Chris Jensen: First off, congratulations to the entire team on making such a great strategy game. So tell me, what was release day like for you and the other members?

Craig Fraser: Thanks for the review!

Release day was incredibly exciting for the team. Several of us were up all night speaking with the community on the SINS IRC (chat), answering forum posts, writing interviews, and preparing our first bonus patch.

Very early in the morning people began popping up in chat screaming, typing complete gibberish, and asking repeatedly when the game would be up (for online download). It felt a lot like Christmas morning, everyone wanted to open their presents right away and we were the exhausted parents hoping everyone would have a perfect day! I was on the Dual screen, jumping back and forth between IRC, trying to help people get started, and Ironclad Online, doing tours of the game and getting games organized. Others were working nonstop behind the scenes on technical support, or playing the game with new players. Everyone had a smile fixed to their face all day!

CJ: Take me back in time...how was Ironclad Games formed? What were some previous games that members of the team had worked on prior to joining Ironclad?

CF: Half of our original team spawned from Rockstar Games, previously Barking Dog Studios in Vancouver. Our programmers worked on Relic’s Homeworld Cataclysm, Disney’s Treasure Planet, and Bully along with some other titles we can’t talk about. Other members of our team merged from a design/branding studio, completing the business and art direction for the team.

CJ: How did Sins come about as a game idea?

CF: It’s originally inspired by a board game my brother and I used to play when we were young called Buck Rogers: Battle for the 25th Century by TSR. It had hero characters leading fleets in space battles, planet conquering and so forth. We always wanted a computer game like that to play in real-time. Naturally, every space game we’ve played since then has been an influence but again and again board games come into play (we play a lot of them) and probably the most recent influence was Settlers of Catan. Ultimately, the desire was to combine the best 4X titles with an RTS with some board game ideas thrown in the mix.

CJ: Sins is obviously influenced by 4X strategy games from the past, a genre of gaming I loved in the 80s and 90s. I have fond memories of playing Reach for the Stars like a lunatic on my Amiga 500, at least when I wasn't busy playing Dungeon Master. What was your first 4X game?

CF: Without question, we strived to capture the spirit of the 4X classics that we loved playing as kids. I lost my 4X-virginity with VGA Planets. Version 3 I think she was? I can remember rushing home from school to connect via dial-up BBS. It was so fascinating to play against other players remotely and the vastness of space and exploration really appealed to me. I was introduced to the game by my brother (and Ironclad’s in-house producer) Blair, who I would fight for first turn on the kitchen computer.

Lately we’ve been receiving many emails and forum posts from disenfranchised gamers of that era that are surprised to see the genre moving forward. This feels great!

CJ: How long did it take to develop Sins?

CF: We were in development for about 2 years. A year prior to development the team was hashing out gameplay concepts and developing the engine, tools, and technologies and all the stuff involved in setting up a company.

CJ: Was there any debate along the way as to whether this was the type of game Ironclad should be doing? Were there any concerns? If so, what were they?

CF: Having experience with Homeworld and Treasure Planet, the transition to a space-themed game was a natural progression. The process of implementing a 4X game in a real-time environment generated a lot of debate that lasted right up until gold master.

We knew from the start that we were stepping into new territory and there would be some risk associated with that, but we also didn’t want to compromise our vision. In the industry, a new Company, a New Franchise, and a new genre are pretty much considered a strike out. Fortunately, Stardock believed in our game, shared our values, and we were able to move ahead much faster than expected.

We also had reservations about the marketing of the game. Our game can’t be clearly categorized as a Real-time Strategy or 4X game. We were concerned that our audience would be overly segmented, with both camps feeling alienated. Fortunately just the opposite happened, both communities came together to experience something entirely new – RT4X.