Eufloria

Eufloria is an indie game that caught our attention as it was developed from the award-baiting proof-of-concept Dyson and naturally we wanted to know more about the people and the thinking behind the project.

The core development team is just two guys: Alex May (programmer) and Rudolf Kremers (designer) while Eufloria also had a guest performance on audio from Brian Grainger. (AKA Milieu)

Alex is the programmer of Eufloria, with over 7 years of industry experience. Having been involved with a number of very well known licenses including Buzz and Avatar the last Airbender and is very active as an independent developer. Rudolf is a game design veteran who has worked on original new IP like Eufloria as well as famous brands like Harry Potter, Championship Manager and Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. In addition Rudolf has also authored the book “Level Design: Concept, Theory & Practice”. Brian is a multitalented and prolific musician and audio specialist whose output is enormous having released over 50 albums, remixed for many people and runs his own record company.

We asked Rudolf and Alex to give us some insight into their ambitions with their game design and here you have it from the horse’s mouth, so to speak,

“Let’s just say that for Eufloria we had a number of ambitions, some of them as follows:

Accessibility:

Space exploration and strategy games are genres that often throw massive amounts of barriers at players who are new to these types of games. We wanted to create something that could be played by most people, with an easy to use and easy to learn interface. There is no need to have a keyboard shortcuts overlay, no need to learn and study RTS tech trees, no need to worry that not clicking fast enough will lose a battle... The visuals were also intended to appeal broadly rather than be determined by genre cliches.

Ambient Gaming:

More than just an original conquest or strategy game we wanted to create a game where the game's environment and the game’s other qualities like its audio design and its visual elements work together to create an experience that is enjoyable in its own right. This is done to enhance the core gameplay, but crucially, this can also be enjoyed independently of the game’s play mechanics. Or rather: a core value of an ambient game is the appreciation of its ambiance.

Procedural Generation:

We wanted to harness the power of procedural generation to help us create a meaty game with only a small team. We also wanted to incorporate procedural generation in actual gamplay mechanics, for instance in the semi random distribution of asteroids and their statistics.”

And so to the game!

Eufloria builds ever so slightly on the themes of space exploration and culture expansion. So much has been stripped from what an experienced gamer expects from the genre that it becomes interactive artwork rather than a full game: beguiling, with its stark procedural graphics and movement, and mellow wind-chime soundtrack. Elegant, with its one-handed gameplay that lets you rest your chin in your other palm and drool yourself into an unfocused reverie about the last time you went outdoors.

Eufloria asks you to follow 25 story levels. You learn to move seedlings from asteroid to asteroid. Seedlings are your currency, your foot soldiers, and your resources. But for now, we're just moving them around, using a remarkably clever drag-and-drop system. Left-click on the centre of an asteroid with your seedlings on it, and a green orbit appears. Move the mouse from the asteroid to this orbit, and you'll select anywhere between one and all of the seedlings. Cross the green line without letting go of the mouse button, and you'll move them all. You can select a single unit with a right click - useful for scouting missions. It's an elegant and intuitive system.

But, you're thinking, you've played a few strategy games in your time, and only having one unit is instantly alarming. But there is some variety. Seedlings inherit properties from their asteroid, and there are three properties. Energy determines a unit's physical size, its HP, and its ability to sap an enemy core. Strength is the ability to deliver damage: not much good without energy unless you're attacking an unprotected asteroid. Speed is obvious, but the difference between slow and fast is the difference between drumming your fingers and feeling like an intergalactic plant commander. This is all represented by the size and shape of your seeds, when you're zoomed in: zoomed out, they're a pixelswarm.

Level two introduces us to colonization, and the limitations of where you can send your seedlings. A colonized asteroid adds to your explorable area, and larger asteroids provide a larger radius in which to travel. This leads to some interesting opportunities: you can cut off over-adventurous units, leaving them unable to move. You should also be careful using a giant asteroid's range, as it could easily be a one-way journey. Finding bottlenecks and using this range to your advantage is one of the more interesting parts of the game, and it quickly becomes second nature.

Level three brings on the Greys - a mindless, angry threat, whose aggression upsets Mother Tree, your narrator. "They are mad with violence and anger. Why do they fight us?" Her answer comes in level four, where other seedling empires are ushered in. Upon meeting them, your seedlings instantly attack. Attacking an enemy-controlled asteroid is a matter of overwhelming it with seeds, destroying one of their trees, and barreling down its roots to infect the core. You inherit the surviving trees on the asteroid, but the destroyed tree is always replaced by a seed-producing Dyson. This means you have little say in the loadout of your asteroids, as you can't destroy and rebuild, either. Still, it's a spectacle - once the tree is destroyed, and the path to the core opened, your seedlings gain a sense of urgent purpose - hurling themselves at the impassive asteroid like the over-excited gametes they are. The asteroid only accepts one seed every so often, so a haze of rejected seedlings bounce from the surface. It's one of the most comical and charming uses of swarm AI we've seen.

Defense trees - the second and only other form of tree - are introduced in level five. Level six tells you how to select seeds with a certain quality - double-clicking on an asteroid lets you select from strong, fast, or energetic seeds, and move them individually. The last thing you'll learn about is flowers. Produced without any discernible pattern by mature trees, flowers can be plucked off and planted on any asteroid to dramatically enhance a single Dyson or Defense tree. They also cause trees to grow the occasional mine - a strong weapon that can be dispatched to defend or attack asteroids, delivering tri-lasered death to enemy seedlings.

As to the future Alex and Rudolph are looking at the possibility of porting the game to other platforms, as well as looking into other game(s) in the Eufloria universe.