Alex Poysky On Towns – Interview

Alex Poysky On Towns – Interview

I took a look at Towns two weeks ago and liked it quite a lot. Today, you can read an interview with Alex Posky, SMP’s Content Manager and PR man.

The Reticule – Hello, Alex. Could you tell us a little about SMP Team and where the idea for Towns started?

Alex Poysky – Let me see, SMP as a group is relatively new, being only about a month old at the moment. Prior to that, the Lead Dev and Project Manager, Xavi Canal, started out on his own. I don’t know the details, as I wasn’t part of the group then, but I think he might have been spoken to by some sort of deity or something, maybe a peyote trip, talking wolves or he just plain felt like making a game. Whatever the case, he started on Towns and promptly found out how popular it would become. Shortly after, I joined as the Content Manager and PR guy. We then hired Ben Palgi, a very talented artist who’s marketing backround has helped us quite a lot!

The Reticule – Could you tell us about Towns itself?

Alex Poysky – Towns is based on a series of video game archetypes. We have taken cues from the best, Dungeon Keeper, Majesty, The Guild 2, and even Dwarf Fortress. The game is a Town building sim, as well as a heavy handed RPG. You will be defending your town from hordes of Goblins, conquering Spider lairs, looting Hobgoblin troves, and making sure that any adventurers passing by might want to settle down and defend your little town!

The Reticule – What’s next on the agenda for being implemented?

Alex Poysky – Two things, a full-on hero system that will have adventurers come and go as they please, sticking around only long enough to sate their curiosity.

The second item on our list is Multiplayer. We are hoping to include full cooperative support and some form of PVP. Who knows, maybe even a metagame might be included in it’s final form!

The Reticule – How might PVP be implemented?
Alex Poysky – One river, two towns, ’nuff said ;). Maybe a meta-game of sorts too. We can’t go into too much detail at the moment, we will test the waters first and see how far we can push the envelope. I expect to be able to give a better answer once we do some preliminary private testing!

The Reticule – The variety of enemies you’ll have to contend with varies on what level of the dungeon you’ve dug to. Will there be an end-game?

Alex Poysky – We are hoping for about 50-100 in-game hours worth of play, EACH random playthrough. The whole game is sandbox, and every single aspect is moddable. If you ever get bored with the normal mode, try your hand at modding and make a space station sim or a World War 1 trench warfare mod, the sky is the limit with our modding system! In fact, we go to extreme lengths to ensure full moddability!

The Reticule – Being inspired by Dwarf Fortress and having a hero-system, have you given any thought to a playable hero mode, perhaps using a town you’ve built previously?

Alex Poysky – We have no intention of copying Toady’s wonderful game. We took cues from his incredibly detailed building schematic, but our hero system is going to eschew a direct method of control in single player. We are, however, giving thought to adding a multiplayer aspect in which you can control a hero and not the town, and visit another player’s town and help them out.

The Reticule – How about pre-orders, on your site and on Desura? Have the numbers exceeded your expectations?

Alex Poysky – Currently we are very happy with the way things have turned out. We started on the second of December, and to date we are already in phase two of the indie game of the year list. Regardless of what place we finally get into, we still feel like we have won, as being just under two weeks old we have made it to the top! We want to thank each and every person who has ever shown an interest for our game, it’s thanks to you guys that we have made it this far, and with any luck, we will be in the top fifty! Regarding sales, well, we are just starting out, but as I stated before, this sudden burst in popularity has been quite humbling. I for one am considering leaving my day job in the military to pursue my dream of being a video game designer!

The Reticule – Thank you for your time.

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