process. But just being a fly on the wall and seeing what other people are doing and the directions they’re taking is actually really refreshing, given that we’ve worked nonstop on this project for a year and a half. It’s really nice to be reminded that there’s other people doing the same thing, and we told them our stories and they told us theirs. Anything you learn from a conversation like that, you just keep in the back of your mind, and that’s how we keep track of everything.

For instance, like the offer pal system I mentioned earlier, there’s a number of companies using that and just through research and playing their games and trying out their product, we discovered: oh wow, there’s other ways to generate revenue without asking someone for that credit card number that so many people are afraid to give. So, different things like that.

Yeah, just keeping up on technology and it’s really not that difficult. It’s kind of thrown at you every day but, yeah, really focusing on keeping track of when other developers are gathering. You need to be there, too. So, any opportunity to hang out with other developers and tell our story is great.

Interviewer: Aside from GDC, are there any other conferences that you found useful?

Ty: Let me think for a second. GDC would have been the biggest one. What else was recent? I’ve been so absorbed in our development. The most recent that came to Toronto was the Vortex–it was called Vortex, and it was a game competition/kind of . . .

Well, it was a series of talks from people in the gaming industry, from all aspects, whether it was indie developers or professionals from, like, Ubisoft and all the kind of big companies. Hearing them all kind of mesh together ideas and feed off of each other was really, really impressive.

We took away so much knowledge from that, not just from the actual presentations and the keynotes but also from just chatting with the developers afterwards when it was all over. The amount of knowledge and scouting possible talent to hire in the future when our game’s a little further on, just things like that. I mean, here in Toronto that’s the other one that I recommend, Vortex, which happens once a year. It was about two weeks ago, so I guess it would happen late October, early November every year.

But, I mean, GDC is obviously the big one, but currently those are the two main ones that come to mind, and then also any sort of gaming convention that comes along. For instance, in Toronto there’s the Fan Expo. That’s just a wealth of information. All of the developers from all the big companies are there, and you just learn so much. And you demo all of their products. It’s an amazing experience.

Interviewer: Where do you see the future of the gaming industry and online games going? You guys are indies and doing something a little different. Where do you see things going?

Ty: Well, I’m starting to think that the future of gaming is going to be massively multiplayer, I think, in every aspect, and that’s been pretty apparent recently. I think the days of paying $60 for a single player experience are nearly over. That’s my own opinion, but if you have a game that offers you 3,000 hours of endless entertainment because there’s other human beings playing direct with you and you can’t supplement that dynamic with any amount of artificial intelligence.

The good thing as a developer, we didn’t want to have to create AI. We didn’t want to have to create a computer that pretended to be a human. Like, no, we just wanted to put a whole bunch of people in a sandbox, build a bunch of empires, and attack each other.

I think there’s so much to be learned from that experience. Yeah, I think the days of the single player experience for $60 are on the decline, and I think everyone is going to start adopting some of these MMO ideas of, like, you get bigger and you get . . .

Interviewer: Persistence.

Ty: I think people have come to expect that from everything, whether it’s an iPhone app or you can just look at a global leader board at the touch of a button or even a game like Team Fortress 2 where you have this pseudo kind of system where you’re always going forward and they’re always expanding and kind of going upward.

I think so many games are going to start adding that to their experience. I also think, like I said earlier, that Flash is on the increase. For a time it was kind of on the decline because people were so used to skipping intro videos to websites, all of those annoying ads that would suddenly start singing to you and stuff. When people finally realized that, wow, Flash especially with the new Flash like 10 and stuff, it’s just getting so powerful and there’s so much more you can do with it with action Split 3 [?] and I couldn’t recommend it more.

It’s great for an indie developer because it’s so lightweight on the development side that it’s beautiful.

Interviewer: OK. Any last words then for indie game developers out there?

Ty: Basically, just–that’s a pretty good question. But, yeah, just the advice I mentioned earlier and just try to get as many eyes on your product as you can as early on. Like I said, just show people what you have and talk to other developers and you really can’t go wrong. If you develop in a shell, if you kind of sit in your basement and don’t really show anyone or talk to anyone about what they’re doing, it makes me think that when you finally do release you might be kind of behind the game, you know.

I think it’s so important because we’ve been developing this game for a year and a half, but we’ve adapted every step of the way with brand new things. If we could show you design documents from a year and a half or even three and a half years ago, it would be hilarious the difference between our product now and what was back then.

Most of it has just come from, “Hey, how can we make this more fun for all of our players?” And really expand in that way and talk to as many developers and make as many friends and contacts as you can. Just really show off your product and compare it to others and see what you can do from there because everyone wants to show everyone else what they have, and everyone wants to expand and learn ways to improve their own product with the ideas of others.

I think only now has indie game development–it’s on such an incline that I think the sky’s the limit. Within a few years you’re going to see the equivalent of AAA titles coming from indie developers. It’s just going to be amazing, the leaps and bounds. Soon, you won’t need the big machine companies that have been around forever to tell you what a good game is because it’s just hilarious how fast it’s progressing. It’s really exciting for indie developers and anyone thinking of getting into the industry, now is the time.

Everyone we’ve talked to, they are saying in the next two or three years the gaming industry, the indie gaming industry is going to completely explode and you want to be on that train when it comes.

Interviewer: Don’t you think it’s already exploding and, maybe, in the next two or three years the dance will be over and people . . .

Ty: I don’t know.

Interviewer: Just this version online because it’s amazing how these Flash games are actually getting more play than these console games that are a hundred time more or a thousand times more expensive. Eventually, I’m sure the big companies will catch on. They’ll change course. I don’t know if that’ll even help. I think there’s so many different design differences and development differences that it may not matter. So, you’re saying that the next two or three years is going to be an awesome time for indie game developers.

Ty: I absolutely do. No, I think, I mean, it’s hard to say what’s going to happen after that, but I think that given the ease of making an independent title right now and the platforms that you can release it so quickly on, like, the iPhone. You hear all these stories of people making a game in a week and releasing it on the iPhone and then it’s such a success.

You know what that boils down to? That comes down to someone having a brilliant idea and seeing it through, and they’re rewarded for their brilliant idea. I think when you look at all of these independent game companies that really they’re doing it because that is their life. They’re like, wow, this is my whole life and I really, really want to get in the game industry, and this is how I’m going to do it.

I think that what they are putting forward is based on true merit. It’s not a preconceived notion. It’s a great idea because they don’t have a giant paycheck in the background waiting for them. It’s like, wow, I really have to make something from nothing. And the talent is just exploding.

So, my prediction and what I’ve heard from a lot of people is that the next few years are going to be huge for indie game developers. Whether or not the bigger companies kind of adapt and put out a similar product or try to tap, even like the casual gaming market more than they have. It’s hard to say what they have in store, but if an indie company that went on a shoestring budget can make a game that more people play than a big AAA title, then I’d say, yeah, at least, for now that’s pretty awesome for indie companies.

Interviewer: OK. So, where can listeners find out more about the game: play it, enjoy it, and develop their sense of strategy?

Ty: OK. Well, the easiest one that anyone will remember off the bat is TheEmpireGame.com. That’s our main website.

Interviewer: That’s T-H-E EmpireGame.com.

Ty: Yes.

Interviewer: OK.

Ty: That’s exactly how it sounds. From there you can just log in right from the main page and make your account, and then just jump right into a game and start playing with anyone or tell your friends and you can all be on a team together. Yeah, it’s really welcoming. Of course, when you first go into the game, there’s a lot to absorb at once but, like I said, we have a Wiki which is super helpful and guides you through step by step.

We also have forums that are exploding now with tons of people, with beginner strategies and explaining how every mechanic of the game works, even better than we could explain it as developers.

So, yeah, I think the art style and the pace of play and everything is it caters to many age groups and male and female alike. We really wanted to make the game inviting, and it doesn’t take itself seriously. It’s a funny game. There are so many inside jokes and humor. Yeah, I think it’s certainly something else. So, TheEmpireGame.com and from there you can just start your experience.

Interviewer: Great. Thank you very much. We’re talking with Ty from Fun Forged Games. Thanks again for your time.

Ty: Thank you very much.

Interviewer: Take care. Bye.

Ty: You, too. Bye bye.