Destruction with friends
“The whole epiphany on how the multiplayer should work came from the credit system, which we feel kind of mimics respawning in first-person shooters. It makes the whole game more accessible to players, as they can just drop in. So we took some ideas from FPSs, and we built our community system from the ground up to support clan systems, so that people from any other type of game could join in.

“Team play was also absolutely key to building the game. From the very beginning, we knew that we had the potential to make a really original team-based strategy game, and that was our cornerstone. That philosophy influenced all decisions throughout the design process. Our lead designer is playing all the time, and actively participates in the forum, really getting involved with feedback from the gamers. We actually just had some team vs community matches, which we won all of bar one, but I don’t think it’ll be long before the best players are beating us.”

The nuke
“The nuke was the effect we put the most hours into. I still get a chill every time the screen just whites out - I think we just got it right. I know some gamers wanted it to be bigger, but it wouldn’t be much fun if it just killed the whole map like a real nuke. That’d limit the game.

“I think the secret behind them is in the camera - you see the horizon, and the whole effect works in 3D. From an immersion perspective, it just makes things more stunning.

“In the single-player there’s only one nuke, but in multiplayer we wanted it to be something that players could have a lot of, so we made it less powerful - so it didn’t just end the whole match the moment one is used - while at the same time making them useful.”