Tropico Interview & Exclusive Screenshots
posted at 4:45 AM on Tuesday, July 25th
We got a hold of Mr. Steinmeyer, CEO of PopTop, developer of the upcoming strategy game Tropico, and grilled him for 30 minutos before taking him out the back door of the hacienda and shooting him. We also managed to extort some exclusive screenshots in the process. Enjoy.
1) Can you tell us a little about your history with PopTop and your relationship with your upcoming game, Tropico?
I'm the owner and founder of PopTop. For the first few years of PopTop, I was the only employee, and I developed games in conjunction with another publisher/developer. Railroad Tycoon II was the first game on which we staffed up to a full development team and did the entire development in-house. I currently function as PopTop's Lead Designer, Lead Programmer and CEO.
Tropico is a game I had thought of many years ago (I almost developed this concept ahead of what became Railroad Tycoon II). I'd always been intrigued with the political mayhem that has dominated the governments of South and Central America. I felt that it would be a good topic for a strategy/sim, providing something new for the market and something fun to work on.
2) How far along in the development process is Tropico?
We are a bit over the halfway mark. The engine is nearly completed and we are furiously plugging in new art and features.
3) Is everything going as planned, or have some problems arisen during the development process? What were those problems?
Nothing ever goes exactly as planned. The art is turning out to be taking much longer than we'd planned for - we've got about 4 times the art volume of Railroad Tycoon II. We are constantly struggling to make a game that looks gorgeous on high end systems and still runs well on older systems – I think we've done pretty well at this. And in general, because Tropico is an original concept, pretty well removed from anything else out there, we're having to spend a considerable amount of time tinkering with the design to make it really fun and simple, yet deep.
4) Railroad Tycoon 2 has been extremely successful, and continues to be very popular in the strategy-gaming world. Was this expected? How did RT2 meet up with your expectations?
To an extent it was expected but it could be best described as HOPE. We were hopeful that it would be well accepted and we thought it had the right stuff. We're happy it worked out this way naturally. RT2 actually exceeded our expectations by a healthy margin so it was successful on all fronts and was one of those extremely fortunate situations you want to happen every time.
5) What are your expectations for Tropico?
We don't see any reason for it not to do as well as RT2 and HOPEFULLY better. It's a game of building, planning and reason. This is what people seem to enjoy in strategy games?
6) How will Tropico differ from RT2 in terms of gameplay? Does it run on the same engine?
The engine is based on the S3D engine used in RT2 but it's been heavily enhanced. That's about the only thing the two games have in common. Tropico and RT2 are builder games but how they get there are completely different.
Tropico is a socio-political sim with industrial overtones. RT2 was a business sim with some tactical emphasis.
7) Can we expect to see any features not yet seen in other strategy games because of the game's 'evil' nature?
Well actually Tropico is not evil by nature. It's more light hearted and something of a spoof of the regimes of the Latin American governments of the pre-1990's. We allow the player to determine if they will be "evil" or not, we make no demands on the player in the realm of ethics. We provide the player with the tools to rule and they take care of the HOW.
8) What will make Tropico stand apart from other strategy games?
I think Tropico will show that strategy doesn't have to be boring to be deep and involving. Excellent graphics and unique gameplay will win the day.
It also covers a bunch of territory seldom visited by games - Politics, Latin America/Caribbean, balancing social, economic and political goals.
9) What was the inspiration behind making a game based on ruling like a dictator?
Not having to share control. It's the ultimate in selfish. Though in reality we're using Castro's regime as the baseline guide. If you have to share rule you have to divide authority and we wanted players to be able to be the central decision maker in Tropico. Although, ultimately the Tropicans have the final say since they can end your rule.
10) If Tropico receives praise equal or greater than that which Railroad Tycoon 2 has received, will a Tropico 2 be in the works?
That's way to far off to worry about; although we will have another project to start as soon as Tropico ends. If we do a follow up, it'll involve serious innovation. We didn't do an immediate sequel to Railroad Tycoon II, in large part because given the technology at the time, we wouldn't have been able to make something innovative enough for us to be happy with it.
11) Will PopTop branch off into other genres of games in the future?
Not likely. One of the principles I started PopTop with was to make non-violent (relatively) strategy games. So unless we decide to do a first person strategy game that doesn't include violence, we'll stick to our current game plan.
12) What do you see as the future of strategy games? Do you see them becoming more popular or less popular?
I think they'll continue to gain in popularity as the aging of the market continues and more people are becoming computer literate each day. Also, a number of PC genres have largely migrated over to console (sports, action, simulation). I think strategy will remain very strong on the PC and perhaps pick up the slack of some of the other genres. The advantages of the PC - high resolution display, mouse and keyboard, hard drive for ready storage, make it ideal for strategy games.
13) What do you see as the future of PC gaming in general?
See above - I think PC Gaming will boil down to 2 main genres - strategy, for the reasons listed above, and light entertainment (Who wants to be a millionaire), because its cheaper to develop and sell on the PC. Most other genres will migrate over to the console.
Thanks so much for your time, and best of luck with the rest of the development process.
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