It's about making the game, finding the joy in that and then sharing it with other people." One of those prototypes became Ace Patrol. Meier, who keeps a large office at Firaxis, semiseparate from the company's design teams, often spends his days tooling on game prototypes. One example of the types of prototypes that turn into big ideas at Firaxis is Sid Meier's Ace Patrol. Sometimes those germs of an idea turn into finished games." But it was just, people want to try out ideas. "'Best use of Mongolian music, traditional Mongolian throat singing,' I think was one of the awards handed out. "They found a category for each one of the games that people made ," says Firaxis Marketing Manager Pete Murray. It's not a competition, although there are prizes. The company frequently hosts such jams, closed to the public, just to see what its people can do. Strenger had first worked with Beyond Earth co-designers McDonough and Miller at an internal Firaxis game jam. "I was wrapping up Brave New World last spring," says Strenger. He split off from his longtime collaborator and reached for space. But Strenger had heard whispers of a sci-fi Civ, a project being led by a young duo of designers fresh off of Firaxis' mobile game Haunted Hollow. When Beach moved on to a new project at Firaxis (something the company won't talk about, but that is still in its early stages), he offered Strenger a spot on his team. It's ready for a new challenge.Īnton Strenger was lead systems designer for the Civ V expansions. And the Civ team, lead by designer Ed Beach, has beaten all of the historical variety it possibly can into the Civ V engine. Firaxis’ XCOM: Enemy Unknown and Enemy Within (based on licenses gained from the now defunct MicroProse), have become worldwide best-sellers. Firaxis has gained the rights to many of Sid Meier's previous titles, including Civ, but not including Alpha Centauri. And although it was praised by critics at the time it was released in 1999, it is widely considered the least commercially successful of Meier’s Civ-type games.įast forward to 2014. The units, technologies and civilizations themselves were not based on historical models. The result: Alpha Centauri.Īlthough a similar 4X strategy game to Civ, Alpha Centauri was new and different in a number of ways. Meier and Reynolds had to make something different, but they wanted to preserve the strengths and successes of their popular Civ-style games. Meier, Reynolds and Jeff Briggs founded Firaxis in 1996 after leaving developer MicroProse, but MicroProse retained the rights to the Civilization games. And it was developed by Meier and Brian Reynolds, the lead designer of Civ II.Īlpha Centauri was also an exercise for the developers in navigating business practicalities. the end.Īlpha Centauri was a game built to answer the question: Then what? It was like Civ, in that it involved building a civilization, discovering resources and negotiating with competing civs. One of the ways to win, traditionally, has been to build a starship and launch your civilization into space. "People were ready for Civ to grow up and move into the modern age."Ĭivilization is a game about building a great nation that will thrive through war and prosperity and evolve to eventually become the greatest civilization in the world. They're the co-lead designers behind Civilization: Beyond Earth, the game that will once again carry Sid Meier's epic creation out of the solar system. Over a decade after seeing that rocket, Miller and longtime friend Dave McDonough are launching their own space mission. But unlike most kids, he is going to grow up to make his dreams come true - in a way. Miller is like a lot of kids who dream of becoming astronauts, of soaring into outer space. He wonders if he might some day go into space. He thinks about how much power it takes to send such a small object into space, and how, back here on the ground, there are people who made that powerful rocket, that tiny command module, using parts and tools and their hands.
He looks up at the engine bell, then at the relatively tiny command module. The parts that took men to the moon.Įleven-year-old Will Miller stands next to the bell of the F1, the broad business end of the rocket engine. It's broken into sections: the F1 rocket engines, the first stage, the second stage, the third stage and then the command module and escape tower - the parts people recognize. Lying on its side, it's longer than three 18-wheelers and as tall as a three-story house.