Interview: Spice Road

Heavengames received the opportunity to interview Aartform Games about their upcoming game for Windows entitled Spice Road. I talk to Simon de Rivaz about how Aartform Games was formed, the inspiration behind Spice Road, key gameplay elements, and more. Heavengames appreciates the time Simon de Rivaz dedicated to answering our questions, and we hope everyone enjoys the interview.

Q. First things first, please introduce yourself.
A. Hi, I’m Simon de Rivaz, CEO and Lead Developer at Aartform Games – although you might interpret these titles with some circumspection as I am also the sole employee. I am also the developer ofAartform Curvy 3D http://www.curvy3d.com, a fun and easy sculpting application.

Q. You have previously worked at SaintXi with your brother Tom de Rivaz on Light of Altair, what was the inspiration behind forming Aartform Games?
A. Tom had written stories and game prototype – he just needed a boost to turn the game commercial. I added my graphics engine, art, and business experience and kapow – it was a hit on Steam and won an international publisher deal.

Aartform Games is simply me returning to the projects that I had active before that time out – including a 3D Adventure RPG ‘Storm’ and a 3D squad battle sim with a solid economic trading ‘Raid’. These game prototypes form the technology base for the StormRaid engine used in Spice Road.

Q. During October Aartform Games announced the development of Spice Road. For those who missed the game’s announcement, could you give us a summary as to what Spice Road is about?
A. Deep in the mountains and deserts of central Asia, where life is hard and death is sudden, thin trails of gold, silk and spice trace a web between the industrial forges of the West and the exotic climes of the East. You are a colonial governor in the 18th Century, building a town on the Spice Road in a time of war and discovery. More than spice travels your roads – musket armies, philosophies, and power plays that span the globe are at your control. From palace to monastery, trade post to brothel – your town is worthless without the nobles, monks, merchants and women that chose to live in it – and keeping them all happy at the same time is never simple.

Q. What was the inspiration behind developing Spice Road?
A. I wanted to bridge the gap between the rich but static RPG worlds and the dynamic but often impersonal strategy worlds. Spice Road is set at a level of individuals and communities, and somewhere between Jagged Alliance and Dungeon Keeper in the way you interact with your hires and party members.

This is not a plain trader like Elite: as well as the sandbox style open missions there are challenges that explore the rich variety of the steppe. You can play the same world as a Smuggler, Legionnaire, Governor, Explorer, Caravanner, Bandit and more.

Luckily the same party management skills apply to artisan towns and Mongol hordes, but the game tactics and objectives are rather different.

Q. Being the governor of an 18th Century town on the Spice road obviously trade will play a major part. How deeply can gamers expect trade to be involved in the day-to-day running of your town and the gameplay of Spice Road? Could we perhaps impose tariffs on trade passing through our town?
A. As governor it is your job to shape the growth of your town. By choosing which tradesmen to invest in, and which external powers to aid, different flows of people will be attracted to your town. For example high tariffs and poorly guarded lands would promote smuggling.

Q. Another core gameplay feature in Spice Road is city management. What kinds of gameplay options can we expect to see in regards to city building and management?
A. Building a town is based on people and opportunities. For example if you choose to invest a craftsman he will build a workshop, hire unskilled workers and start producing goods to export – if he is successful you will get a return. Ongoing relationships with external powers have a big effect on what opportunities are available to you. Win enough favour with the Church and they might allow a monastery to be founded in your town – attracting pilgrims and their money bags.

Each new build changes the personality of your town – Slave hunters and Opium Dens attract a different sort of traveller than Shrines and Churches.

Q. Previous city-management games have been criticised for neglecting military and combat gameplay elements. How deeply will Spice Road represent 18th Century combat? What options can we expect to see in regards to fortifications and troops?
A. For starters, this is not a game of playing armies – the best generals in the 18th Century knew the value of experienced troops and the high cost of each casualty, so they avoided combat wherever possible. Spice Road is not a game of pitched battles at dawn against vast armies – it is more about chance encounters, town raids and caravan ambushes. If you are skillful with your scouts or your negotiations you can save a lot of money by avoiding conflict.

But there is always a time to fight – especially if you are playing a guards or marauder mission. The victor is determined by firepower, training and morale, with options to auto-resolve combat or take control of the stages of the battle – Advance, Charge, Rally and Pursue. Fights are usually over quickly so you really do role-play an officer more than RTS style micro-management – careful timing of your tactical commands can make the difference between plunder and feasting or your desiccated corpse abandoned in the desert. My favorite units are the ‘Sharpe’ like skirmishers and the mounted barbarians.

As for fortifications, larger towns can build fortress and walls – but these are managed by your defence officer based on a budget allocation, you don’t have to micromanage that side of things much. Most of the action takes place in the wilds.

Q. Recently Torchlight, another independent game, released their robust TorchED to the delight of the mod community. What details can you provide us with in regards to modding?
A. Spice Road is built with an open data format (csv!) and the scenarios are built on Lua scripts, I am optimistic that anyone can extend the trade goods, industry, events and scenarios with notepad or excel. I am hoping to be challenged by some imaginative new community scenarios and stories – and have deliberately left some areas of the game simpler so they can be easily extended by non-techies. For example, the game world is semi-procedural and intricate sandbox worlds can be grown from a simple seed. Tweak the challenge and scenario settings, place a few towns and the scenario is ready to play and share.

The key to all this laissez-faire extensibility is a rock-solid simulation engine based on higher economics. So when you add a completely new industry or product – the game world reaches out and absorbs it, handling all the trade and commercial implications seamlessly.

Q. In your opinion what makes Spice Road unique and a “must-buy” for the gaming community?
A. It is a fresh gaming experience in a field of endless clones and sequels – and the setting is rich enough to wrap yourself up in and get thoroughly addicted for a very long time.

Q. On behalf of Heavengames I would like to thank you for your time, any closing comments?
A. Check in on http://www.aartformgames.com to keep up to date – and watch out for the beta later next year.