Kudos

Democracy was a game that was as wonderful as it was ambitious in its scope, which has only made us all the more on the edge of our seats in anticipation of Positech's next game Kudos. Kudos is now in development and looks to be one of the most promising games this year. Since the website has pretty limited information and we were just dieing to find out more we contacted Positech and were ecstatic to get a chance to ask some questions about Kudos.

Q) As a follow-up to Democracy, one of the best games of 2005, we would expect EVERYONE has heard of Positech at this point, but for the uniformed, and those of us who always like an extra piece juicy information for our trivia starved brains, what can you tell us about Positech? Who or what is Positech?

Positech is pretty much just ME, Cliff Harris, usually called 'Cliffski'. I've been trying to write games since 1981, selling them online since around 98, and now doing it full time. Before I went full-time I worked for Elixir and Lionhead, I was the AI coder for 'The Movies', and I worked on an XBox game for Elixir that sadly got canned. Positech is a rubbish name for a games company, but it's too late to rename it now ;(

Q) Democracy was clearly an excellent game and it appears to have lead your personal development down a different path than the one you were on back when you were making excellent action games. How did the decision to do Kudos come about?

I did some work for Maxis immediately after leaving Lionhead, which I can't really talk about, but it reminded me how much I enjoy coding human relationship stuff. I coded a whole ton of that for 'The Movies' which mostly got junked, and I really wanted to see that kind of stuff in a game. Democracy proved that I could make a success of a turn based simulation game, and although it wasn't the first game design I started work on (I own the domain 'cubicletycoon.com' so there's a clue), it's the one I really got excited about.

Q) On your website you describe Kudos as a simulation game, but then you also state that it is a strategy game. Other than being apparently hard to describe, what kind of game is Kudos exactly?

Well I call it a life-sim, but that makes it sound like the Sims, which it doesn't feel like. Two games that I've read about, but never played, sound more similar, and those are Animal Crossing and Princess Maker. It IS a very difficult game to describe, because I'm basically putting whatever elements in that I like. I didn't start with any real 'genre' as a base design point, I just added features as I went along. It started off as much more of a complex geeky social-simulation and has become a bit more RPG like as it's developed.

Q) Wil Wright has always been fascinated by human interaction, and hearing about Kudos has ignited a little bit of the excitement that I've always felt when hearing him discuss the subject. How granular will Kudos be in regards to those human interaction decisions that you make for your character?

That's an area I'm considering exploring more. Right now, you decide whether to accept social invites, or you can arrange your own. When you arrange your own, you are basically deciding where, when, and with who. Some days might be a bad choice for socialising, as you don't want to play golf in the rain, and you don't want to socialise if you are too miserable as you will bring other people down. Depending on the social setting, there may be other choices. You don't just go to a restaurant, you need to pick which restaurant, maybe based on budget and what you have heard about the place. In addition, unless you are really popular and respected, it will be hard to get in to some of the more trendy places. At the moment, once you decide to socialise on a Wednesday at a certain bar with certain people, that's where your control over how that evening goes ends. That may change.

Q) You've mentioned that players can choose to be just about anything in Kudos, and that we'll have full control over our character's life. With so many options for players to choose and decisions to make, how do you maintain the feeling of infinite possibilities for the player while also keeping the gameplay accessible and not overwhelming?

It's actually not bad at all, because it's all familiar stuff. Kudos has a kind of 'tech tree' for doing evening classes. You 'can' become an astrophysicist for example, but you need to learn loads of basic science stuff first, and get experience in science jobs. Packing a real-world game full of gameplay and features isn't too bad, because gamers (generally) live in that same real world, so we already understand how it works. Real life is complex and feature-packed, so when you encounter that variety in a game, it doesn't seem too overwhelming. Right now there's only a few career branches, although that will expand, but basically you have medical, legal, 3 branches of science, catering, acting, musicians, security guards and lots of menial jobs. Adding new jobs is just text data, so that will be easy, but I'm hoping to make the differences between them more than just cosmetic, there is already special case code for certain careers.

Q) As you are programming the game, how does the player's interaction within the game come together? When the player is making a choice, it has to impact a large number of variables. How did you determine what the impacts of each decision would be within the game and put it all together?

Originally I was going to use the neural network code from Democracy for this, which is unbelievably flexible and cool for that kind of thing, but eventually I went back to a traditionally coded approach. The neural system is great for flexibility, but it also creates a kind of flat and generic feel for the gameplay, which is hard to describe. The task is greatly simplified because generally its only the player that has the real complex data associated with him. I care if your characters pet is hungry, but I don't need to worry if your best mates friends pets are hungry, so it's not too bad :D The bigger problems have been design ones. How does watching TV effect you? Does it reduce tiredness? make you bored? reduce your IQ? raise it? It's the same problem as Democracy, no real-world effects are simple equations, for game purposes, they must be reduced to that. There is a constant battle in my head between realism and gameplay, you have to guard against making the game so complex the player feels that its hard work to understand what's happening.

Q) With such a deep number of things happening in the background I would assume that balancing a game like Kudos to make it rewarding and interesting would be quite a challenge. How have you gone about the process of balancing Kudos?

I haven't really got going on that yet. Normally if would terrify me, but the same was true of Democracy and it turned out great after many weeks of constant playing and tweaking. I do the odd play test and tweak as I go, I recently realised that when my character worked as a waiter, he was paying more on his bus fare to work than he earned each day. That's not ideal! The game will need a lot of tweaking, simply because there are so many combinations of effects.

Q) You've mentioned that 'flashy graphics' are not what Kudos is about, but clearly the game is looking really solid (in fact I'd say it looks quite a bit prettier than Democracy did). How have you balanced your efforts between creating a specific visual feel for the game and perfecting the game play?

It makes a nice change. Sitting and coding all day can be hell, and if your not in the mood to code or design, firing up photoshop or poser and doing some graphics is a nice break for me. I've done all the art so far, and as this is my 8th or 9th game, I'm gradually starting to get some good results. To be honest, I don't understand how anyone can be a 100% designer, artist or coder. it seems weird to me not to be involved in all three. I even got one small texture into 'The Movies'. the chimney smoke texture is the smoke texture from Kombat Kars. hurrah!

Q) The penultimate line on the Kudos site mentions that Kudos is about exploring areas of gameplay not seen in mainstream games. What do you think players will feel about the gameplay of Kudos? What value do you think they will place on the game play?

I want them to be suprised, and entertained. Games don't suprise me any more. Maybe the last 2 games to do it were GalCiv2 and 'Giants'. I don't like to start a game and know everything that is going to happen just by looking at the interface. RTS games suffer from this badly, and so do FPS games. I want people to keep playing kudos to see what happens next. Not in story terms, but in gameplay terms. There's a shop full of stuff, and it all does 'something', and it's not just different attribute effects. I want gamers to enjoy fiddling with Kudos, to keep checking parts of the interface to see what they just unlocked, to discover how certain things only happen at certain times etc. Maybe some of my ideas will be hits, and some of them misses, but I think the players will appreciate any attempt to introduce new ideas. PC gaming has become so stale and predictable, I think gamers welcome new ideas.

Q) Democracy was about a more gender neutral or male-oriented topic in politics. Kudos seems to be focused on an area that most people would consider more female-oriented in relationships. In some ways they would seem to have quite different audiences. How have you taken this into consideration in designing the game or has it been a consideration?

It's not deliberate. I don't believe in artificially making female-centered games. That's never going to work. Luckily, it's pretty much the kind of game I like. I really dislike games that are just about gangsters and pimps and people swearing and shouting at each other, and the same goes for films. I'd much rather watch 'Chocolat' than 'Die Hard'. In fact I'm the only male alive who has never seen 'Die Hard'. I think that contrary to what people may assume, Kudos will appeal to everyone. How many times have you slayed dragons? fought giant stompy robots? or taken part in secretive missions in a distopian cyberpunk future? because to me, I'm sick of that. I think games set in the real-world can have massive appeal, even for hardcore gamers, because ironically it's something different, and easy to relate to. Kudos won't need a backstory or complex tutorial, you know that if you buy a pet, it needs food, that you can get to work faster by car than walking, it's going to be easier to pick up than most games (I hope!).

Q) What are your hopes for the success of Kudos? How will you measure its success?

This game is really make-or-break for Positech and for me. I've left the retail industry and sworn never to go back. If Kudos makes as many sales as Democracy, then its a viable living, and I can carry on making games. I have my next one planned already. If it falls below that, then I'm in slightly dodgy territory and I'm going to have to buy a suit and look for traditional coding jobs, which I REALLY don't want to do. I have a good 'feeling' about the game, in that I love playing it myself, which is the same feeling I had about Democracy, so my fingers are definitely crossed here.

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We want to thank Cliffski for taking time out of his schedule to chat with us. The only thing left to do for us is to wait anxiously on the finished product!