Here I speak with Seven Volts CEO, Pourya Arami, about how the Seven Volts crew came together, their love of Command and Conquer and details of Commanding Nations itself. Hit the break for the full Q&A.

The Reticule – First up, can you give me some background to the team and how you all came together? Is this your first game?

Pourya Arami – Seven Volts games has been in the making for almost two years now and Commanding Nations has been something I’ve been trying to realize for the last 8 years, but I just could not find the right person to get it off the ground with until I met Charlie [lead programmer and co-founder], who had the same passion and love for RTS as I did, with his skills in programming and mine in the business and design side of games, it was a logical step to team up. We worked on the game for a while and slowly we expanded the team with talented individuals who all excel at what they do. The current team is made up of Charlie, Georgii, Tristan, Dino, James, Jimi, Ligeiro and Anton. Our Community managers are currently Natan and Tiemen who are assisted by Discord moderators. We also have Jérémie who is responsible for the background story of the game and the lore. I am working more on the business side of things and assisting the team wherever I can.

For me, this is not my first game, I have worked on different titles in the past and have been a part of the gaming industry for over 15 year. For some in our team, this will be their first release while others have experience and have worked on other titles just like myself. I think the most important thing is how each individual in the team is a crucial part of the process and how we have been able to transform into this indie studio within this short amount of time.

The Reticule – Has it been a challenge getting a new team formed during the pandemic, are you all working remotely?

Pourya Arami – I think the most challenging thing for me was to find people who are qualified for their position. There are a ton of people who offered help and wanted to be part of the project, but our promise has always been to redefine RTS both visually and mechanically while honouring the games we grew up with. So yes it was extremely challenging finding the right people but we are all like one big family and I am honestly honoured to be working with such driven individuals.

We are all working remotely from all over the world. We have members from Brazil, UK, South Africa, Ukraine, The Netherlands and Uruguay to name a few.

The Reticule – What game engine are you using to build Commanding Nations, and what made you chose it?

Pourya Arami – Commanding Nations is using Unity, we have our own custom tools built on top and are using tools such as Houdini to speed up certain processes.

Unity was the engine of choice because most of us had years of experience with it. We did not want to experiment with other engines and decided to choose one which we are extremely comfortable with

The Reticule – So you’ve got quite a diverse group working on Commanding Nations, are you all lifelong Command and Conquer fans?

Pourya Arami – I got into the universe with Red Alert 2, one of my best friends showed the game to me when I was visiting, and I immediately fell in love. I bought the game the same day and started playing it, but what really got me hooked was Generals, and the fact that we had acceptable internet when the game came out, so I could play with other people. I’ve spent so many hours in that game and have some of the most beautiful moments of my childhood thanks to that game, it really was the go to game me and my best friends played and play to this day every week. I think its fair to assume how disappointed I was when Generals 2 got cancelled and I was even more disappointed that I never had the chance to try it. That was the catalyst that pushed me to want to create my own RTS game.

The rest of team is quite split in that regard. While Charlie is also a lifelong Command and Conquer fan, Georgi for example loves RTS in general and so do the other members of the team, who are actually much younger and didn’t grow up with Command and Conquer.

The Reticule – I fell in love with Command and Conquer with Red Alert 2 as well, and found Generals a fun next step on the RTS journey. However I wasn’t as fond of the resurrected Red Alert and Tiberium games which followed. The Command and Conquer community will probably want to know your take on the post-Generals direction that series took, and how that has influenced your design decisions with Commanding Nations?

Pourya Arami – That’s a fair question. To be honest I believe that the games post-Generals did not really do anything to try to revive the RTS genre or did anything memorable for me. Were they fun games? Yes, but I always try to think about what inspired the creators at Westwood studios to create Command and Conquer instead of trying to draw inspiration out of titles that came before Commanding Nations. Will Commanding Nations be heavily influenced by the games that were fun in the Command and Conquer universe? Yes.

Are we copying those games and trying to do what has already been done? Absolutely not. Every other genre managed to move on and reinvent itself to survive and I think that’s our main responsibility at Seven Volts, to create a game where players of the older games feel at home but at the same time introduce all these new and exciting elements that attracts a new generation of players.

The Reticule – So what are you bringing to the RTS genre which is new and going to give the genre a rebirth in a world where MOBAs now dominate?

Pourya Arami – Before I start, I do have to say that we are keeping some elements as a surprise for our Kickstarter, but we are really putting the focus on the community aspect. This means that you can create your own team, play together and compete in tournaments and have access to the community at all times thanks to the integration which we will have with the website later down the road. So we are bringing it all together.

We are also creating a game that allows us to introduce new factions who each offer different ways of play, this is something which we took from the MOBA world. Our map designs are unlike any other RTS game out there, we are not only allowing extreme close ups and highly detailed worlds, but we are also trying to create maps that feel alive and will punish you if you don’t respect them.

For example, a direct path to a opponents base could lead you trough territories where civilians have occupied buildings and will attack your units who are passing by, this will force you to rethink your rush strategies and really adjust how you play the game. On top of that, we have recently promoted one of the level designers of Iron Harvest who is going to fully focus on taking our maps and concepts to an even higher level when it comes to strategic gameplay mechanics.

Now this is just a few of the things we are doing, but lets be clear about one thing, our goal is not to compete with other RTS games out there, our goal is to create a game where all RTS players eventually feel welcome and can find a faction that fits their play style. Commanding Nations will be an ongoing commitment for us and a game which will evolve even after release.

The Reticule – You’ve talked about the online side of things, but is there a campaign mode, or are we talking AI skirmish fights and online play only?

Pourya Arami – So the game is a multiplayer game only and yes you can go play skirmish if you like. we are not doing any campaign mode and it’s not in our near future plans seeing the cost which involves in creating a single player game. Commanding Nations offers ranked matches where you go against people with your own skill level, or custom games where you can customize most of the games elements to your liking and go against anyone you like, even AI, yes.

The Reticule – I’ve seen on Discord a recent decision was taken to move away from nation based factions to play on and to move towards character driven factions. What drove that decision?

Pourya Arami – The decision to move towards characters was because of two things. First, we wanted to create factions which had different layers to them. For example, while the Faction of Wolfgang and Yo Hong are both PMC’S, Zane’s faction is basically people of a nation coming together to fight to take back their land. At the same time we will have countries involved at a certain point and we are even thinking of things such as the cartel in Mexico who has access to a lot of firepower and basically has its own army.

The second reason was, we felt like we were insulting certain countries with Asia United and Scav and decided to fully back away from that. We highly respect each individual in our community and we don’t want to create a game where their countries are portrait as terrorist or evil, by making the story about individuals who play a major role in their nations search for power, we eliminated this.

The Reticule – You’ll be launching on Kickstarter in the near future. What can you reveal about your plans for the Kickstarter?

Pourya Arami – So it’s good to know that our Kickstarter backers will be the first to play the game and also help us define a ton of things, such as buffs/nerfs of factions. game improvements, what we should add or remove or adjust. So basically, they will have a lot to say in how the final game will play, so for anyone who wants to have influence, i would highly advise them to make sure to get ready for our Kickstarter. We hope to launch on Kickstarter end of August/early September.

For more on Commanding Nations, check out the official website here, follow the team on Twitter, or join them on Discord.

The Reticule – Hi Jonas, Figment has been out for a couple of months now on the PC, have you been busy since release?

Jonas Byrresen – Yep, and doing plenty of different things as well. One thing is fixing up all the small bugs and feedback that you always get after a release. No matter how thorough of a QA process you do, there will always be some new bugs. That took priority just after release, to ensure the game works smoothly for all players.

We have also spent a good deal of energy doing PR, both from home and by travelling to conventions and game shows all around. Making the game is just part of it, you also have to tell and show people it exist. This can be time consuming, especially planning for an event and the event itself will drain some energy. But it’s all worth it, since the reactions are very positive.

Other than that, we are of course working on porting the game to the different consoles – something we are very excited about, but it a process that always demands some work.

The Reticule – What has the reaction been like, are you pleased with how the game has performed?

Jonas Byrresen – We are more than happy with the reactions and reception from both media and players. The game world and experience we have created for Figment is definitely something that stands out in positive way. People enjoy the creative use of art and music, which is very unique to the game, but also enjoy our way of approaching and dealing with the series subject of overcoming a trauma. We always knew the theme would work, and it seems players really enjoy a new way of looking at it.

So, so far we are happy. We would always like for more players to try it out, but nowadays you have to think more long-term with a game’s lifetime. We see it as a good thing that games can stay ageless and still be relevant in a year or two. Most great indie titles have been that, and Figment is not exception.

The Reticule – You’re working on a Switch version, along with PlayStation 4 and Xbox One releases. What challenges have you faced porting the game for the Switch?

Jonas Byrresen – There will always be challenges and work when porting, no matter to what platform. We didn’t really know what to expect from the Switch, as we were told it was not that hard, but we had a hard time with the WiiU before. So far it has been going pretty well and the game is essentially running on the console right now. Now it’s a question of getting to run well at all times to create a good experience for the player.

Some of the challenges have been how to handle save games, visual effects and how we compress textures. It was what we kind of expected, as the Switch is not as powerful as many gaming PCs or the other consoles. So it’s not unsolvable – it just demands some good programmers and a load of coffee. Luckily we’ve got that covered.

The Reticule – With Nintendo’s platform still in the early days, but enjoying fantastic growth, do you think you will be releasing on the Switch at an ideal time to make the most of the buzz around it?

Jonas Byrresen – That’s what we’re hoping. It’s a new, fast-growing market with motivated players that want some games to play, and we hope to be one of those games. But it is also because we feel Figment fits the platform very well. The aesthetics of the game work great on both the small and the big screen, and we feel the game itself fits the mentality of the Nintendo platform very well. It has a lot of players who value games with fantastical game worlds, who value aesthetics over fidelity, and who never forget the value of fun and good gameplay. Figment is made with that mentality and we hope it’s what Switch players want more of.

The Reticule – The game has quite a unique concept, being a musical, but also exploring issues of the mind. What led you to making this game?

Jonas Byrresen – The very first idea for the game came flying home from GDC in San Francisco some years ago. We had some award success with the early version of our first game, Back to Bed, and had been asked if we had plans to keep going in that style of game. Back to Bed took place in a dream world, so we asked ourselves “what if we went even deeper?” and ended up deciding on diving into the subconsciousness, where dreams are made.

Adding to this we wanted to make something that had a deep world the player could explore, as that was what players had asked for after Back to Bed. They liked the world, and wanted to stay in it longer than a straight-up puzzle game allowed. So we decided to create a game world that can best be described as a metaphysical location that represents a human mind and then letting the player explore it via a good story.

The Reticule – The music has received a lot of praise, who did the work on it?

Jonas Byrresen – The big focus on music was actually not part of the original plan for the game. We always wanted good music on the game, but it was not one of the main pillars. That was until our audio designer Niels Sørensen, aka. StÖj Snak, joined the team. Niels had already worked as both sound and game designer for some years, plus doing music tours as StÖj Snak, and when we got the chance to get him on the team we jumped at it.

He asked if he could do some experiments to start with, and he came up with connecting movement in the world to rhythm and letting many of the big bosses have musical pieces throughout the game. We really liked the idea of having the big central enemies in the story communicate their theme through music and song. It feels unique and can tell more than words at the same time.

Having a sound designer that also has experience in game design and storytelling was a big bonus. Especially for me as the creative director, as it was so much easier to jam together and make the gameplay and story work with the audio.

The Reticule – What are you most proud of about Figment?

Jonas Byrresen – Hmm, that is a really hard question to ask when we are so many people that have put so much work into it, and I think people have different things they are very proud of. So I will be a bit rebellious and say the two things I am most proud of, and hope it also encompasses the rest of the team.

An element in the game that many people have reacted very positively to is our approach to a very deep subject in a new and interesting way. Overcoming our fears is a key part of being human, so everyone has experienced it, but not everyone talks about it. We just approach it in an open way with a bit of humour – something that we find better than just shutting it up – and it seems to have struck a chord with many players.

Also I’m very proud of many of the key events, be they puzzles or bosses, throughout the game, as they often contain both great art, music, gameplay and story, all working together without trying to push the other down. That is the strength of the gaming medium: using all other media to create something new, which just one or two alone could not create.

Our thanks to Jonas for his time. We’ll be taking a closer look at Figment when it lands on the Switch. In the meantime, why not check the demo out on Steam.

Anthology is the brainchild of Lewis Denby, a figure who has become inextricably linked with the British indie game scene. You might remember his work back in the day on Resolution Magazine (where he was kind enough to let me contribute now and again) before moving to the old editorial side of BeefJack. While at BeefJack, Lewis spread his wings, telling me that he “did a bunch of things, from PR to production to general management pieces. Away from the public eye I worked on probably ten or fifteen games for clients, and marketed about 40.” He soon went on to work on his first game, Richard & Alice which our own Steven Fulton greatly enjoyed back in 2013 and was later involved in the development of Sepulchre, all the while working with the team at BeefJack.

Last year, Lewis made a change “I felt it was time for something new, quit my job with no prospects like some sort of idiot, but fortunately managed to weave my way into a career as an indie games… helper person?” Now, he is revealing Anthology which he has been working on with Khaled Makhshoush (background art) and Francisco Gonzalez (characters and animation). After taking such a break since last being directly involved in game development, I asked him what brought him back to hands-on development:

[I have] An incurable desire to take on new projects that I have no reasonable capacity to commit to. That’s only a half-joke. But in fact, what happened is that I found myself with a little more free time than I used to have, and an idea for a world whose story I wanted to tell, and I know from experience I’m a better game designer than novelist – five abandoned novels and counting, and I’m not even 30 yet – so it kind of went from there.

Anthology then is a collection of short point-and-click adventures, all taking place in the same faraway city, on the same afternoon. Lewis asked me to think back to major world events, and pointed out that conversations often lead to a “What were you doing when…?” moment. That idea of shared, but independent experiences lies at the heart of Anthology:

Tapping into the lives of a number of different people, who were simply going about their daily lives at the time a major world event began to unfold. The stories are independent, but as you play through each one, the wider story of the world reveals itself, and it’s this that ties them together.

Looking back at his history with Richard & Alice and Sepulchre and the experience he has built up over the years of working closely with other independent developers, I have confidence that this will come together to offer a unique story telling experience. Yet, despite my faith in what this trio can achieve, I was still confused as to why Lewis chose an anthological format, he explained his decision as coming down to a couple of reasons:

One, I find the concept alluring. When writing a single story there’s only so much you can show about a world, because you’re limited to the perspectives of only one or maybe two characters. Then, on a more practical level, it breaks up development nicely, such that we can build the framework then focus on making a single game at a time. The idea actually started as one larger story, but having a distinct ending didn’t quite seem to fit the idea.

Lewis cut himself off there, clearly unwilling to let slip any more of the story than absolutely necessary. He did reveal some more about how he came to work with Khaled and Francisco. Khaled had never worked on  a game before, but Lewis told me that he “was immediately drawn to his distinctive, minimalist style” and that Khaled has been great at bringing fresh ideas to the project, and injecting a sense of life to the game. Lewis had long been a fan of Francisco’s work, and it was thanks to Ben Chandler (artist on Sepulchre) that the two got together, immediately clicking after Lewis sent through the design document for Anthology.  Lewis told me that it’s been a “joy to work with these guys. I love collaborating with talented people, who can instantly make a project so much richer than you ever imagined at the start.”

If you want to find out more about the game, check out the official site and get voting for it on Greenlight. I’ve heard rumours that Lewis is offering all those who vote for Anthology cute animal pictures. He’s got my vote already, no animal pictures required.

The Reticule –  Can you tell us a little bit about yourselves?

Hi there! We’re a two person indie development team looking to create atmospheric and engaging games. Although we are new to game development, we are very familiar with the development process and fortunately some of those skills do transfer over. In our former careers we were software engineers that developed large, big-data type systems and applications.  And although that was fun, working on HEVN has been much more rewarding. It’s hard to beat learning art, game programming, sound effects, music, and a game engine from scratch only to watch something come to life from it.

Another interesting aspect is we’re developing HEVN remotely. One half of the team is in Seattle and the other half in Phoenix. This means 2 hour video meetings nearly every day (we’ve adapted a quasi-Agile approach) to make sure we’re working towards our goals for the game.

The Reticule –  Tell us about the game, what will players be getting up to?

In HEVN, players are thrust into an unexpectedly mysterious mining expedition millions of miles away from Earth. They are isolated and under pressure to thrive and survive. They can also expect a narrative that spans time and space with interstellar intrigue, adventure, and characters and objects that fill out the world. There are random events, puzzles, choices, survival elements, and even optional combat. There is quite a bit of backstory as well. Not for the sake of just more content, but it’s all built into the world to help make it that much more immersive.

The Reticule –  What is the inspiration behind the game?

It seems like we’re always finding new inspirations, whether it be from other games, movies, books, or even real life. Originally the idea was born from a simple question when we first started to get involved in game development (it wasn’t HEVN at the time, but a generic mobile helicopter rescue game that was uninspired). A family member asked “why not make a game you’d play?”. And with that we immediately switched gears and HEVN was the result.

But we are both huge fans of science fiction. While designing HEVN we drew upon our individual and collective favorites like Deus Ex, System Shock, Bioshock, Fallout, Mass Effect, Moon, The Martian, Alien, and 2001: A Space Odyssey!

Gameplay-wise, there have been a few games in the past where the immersion would kind of break due to minor object interaction issues such as, “Why can I pick up this particular object but not that one?” or “Why does this trash can move under physics but not that chair?” or “Why can I do this but not that?”

Although these things are common in games and definitely don’t prevent a player from finishing or even enjoying a game, there have been times where we’d notice this. It’s just something we try to address when creating objects, but obviously it’s a huge challenge. Just something to strive for as far as immersion goes.

The Reticule –  Pick one thing you are most proud of about the game, and tell us about it.

Recently I think we’ve become more proud of the story and how it has evolved throughout the development process. As more mechanics and features find their way into the game, we’ve figured out ways to adapt the story to those mechanics in a way where everything seems to fit pretty well and provide more gameplay depth overall.

The Reticule –  What excites you about the future of the industry?

It’s just really cool that more and more people are becoming interested in games. A big part of that is likely due to having more accessible platforms, but really the incredible developers out there are making some amazing things. And it feels like there is no shortage of inspiration and growth. Developers are willing to experiment, and people are willing to take chances on indie titles!

For more on Hevn, check out the official website or the Steam Greenlight page.

The Reticule –  Can you tell us a little bit about yourself?

An engineer by education, a science buff by hobby, a father of two kids at home, and an aspiring philosopher by heart, I had a childhood fascination for Enid Blyton adventures and exploration-based puzzle games (apart from birdwatching). Upon discovering during my Ph.D at Stanford that science becomes infinitely more interesting when learnt through its history, I embarked (with my friend Vivek Kaul, who has a Ph.D from Georgia Tech as well as a number of Master’s degrees, and previously worked at Facebook on machine learning) on creating a game that teaches science the way we wish we had been taught, and also satisfies my childhood fantasies – and hopefully those of children around the world.

In my past life, I graduated with a Ph.D in Computer Science from Stanford after doing research into human evolutionary genetics and cultural anthropology, and worked as a Principal Engineer at WalmartLabs (formerly Kosmix). I grew up in India and studied computer science at the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi before coming to the US for my Master’s and Ph.D.

The Reticule –  Tell us about the game, what will players be getting up to?

Odyssey is a first-person exploration puzzle game in which the puzzles are based on the history of science. The player will embark on a quest to uncover the story of a family that is holed up on a remote group of islands that needs your help. Kai, a 13-year-old girl in the family, is the one who sends out a distress call to you as you’re sailing close to the islands, and upon landing on the first of those islands, you will find your path barricaded by a sequence of puzzles. But to help you get through them, you will find a sequence of journal fragments written by Kai.

Reading those fragments is the key to learning not only the story of the family and why they’re in trouble, but also the way Kai has spent several months of her time rediscovering some of the biggest ideas in the 2000-year-long story of astronomy and mechanics, from the ancient Greeks to Galileo. Understanding those ideas through her journal will help you make sense of the models you will find during your exploration, and how to crack the puzzles built around the models, that would allow you to successfully navigate through the islands.

The Reticule –  What is the inspiration behind the game?

There are three different sources of inspiration that came together in the design of the game. The first is our experience of learning science by retracing how the ideas were invented by the philosophers of the past. I still remember my very first exposure to such an experience – I had taken a class in evolutionary biology at Stanford, and while browsing through some of the video lectures in Green library, I came across a course on the history of evolutionary theory, and I found that I learnt the big picture about evolution much better through the historical course than the regular course. I wondered why we don’t learn every subject that way. When Vivek and I started teaching math and science courses at Stanford Splash using such an approach, we found that the children felt more motivated to learn.

A second source of inspiration for me was the Enid Blyton adventures I used to read in my childhood. I always felt great pleasure in vicariously participating in those adventures through reading, and always wished I could experience an adventure like that in a more immersive way. Stories like the Island of Adventure, the Sea of Adventure, and The Adventurous Four have influenced the way we designed the islands.

A third source of inspiration for the game was Myst. I played it back in 1998 at my friend’s place during a sleepover, and for two nights, I barely slept as I got swept into the experience of journeying through the islands while trying to figure out all the puzzles.

The Reticule –  Pick one thing you are most proud of about the game, and tell us why

Educational games generally tend to feel quite overtly educational, and there is either no storytelling or it’s patched on top of the content in an incidental way. We have gone much further in developing the environment and story in the journal, and blending it with the history of science content in a very unique way.

The Reticule –  What excites you about the future of the industry?

We are newcomers to the game industry and we feel excited to find people increasingly talking about game-based learning as a vital part of education in the 21st Century. As the barrier to entry for building realistic game environments becomes lower, it becomes more feasible to build increasingly more immersive educational experiences.

To find out more about Odyssey, check out their Kickstarter page or find their successful Steam Greenlight page here.