DEFCON

You’ve read the review, but still want to know more? No problem, VG Core was on it. Following the success of their recent independent smash-hit, DEFCON, we had a couple of questions for the boys and girls at Introversion. Check out the answers below.

VG Core: How did you conceive of this idea, about thermonuclear warfare from a strategic play-point?

Introversion: The idea came about after watching the movie Wargames. I was just watching the end sequence (where the computer plays endless games of nuclear war against itself) and thinking to myself, “Why has nobody made a game of this?” It’s an obvious idea that hasn’t really been done, which is always a good sign.

VG Core: The music in the game is amazing. Who composed it and can we hope to see a soundtrack released?

Introversion: The music was composed by the same team that created the stunning soundtrack for Darwinia; Alistair Lindsay and Michael Maidment. The soundtrack is actually one of the most serious pieces of content within DEFCON and it’s awesome – entirely fitting for scenes of global devastation! There’s this really haunting string adagio that is made up of short segments which are mixed and filtered in real-time to respond to major world variables in the game - like the number of people dead, the number of people dying right now, the number of nukes in the air etc. Listen out for some macabre sound effects hidden in there too! The soundtrack will be available to buy separately from our store www.everybody-dies.com in the near future.

VG Core: What made you decide to go with a 2D look for the game in this world of 3D titles?

Introversion: It’s really about learning to use your potential weaknesses in a company this size as your strengths. We can’t compete with larger development companies who employ hundreds of people to make a game with life-like graphics. On DEFCON our dev team consisted of two people so there was no way we could play around with huge amounts of custom content or realistic 3D graphics. That said, we can explore other methods of game design that perhaps the larger companies would be afraid to go near because they are unlike anything else out there. I think the simple graphics can actually enhance the gameplay experience, it gives it this cold, clinical, military feel which is entirely in-keeping with the subject-matter.

VG Core: Following up on the last question, the game looks a lot like Tron. Was that the art-style you thought of first when it was time to design the visual look of the game?

Introversion: Tron and Wargames were two of my favourite films as a child which probably explains quite a lot considering the kind of games we’ve created so far! Certainly a lot of people found references to Tron throughout Darwinia.

VG Core: DEFCON has received quite a bit of published (and tons of unpublished) press. The game is spreading like a wildfire and only seems to be growing in popularity. Was it because you started marketing the game early, or did people see it and just spread the word because they were looking for something different?

Introversion: Actually in terms of PR and marketing for DEFCON it has been a very different story to the one we initially encountered with Uplink and Darwinia. With Uplink it was a real struggle to get any journalist to take us seriously at the beginning, let alone consider reviewing it! Five years on and DEFCON has been a joy to promote – the media has been incredibly enthusiastic and supportive and we’ve been getting some great reviews. So what’s changed? Well I think we can put it down to two key factors really; the launch of Darwinia on Steam last year and our win at IGF in March this year. Both achievements created an awful lot of exposure so we no longer have to spend so much time actively seeking out exposure opportunities, in fact quite the opposite, we’ve been literally inundated with interview requests!

Introversion: What is perhaps most interesting for us is that with Uplink we actually spent quite a lot of money on marketing but saw very little return on our investment because we couldn't afford to back our advertising up with longer running campaigns. With the launch of Darwinia, and to an even greater extent with DEFCON, we decided to ditch the marketing to concentrate our efforts on PR which is essentially free. Central to this strategy has been trying to build our relationships with people who have been able to help us better spread our unique story and support the launch of DEFCON. We have a good working relationship with a number of PC Gaming magazines in the UK who have been able to help us with exclusive packages; in particular, our world-wide review exclusive with IGN.com and IGN.co.uk really boosted traffic to our site and initiated a boom in media and consumer interest which remained with us for the full two weeks running up to the launch.

Introversion: Also I don’t think we’d have got anywhere very far without the incredible support of the Introversion forum community who perhaps unconsciously did an indispensable amount of viral marketing on our behalf in the run-up to the launch of DEFCON. With their help we have been able to spread the word about DEFCON to other community forums which has encouraged these sites to write reviews and send their users over to our site.
At the end of the day though, DEFCON arrived at a perfect time when there is obviously a high demand for new, innovative games that stand out from all of the standard first-person shooters. DEFCON has been able to deliver something original at a time when the industry appears to be crying out for it.

VG Core: The game offers the option to play with realtime settings...where multiplayer battles unfold according to user settings. Arthur Humphrey from the independent development team, Last Day of Work, mentioned that designing games that take advantage of realtime can be a painstaking process. Did you encounter great hardships giving the player the option to have things run in realtime?

Introversion: We always wanted this as an option, right from the start. The whole game is based around an 8 hour realtime global nuclear war, so we spent quite a lot of time “tweaking” the relative speeds of things to make it work. The reality is that the Fleets move way too fast in Defcon, and Fighters often engage over an area of 500 square miles, but its all about finding a balance between realism and enjoyment. Its interesting that the tension is often higher when the game is running in realtime – you watch every missile and pray it will destroy its target, especially when it’s a nuke coming down on your capital.

VG Core: How did you decide what sort of military options and properties of attack would be available for players to use, and were there limits on what sort of weaponry would be in the game and what would be left out?

Introversion: We have loads of ideas for different types of military units, but the main deciding factor was simply “is this unit obvious?”. Everybody knows what a Nuclear Submarine does, and it’s the same for all the in-game units – they require just a few moments to completely understand. We wanted the game to be carefully balanced – like a game of chess – with just a handful of units that interact in interesting ways.

VG Core: If DEFCON continues to steam-roll through the industry with high scores and a lot of positive consumer feedback, is it possible we could be seeing a DEFCON 2? If so, what would you do differently and what sort of options would you plan to add?

Introversion: We don’t have any plans to make any sequels of any of our games. At Introversion we tend to see sequels and franchises as part of the same bad bunch because they significantly limit choice and innovation in the games market. We’re not so adverse to trying our games out on new platforms or re-working them to suit multiplayer formats, but a DEFCON 2 for PC is very unlikely. When you’ve been working on a project this long the last thing you feel like doing is going near it – the fourth game from Introversion will once again be a wholly new concept!

Our thanks go out to Introversion for taking time out to answer our questions. You can visit Introversion's main website, or check out our review of DEFCON. Be sure to stay tuned in with VG Core for more news and information updates.

Article By: Cyguration