We had our eye on Predestination for some time now. It featured our Stellar Indie Venture rubric back in March 2012. From there, it started accepting beta registrations to anyone interested in July. In November the Predestination Team hit Kickstarter, and, at the time of this interview, they’re 3 days to go.
If you missed this indie space 4X game project, here’s a chance to know about it on an interview we did with Brain and Nerd’s CEO, Brendan Drain. The project already achieved its $25,000 funding target, and unlocked its first stretch goal: Hotseat and Play-by-email. But, there are 4 more stretch goals to go…
SS: So, what’s different about Predestination? What will it bring to the 4X genre?
Brendan Drain: Predestination will be a significant evolutionary step forward for the 4X genre, solving the micromanagement problem most 4X games have and improving on the turn-based gameplay we all love from classic titles. It merges an intuitive 3D galaxy map with a full planetary exploration system and truly tactical fleet combat with custom ships.
We’re aiming to make it a very well-rounded game, with enough depth to keep hardcore players entertained and simple tools to solve the micromanagement problems deep games inevitably encounter.
SS: What about sources of inspiration for developing Predestination? What has inspired you and your Team the most for wanting to develop this game?
- “My biggest inspiration is Master of Orion II.”
Brendan Drain: As the programmer, I draw some influence from Amiga classics like K240 and Colonial Conquest, but my biggest inspiration is Master of Orion II. Most recent 4X games have favoured realtime gameplay and focused on one or two main features, and none has really offered as complete a package as MOO2. A lot of the team are also big Civilization fans, and we’re drawing some inspiration from those games for our planetary exploration and diplomacy mechanics.
SS: All 4X games in general are faced with a somewhat unsatisfying game-end phase, where usually everything seems done before the game actually ends. How do you plan to tackle this issue? In other words, how do you expect to keep gamers engaged till the end of your game and give them a satisfying ending? And, what sort of victory conditions are envisaged?
Brendan Drain: In most 4X games, you pass a tipping point where you’ve pretty much won the game and the rest is mopping up. The ultimate goal is to make it so that reaching this tipping point is a challenging process but the game ends quickly after you pass it. The mid-game is a massive power struggle, and the AI races may start to join forces against you if you become too powerful. Once you start rapidly taking over the game and victory is definitely inevitable, the other races should start to fall in line pretty quickly and colonies may start to defect to your empire.
We’ll have a number of victory conditions, from military victories like eliminating/absorbing all the other races or destroying the “big bad guys” to diplomatic victories like uniting the galaxy against the big bad guys or taking over the galactic council.
SS: Micromanagement can be a pain in some 4X games. I understand that you propose a gameplay system called “Colony Blueprints”, which have instructions for building new colonies, freeing the player from unnecessary micromanagement hassle. Can you give us a summary of how that system will work?
- “You can pick a blueprint you’ve designed and the colony will automatically build it.”
Brendan Drain: Blueprints are customised plans for building and running a particular type of colony. You pick which buildings the colony will have, where they’re placed, what order they should be built in, and other important colony stats like tax rates and spending. When you colonise a new resource or city location on a planet, you can pick a blueprint you’ve designed and the colony will automatically build it. You can then later edit the blueprint itself to add new buildings or change stats and every single colony using that blueprint will implement the changes.
It’s a way of letting you manage your entire empire quickly and easily, just by making changes to just a few blueprints.
SS: While not always present with enough depth, colony building is an aspect many gamers favor in a 4X game. What kind of structures will the player be able to build? How will the colony development work?
Brendan Drain: There are two different types of colony in Predestination: Residential Cities and smaller Resource Towns. Residential cities will be where all of your taxable citizens live, and you’ll have to balance packing in more citizens by building additional housing with keeping planetary morale and security high. You’ll build things like housing, police stations, and entertainment buildings here, along with larger buildings like ship construction yards and orbital space dock command centres that won’t fit in the resource towns.
- “There are two different types of colony in Predestination: Residential Cities and smaller Resource Towns.”
Resource Towns will be built on any resources you find such as minerals or coal, and will house things like factories and storage silos. Both types of colony also require power buildings, and they can both contain military structures like colony shields, ground batteries, and ground troop barracks. There’s a limited number of spaces for buildings in each colony and effects from multiple buildings of the same type will stack, so you’ll have to balance productivity with military defense.
SS: eXploration is a 4X phase which some 4X gamers sense gets neglected in favor of others. You seem to put particular focus on it, so, what can the player expect to experiences when doing exploration in Predestination?
Brendan Drain: Predestination will have exploration on both the planetary and galactic scales. There are random events and hidden treasures to be found all over the galaxy, and temporal rifts will open randomly throughout the game and spit out ships, technology and debris to be claimed by the first race that gets there.
- “Predestination will have exploration on both the planetary and galactic scales.”
On the planet level, you’ll scan individual sectors of each planet for resources and other surprises, and can expect to find bonus technologies and planetary random events strewn across the surface of some worlds. New scanning technologies will be available throughout the game that reduce the micromanagement load of exploration, let you find all-new resources on your worlds, and reveal hidden objects in space.
SS: What’s your plan for ships’ movement? Will there be established starlanes between stars, where ships need to travel to and from, or can ships fly anywhere in space freely? And, what about fleets’ composition? How exactly will fleets work?
Brendan Drain: We definitely don’t have starlanes! Ships can travel from any star to any other in range, and ship range will be limited to a certain spherical radius around existing colonies. Fleets can be made out of any number of ships, and you can design them to have a particular starting layout in tactical combat so that you can design a fleet with a particular strategy in mind.
SS: So, Predestination will allow several settlements, or town locations, to be established on each planet. Will each star system also allow the colonization of different planets in the same system? And if so, don’t you think that could be just too much for the player to handle?
- “Players will establish several settlements on each planet and can colonise all the planets in a solar system.”
Brendan Drain: Yes, players will be able to establish several settlements on each planet and can colonise all the planets in a solar system. This would ordinarily be way too much to micro-manage, but we use tools like the Colony Blueprint system to solve that micromanagement problem.
There are also mid-game technologies that automatically explore planets and colonise any resources found. Using our micromanagement tools, the effort needed to manage everything won’t increase too much as your empire grows.
SS: I find curiosity – or the effect of causing curiosity in the player – and surprises, as key factors for having fun with a game, especially with a space 4X game. What would you say Predestination has to offer regarding those two aspects?
Brendan Drain: There will definitely be some interesting surprises in the game, from galactic and planetary random events to hidden items and technology that can be found throughout the galaxy. The temporal rifts add an element of curiosity to the game as you won’t know what’s there unless you send ships to investigate!
SS: What are your favorite 4X games? And, which were the last ones you’ve played?
- “The team are all big fans of Master of Orion II and the Civilization series.”
Brendan Drain: The team are all big fans of Master of Orion II and the Civilization series, and we still break them out at LAN parties. My favourite recent game is Galactic Civilizations II: Dread Lords and a few of the team are currently playing Legends of Pegasus and Endless Space.
SS: Let’s imagine that for any reason you will not be able to release the game. Would all the backers be allowed for a full refund for their pledges?
Brendan Drain: The way Kickstarter works, we’re obligated to deliver the promised rewards. At this point we’ve more than exceeded our goal so we’ll definitely be able to make the game. If anything bad were to happen during development, it would just mean a delay of the game at this point rather than cancellation.
SS: Can you reveal your 65K and 80K stretch goals? Or at least one of them?
Brendan Drain: We’re not likely to reach those goals with only a few days left, but they would contain major features like a 3D ship designer and tactical ground combat. We managed to pack the rest of the main stretch features into our 40k and 50k goals, like multiplayer, a story campaign and mission-designer tools.
We’re trending to hit the 40k stretch goal and could possibly hit 50k in the final day if a few more race designers and level designers come on board, but if we don’t reach 50k there are a few local funding schemes we can apply for to make up the difference.
SS: Now that we are in the final days of your Kickstarter campaign, please use this opportunity to tell us why should we all support you in your quest.
- “Northern Ireland doesn’t have much of a games industry.”
Brendan Drain: Northern Ireland doesn’t have much of a games industry, so your generous donation will be helping to kickstart a whole new industry that has no other reliable source of finance! Predestination promises to reinvent the classic turn-based space 4X game for the modern gamer and introduces important features like the blueprint system to the 4X genre.
Paypal pre-orders will continue until release, but December 28th is the last day to pledge for our exclusive Kickstarter-only rewards, like the $25 pre-order with free DLC and expansions for life!
Thanks so much to everyone who has backed us so far! We’re looking forward to getting stuck into development in the new year and delivering the best 4X game we possibly can!
Thank for your time Brendan. Good luck to your final days at Kickstarter, and for the development of Predestination.
Predestination is currently on Kickstarter, having raised about 37K at the time of this interview. For more details on this space 4X game project check the Predestination kickstarter page or the game’s official website.
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Nice job conducting the interview.
Free DLC/expansions for life is sweet… assuming the game becomes successful enough for them to deliver on it. And my next paycheck arrives the day before this kickstarter ends, too.
Man, temptation…
For me, immersion is the name of the game for single-player 4X games. If you are looking for tricky tactical and strategic situations, play chess. A Sci-Fi based 4X game must offer other reasons to play: discovery and atmosphere. That is the reason I lost interest in Endless Space: all strategy, little atmosphere.
The planetary exploration phase of Predestination offers the opportunity to truly connect with the game, to develop an emotional connection with every colonized planet.
I really hope the developers can produce a experience worthy of their game concept.
I get more interested in Predestination every time I hear about it.
Love the idea of customizable colony blueprints! Such a simple idea, but for some reason no other 4x game has ever really done it (besides simple build queues which are clearly not enough). In my opinion this is THE answer to micromanagement that still allows you full control of a large(ish) empire rather than having to watch the AI do it for you – and inevitably mess it up. They also seem to have other good ideas for further managing the micro problem in late game, impressive.
No Starlanes, thank God! For me, nothing kills immersion in a space game and breaks suspension of disbelief more than starlanes, so I am glad they have NOT chosen to go down that easy, simplistic route. I really hope that the concept of forced starlanes eventually dies and games like Endless Space are the last ones to ever use it. If I want roads, I will play Civ, roads on the ground make sense.
Love the focus on colonies and exploration, they really make this particular 4x stand out. Not much info is given about the tactical space combat other than the fact that it will be present and that the ships will be customizable. Sounds promising but I would like to hear more. I’d like to see tactical combat as deep, detailed and turn based rather than real time and I don’t really care about the graphics, although shiny graphics are always a nice bonus. A good auto-resolve function would also be a plus for battles that are too trivial to personally oversee.
Pity about the fact that they probably wont be implementing tactical ground combat, their focus on colony management would make it absolutely awesome! You hardly ever see good (or any) tactical ground combat in a 4x game, but I love it when its there and its presence in Predestination would really make the game stand out from the crowd. Still, they cant do everything on such a limited budget, so I guess if they were going to drop something, this should be it. Probably :(
I wish the Devs all the best in their venture and will be following the progress of their game with great interest in the future.
Thanks for the support, Mark! I’m glad you like the blueprint system and I totally agree about starlanes. I really hated the starlanes in Endless Space, it makes the map even less than 2D and feels like a big step back from MOO2 when the genre should be going forward.
We have a big update coming on tactical ship combat that we’re aiming to get one before the end of the Kickstarter. Features like tactical ground combat would also be amazing to do if we had the budget, so we’ll probably add them in future expansions.
Thanks again for all the support! :D
— Brendan, Lead Developer on Predestination
Great news Brendan. I’ll look forward to your update on tactical ship combat with interest, and the news that tactical ground combat will likely be implemented in a future expansion definitely has my attention. I would kill for a good 4x with real tactical ground combat, the possibilities are just incredible…. :)
Best of luck to you and your team.
“No Starlanes, thank God! For me, nothing kills immersion in a space game and breaks suspension of disbelief more than starlanes, so I am glad they have NOT chosen to go down that easy, simplistic route. I really hope that the concept of forced starlanes eventually dies and games like Endless Space are the last ones to ever use it.”
If starlanes/wormholes/warp gates breaks your suspension of disbelief, how about considering what the alternative means? “Standard movement” between systems means having ships capable of speeds far exceeding the Starship Enterprise (whose “Warp 9” drive would take about 5 months to travel from here to our nearest neighbour, Proxima Centauri, 4.21 light years away). Now consider the distances involved in trans-galactic travel (our own galaxy, the Milky Way, is 100-120,000 light years in diameter) – an empire covering this would be practically ungovernable if ships needed tens of thousands of years to cross it.
So yes, star lanes and their ilk are an abstraction – but a game without them or some other alternative for ultrafast travel would be far less realistic unless turns were measured in decades or centuries.
Another aspect to consider is game balance – with open movement, a player could use the “Fleet of Doom” strategy (lump all their ships together into one fleet and use that to hunt down all opposition). With starlanes (restricting movement between systems) that strategy no longer works well since the mega-fleet would have to be able to cover multiple routes simultaneously.
“If starlanes/wormholes/warp gates breaks your suspension of disbelief, how about considering what the alternative means?”
It means doing exactly the same (admittedly fast) speeds as you would be doing WITH starlanes, but without the jarring unreality of traveling along “roads in space”. Yes the speeds involved are fast, but I don’t see how the concept of starlanes helps to allow one to more easily accept that. Its all about suspension of disbelief, I can far more readily swallow the concept of FTL travel without the additional strain of only having it on a 1 dimensional highway.
“Another aspect to consider is game balance”
Easily solved with “fleet points” or “command points” or any one of several other methods you could use to limit fleet size, all WITHOUT introducing a concept that has zero basis in any known laws of physics and feels nothing like a space game. Anyway, I quite like fleets of doom, as long as they’re MY fleets of doom and I’m not on the receiving end :)
There was a time when starlanes were all the rage, but many games have done away with them and IMO the game-play has been far superior as a result. Look at MOO II, GC2, SOTS I (except for humans of course). All fine, well respected games and all mercifully Starlane free. So I simply cant agree with the idea that they are somehow needed for game balance when some of the best balanced 4x games ever made didn’t use them.
“It means doing exactly the same (admittedly fast) speeds as you would be doing WITH starlanes, but without the jarring unreality of traveling along “roads in space”. Yes the speeds involved are fast, but I don’t see how the concept of starlanes helps to allow one to more easily accept that.”
Because the idea of a wormspace (or other space-time discontinuity) is a little less implausible than ultra-FTL travel – though on the principe of science-conquers-all a game could plausibly offer both, with ultra-FTL coming much later.
“Easily solved with “fleet points” or “command points” or any one of several other methods you could use to limit fleet size, all WITHOUT introducing a concept that has zero basis in any known laws of physics and feels nothing like a space game.”
Yes, these are alternatives but are both artificial and arbitrary – look at GalCiv 2’s “street-gang fleet” restrictions as an extreme example. It is better to not rely on such systems, though other options like making large fleets slower and more cumbersome in combat would be valid checks.
“There was a time when starlanes were all the rage, but many games have done away with them and IMO the game-play has been far superior as a result. Look at MOO II, GC2, SOTS I (except for humans of course).”
MOO2 *did* have starlanes (though they weren’t labelled as such) – when you sent a fleet to another star, it couldn’t change course and it couldn’t be recalled (until more advanced technology comes along). That makes it effectively the same thing. Can’t comment on SOTS1 but GC2 was a truly mediocre (though good-looking) 4X and its movement system was one of several problems. Travelling to another system required no more time than a jaunt to a nearby planet and its maps completely overlooked the vast scale of star systems – a 100,000 light-year galaxy would take no more than 10-15 turns to traverse in GC2.
More favourable examples of open movement would be the Imperium Galactica series, Star Ruler and the current Star Lords beta. All of these however fail to do justice to the true scale of star systems and galaxies (though Star Ruler probably comes closest). I’d also argue that they lost rather than gained – no systems offering greater strategic importance (due to better links), no chokepoints resulting in epic battles and no way (at higher tech levels) to re-arrange starlanes to your strategic advantage.
@ AstralWanderer
“Because the idea of a wormspace (or other space-time discontinuity) is a little less implausible than ultra-FTL travel”
I don’t really think that follows, why cant an ultra-FTL system use a portable “space-time discontinuity” as its mechanic? But anyway the idea of hyperspace doesn’t necessarily imply only traveling to a limited number of (usually close) destinations. Look at the Traveller RPG, a jump equipped ship can point itself anywhere, even deep space and jump through another dimension to get there as long as it has the range. Its not the hyperspace part that worries me with starlanes, its the limited number of 1 dimensional roads that connect to each star like a highway network in space.
“Yes, these are alternatives but are both artificial and arbitrary”
I agree, but arbitrary shortcuts are necessary for game-play. Playing with the true number of stars in the galaxy, with realistic distances would be impossible, so we abstract it and hope that the player will still be able to suspend their disbelief enough to enjoy the game. I might find fleet-points arbitrary, but I can still accept it as a possible consequence of limitations in my command and control technology. I simply CANNOT do the same with “roads in space”, there are limits to just how far my disbelief can be suspended without breaking.
“MOO2 *did* have starlanes (though they weren’t labelled as such)”
Ahh but you see that makes all the difference. MOO2 had the equivalent of an invisible star lane connecting every star to every other star in the galaxy, which meant that you could still point your ship in whatever direction you wanted and go there as long as you had the range. Granted you couldn’t just pick a point in deep space and go there, but there was absolutely no game reason to do so. It still gave you total freedom. I don’t have a problem with that, just with a limited number of corridors connecting certain stars.
“GC2 was a truly mediocre (though good-looking) 4X and its movement system was one of several problems.”
Guess we could argue about this although I’m willing to give it to you as “your impression” of the game, I have to admit that I thought GC2 was pretty mediocre too. However it was very popular and well respected by many others, far more so than the other games you mentioned, some of which were quite obscure. With respect to the distances you mentioned, once again they have been abstracted for the sake of game play, possibly too much in GC2’s case, that’s debatable. Playing with realistic distances and star numbers would have been impossible.
“I’d also argue that they lost rather than gained – no systems offering greater strategic importance (due to better links), no chokepoints resulting in epic battles and no way (at higher tech levels) to re-arrange starlanes to your strategic advantage.”
But that’s the nature of space! If you want terrain and choke points, play CIV. If I’m going to play a space game, I want it to feel like I’m playing in space, not have some random choke point mechanic – with no basis in reality – thrust into my face. I don’t have a problem with introducing strategic options in a 4x (quite the opposite) but if you do it with total disregard for the genre and at the cost of breaking immersion and suspension of disbelief, then IMO you have failed as a designer.
Adam: AI seems to be the area which is the hardest to judge before playing a finished title. Can you please press your interviewees into confirming their experience or approach to AI coding? Get them to set out what lessons they have learned from the failings of other AIs and how they intend to avoid them.
Also please get them to confirm that they will open their AI code from day one to allow the community to improve it (as KMod continues to do for Civ 4).
I posted on the Stardrive forum about opening the AI to the community. The game developer has confirmed that he will open it up shortly after release.
The Distant Worlds publisher has voiced a wish to open up the AI code in a future expansion when I asked the same question on their forum.
Perhaps AI coding is an area for one of your articles? What significant developments have their been in AI coding in the past 20 years, if any?
“AI seems to be the area which is the hardest to judge before playing a finished title.”
Yes, I agree.
Your suggestion to ask questions regarding the AI more, the dev’s own experience and opinion about it is sound. Noted. Thanks.
I had the feeling that some developers open up their code some time after release. Asking them about this so early in the development may be too early though, since sometimes (like in this case) they still have a lot of thinking to do.
And, the devs (understandably) don’t like to commit to too much not-strictly-game stuff early on, especially of this kind. Other examples are the use or not of DRM and selling the game or not on game download portals. These things depend on other potential stakeholders (e.g. publishers). I guess the decisions to open or not the code may also be entangled with the publishers point of view.
AI coding, and AI in general, are good ideas for future game design articles. Maybe dayrinni has something already planned for his “Making a Space 4X game” series.
Thanks for your observations and suggestions.
Hey Sithuk!
As Adam said, we still have a lot of thinking to do on parts of the game that aren’t done yet like the AI. We’ll be able to release details of this later during development when we select an approach, right now it’s quite difficult to nail down an AI approach when much of the gameplay still needs to be finished or could be potentially changed.
I worked on a few different types of AI during university and will be pouring that experience and plenty of player feedback into making Predestination’s AI as solid as I can possibly make it. We might be able to release the AI code or rules for modding but I won’t know until we start developing it and know what approach we’re taking. I’d really like to, as we’re trying to support game modding, but there’s still too much undecided to promise that so early.
— Brendan, Lead Developer on Predestination
Really great interview, it gives some insight on the rather obscure Predesination developement progress, it seems like they got their priorities right. The colony blueprints sound awesome, also the planetary developement and exploration seems to be amazing. I really hope that this won’t turn out into a gimmick or a process that does not require much thought and strategy.
Anyway my only gripe is that the interface and asthestics look horrible
Looking at it from a visual standpoint is looks awfully bland,looks kinda like SpaceEmpires5.Hopefully immersive gameplay mechanics make up for it.
Looks interesting. Developers seem to be self-confident about their vision and mechanics, hopefully they implement them well.
Blue prints are an excellent idea. Planetary exploration can turn to be great if done correctly or pretty annoying and micro intensive otherwise (I am having flashbacks to planetary scans in Mass Effect 2 right now).
Will we be able to explore planets completely before colonizing them, or do we have to gamble that the planet is not useless? Is it possible to make this process automatic? Will planet’s appereance affect the resources it has (lava planets, desert,…)? Is the farming/happiness/income dependent on the colony’s location on the planet’ surface as well? Is the building space on the planet limited and does the location of housing matter for population/happiness; are there different land configurations like continents, seas, lakes? Can multiple empires have colonies on the same planet?…
There is a lot of potential in the game, let’s hope it delivers.
Hey Physicaque, I can answer these questions for you!
In the early game, scout ships must be used to scan the planet from a colony on the surface. You can set these guys up to scout automatically or manually direct them to landmarks and areas you think you’ll likely find resources at.
When you’re colonising other worlds, you’ll get a limited idea of what can be found there from scans but won’t know exactly where the resources are. So you’ll know if a planet is good before settling it. In the mid-game, there will be extra technologies that let you scan planets better from orbit with a science ship before settling it.
Planet environment type affects the types of resources available there, for example you’ll only find Coal on Terran worlds. Certain resources will only appear on land, others underwater, on coasts etc.
Building space on the planet is limited and right now the position of the housing doesn’t matter but that may change as we develop the feature more. The planet surfaces are generated from a large set of pieces, which includes large continents and small islands. And multiple empires can have colonies on the same planet and potentially war with each other.
Hope that answers your questions! Let me know if you have any more!
— Brendan, Lead Developer on Predestination
Thanks for the answers and good luck with the development!
I’d be happy to write an article for you on AI design, Adam. Let me know if you’d like that and I can put a post together talking about the AI generally and the AI in StarDrive.
I accept your generous offer Dan. That’s invaluable information to everybody thinking in developing games in the future. And as you’re as hot as can be at the moment – while you’re finishing off your game – it would be a too good chance to miss. Shoot me an email with a draft and we’ll discuss it. Thanks a lot!
I’d be really interested to hear about this too. Game AI has always been a black box for me and I would welcome the chance to gain a better understanding of how it works and what the difficulties in writing it are.
I’ll be looking forward to your article with interest Zero.
I’d be very interested in reading your article! I don’t have much experience with AI, but I want it to be an important part of Beyond Beyaan!
Looks awesome. I really like the galaxy map. Nice concepts overall.
Good luck guys. Looking forward to this.
Kickstarted. Looks like a good premise and a solid foundation. Anything I can do to support my favorite genre of games.
I love this website. Thanks for the great interview!
I’d also love to see an article on AI from Zero. I think I might just dabble in this stuff one day. Seriously. I have the passion for it and one day I just might jump in to doing small games. This site inspires me!
Most anticipated game of 2013? Well not quite yet we have stardrive :D but this one is turn based and is going to be made of special meat. I can’t wait for dinner:=)