The creator of The Settlers talks about building a new game while remembering the lessons of his old one.
Goods are found by exploring procedurally generated islands, each one rich with both resources and unknown dangers.
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This interview was conducted via email and edited for clarity.
Volker Wertich:Every game system of Pioneers of Pagonia has been freshly designed and offers a new experience.
How has building a team with experience in the sim genre helped the overall process?
Half the team has more than 20 years of experience developing strategy games, which is our foundation.
As you assumed, we are not worried about the realization of the core systems.
What are some of the challenges or pitfalls in the sim genre youre trying to avoid here?
How are you doing that?
The biggest pitfall is choosing the wrong battles for your initial release.
How does the use of procedurally generated areas change the design philosophy of a sim like this?
How is the team using that unpredictability to its advantage?
Procedural generation of content is a very powerful tool which is already very important for many games.
Some people mistake procedural generation with complete randomness.
For Pioneers of Pagonia, a simulation with many different interconnected game systems, procedural content fits excellently.
The combination of those challenges will be unique on each map.
Finally, what should fans of previous sim games like The Settlers expect from this new game?
Will there be a new learning curve, or will they be able to jump right in?
Ideally, everything can be understood by watching the game world.
Every transportation, resource gathering, and production process is visualized in detail.
This will enable anyone to start building and experimenting right away.
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