RPGWatch Feature: Solium Infernum Interview

No, it's not an RPG but indie and turn-based still piques our interest. When we're not playing RPGs, turn-based strategy games are a favourite genre for many of us. We briefly covered Armageddon Empires when it was first released, so when the opportunity came up to catch up with Vic Davis on his new game Solium Infernum, we thought we'd take it. Here's an introductory snip:

RPGWatch: Vic, thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to answer a few questions. First, can you give our readers some background on your company Cryptic Comet and your previous game Armageddon Empires?

Vic Davis: I’m a small one man indie outfit. I do all the design, project management and coding. Then I hook up with talented artists, writers and musicians and put flesh on the design bones. I started doing this full time about 5 years ago when I began work on Armageddon Empires. I had been encouraged by my success making Civil War battlefield CD-ROM’s and thought that I would try my hand at a turn based strategy game, since it was one of my favorites genres - albeit a dying one even back then. AE puts you in charge of one of 4 factions after the earth has been destroyed by warring alien empires. I tried to give it a board game/collectible card game feel by adding some common design elements and mechanics that you would find in such games…things like deck building and dice rolling. The game was very well received and has gathered a bit of a cult following…but it’s not like Turn Based Strategy fans have a lot of choice nowadays.

Read it all here.
More information.

I always meant to try Armageddon Empires but never got around to it. I can't decide if I like post-apoc or hell as a better setting.

I'm not sure about that either. A demonic setting is a nice change of pace from the usual fantasy settings. It will be interesting to see what kinds of units/powers he comes up with for this setting.

I doubt I'll use the multi-player feature of this game, but he can't go wrong with using Dominions as one of his influences for the PBeM portion of the game.

Glad to see it on the rpgwatch radar, never tried AE but heard good things about it and the setting for this is so interesting that it's a definite try for me.

Believe the hype on AE. I didn't at first. I tried out the demo for it and just couldn't get into the game. Fast forward a few months and after reading a few more reviews for it and a few interviews I decided to try it again, but this time I actually read the manual. I was blown away by how fun it was once you figured out how to play. It's not that it is so difficult to understand, it's just so different from the norm that it takes awhile to get a feel for the game. The AI alone was worth the purchase. There are not many games out there that have any kind of decent AI to them.

As for Solium, it'll be nice to order the demons around for a change. After playing the good guy for most of my life it'll be nice to be the bad guy right from the start

Solium remains firmly on my "to get to" pile—-good interview.

Sounds like an interesting setting and potentially quite a fun game, and the interview is very informative. I'll definitely be downloading the demo. Like the artwork, also.

Thanks for putting this on my radar, skavenhorde.

Groovy artwork if you're into the whole demonology thing.