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For this featured Getting To Know Your Developer (GTKYD) interview, there's a double dose of strategy gaming developers. Philipp E. and Lennart Berg discuss their work on Arsenal of Democracy and share their gaming influences. Read on for an interesting perspective from the developers at BL-Logic and how they believe in making games that challenge your mind rather than your trigger finger.
Interview 1: Philipp E.
Who are you and what do you do in the gaming industry?
My name is Philipp E., I’m 26 years old and I’m a developer on the Arsenal of Democracy team. I live in beautiful Stuttgart, Germany.
I do game concepts and graphics as my main task, and my secondary job is to organize and manage all the contacts and people who are involved direct or indirectly with the project.
What are you currently working on or just released?
At the moment I'm working on Arsenal of Democracy, a Hearts of Iron series game.
How did you get into the games industry?
I always loved to play games. Strategy games with playing depth were always my favorite ones. One day I discovered Hearts of Iron and somehow I got to meet Lennart on the HoI forums a few years later. We get along very well and he's a real skilled guy, not just in terms of coding but also with people and business. He signed up for the Europa Engine program and got accepted. I joined his team and that was how it all began with AoD.
What is your favorite game you have every played on any console and why?
I like a Zelda style game on the NES very, very much. But I don't remember its name, it’s just too far away in the past. It had a huge dimension in terms of map size, storyline and overall feel. It had this Indiana Jones flair – like a big giant world and you discover the story piece by piece. I was around 10-14 years old, I guess, but that game fascinated me so much. You somehow felt you could connect to those characters.
What are you currently playing?
Actually I’m not playing very much besides HoI. I tend to read a lot in my free time on economic theory, political science, warfare – the classics, Clausewitz, Sun-Tzu and also the new ones like Schwarzkopf, Greene or Guderian – and history. I think my overall hobbies just match perfect with the development of games on a strategic scale.
What games are you looking forward to playing in the next year and why?
Besides AoD maybe some good “no-brain” shooter. I came to find the last Call of Duty: Modern Warfare very nice. I expect the successor to be as entertaining as the last part of the series.
What was the last game that you finished?
I've mostly played open-ended shooters and Hearts of Iron for the last few years... the last one was probably Half-Life 2.
What is next for you?
Definitely “Hearts of Iron 3: Arsenal of Democracy” – well, it would be really great if our AoD Dev Team gets contracted for a HoI3 Expansion. You can’t imagine what crazy things we could do with this shiny new engine. I promise you if a chain of events would go into that direction for us, we would create a game for you guys that will give you years of fun to come.
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Interview 2: Lennart Berg
Who are you and what do you do in the gaming industry?
My name is Lennart Berg, an educated electronic engineer, but I am at heart a programmer. I am also the founder and owner of BL-Logic, where I have worked the last 6 years. The gaming industry has always been a dream of mine, without ever having the time or the right angle to make a more complex game, however I have been busy working on developing 3D engines / animation and networking code in my free time the last 10 years.
What are you currently working on or just released?
Well I am the lead developer for Arsenal of Democracy, which should be released around December 17. And without doubt it will be by far the most polished game based on the Hearts of Iron franchise… It should be... we have been working on it for quite some time ;)
How did you get into the games industry?
Well me and Johan (lead developer for Paradox Interactive) had some talks regarding the release of the old source codes to the community in 2006-2007, which he took further and instead gave the option to license the Europa engine and source code to their old games in 2008. As I already had prepared the infrastructure and written down all my ideas and plans for HOI2, I was accepted without much fuzz and here we are almost 2 years after.
What is your favorite game you have every played on any console and why?
To be honest I don’t play consoles that much – I don’t even own one. I’m an old school PC user and find the dumbing down of games so they can be ported to consoles rather frustrating, to be honest. But as we are talking about all time, then either Populous 2 or Powermonger on the Amiga 500 would have the top spots. Both developed by Bullfrog and truly inspired me by showing that gameplay, depth and immersion is without doubt the heart of any game.
What are you currently playing?
Good question – well if I really have the time I keep working on/playing AoD. But when we play over Lan/ internet the games would be:
Empires: Dawn of the Modern World (Stainless Steel),
Sins of a Solar Empire (Ironclad),
and last but not least Europa Universalis 3 (Paradox Interactive).
What games are you looking forward to playing in the next year and why?
Starcraft 2, as Blizzard always seems to get the gameplay right, and I am also very interested to see what the billions they earn each year for WoW are getting us in the end ;)
Also, I think R.U.S.E and Overlord 2 might be interesting to watch.
Other than that I only see sequels on sequels, or just another Shooter 32(tm).
What was the last game that you finished?
Hmmm… as the clause is “finished” that would probably be a Tetris clone (my first game ever).
What is next for you?
Well we have talked a bit about that and we have some good ideas up in our sleeves for the future games. We will keep to the strategy sector as that is, in our opinion, a very underdeveloped market, and these games are just more fun for us to play ;) So its like the old slogan “Games for gamers by gamers.”
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Thanks to Philipp E., Lennart Berg, Tom Ohle, BL-Logic and Paradox Interactive for making this interview possible! Visit the official website from Arsenal of Democracy here. Arsenal of Democracy will be available for the PC in December 2009 for $19.99.
See more of our GTKYD interviews here.
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