Humankind Interview – Talking World Development and Woolly Mammoths with Jeff Spock

Talking History, the Environment, Woolly Mammoths and More with Jeff Spock

It was only a little over two weeks ago I wrote up a preview of Humankind, which I was able to see some of at Gamescom. During my time there I was also able to speak to Jeff Spock, the narrative director of Amplitude Studios and Humankind.

During our chat, we spoke about everything from the selection of cultures within the game, the way you and the world around you will develop and possible moves for the game in the future. I was, sadly, a little disappointed when I found out that my plans to save the Woolly Mammoth from extinction were going to be foiled. You can read all about it below.

Chris Wray - Hi there! So, just to get started, would you mind you introducing yourself for the recording?

Jeff Spock - My name is Jeff Spock. I am the narrative director of Amplitude Studios, one of the co-founders back in 2011, with the initial team. Ever since then, I'm basically the person responsible for the narration, the writing, the world-building, all that sort of stuff.

CW - Okay, perfect. That's a lot! [laughs]

JS - Well, I'm part of the design team, then we have the designers and the artists and all that. It's a great thing about Amplitude, we're a very close team. We share ideas all the time. I mean, you have faction ideas come from the artists from the designers. It's really great.

CW - You've also had a lot of input from the audience. Especially - I always forget the name of your platform, sorry!

JS - Games2Gether

CW - Games2Gether, that's the one. I know there's always been a lot of input from the audience, votes and such as that. I've literally been with you from day one, with Endless Space in early access.

JS - Yeah? Oh, wow. Excellent. Definitely.

CW - So, that leads me to my first question. So… not Endless. Have you moved away from the Endless Universe or will there be an easter egg or two to find?

JS - Well, we're moving in parallel to the Endless Universe, look at it that way. You know, if they came up to me one day and said: "Jeff, no more Endless games" I'm like "I'm out of here" [laughs].

It's kind of my baby, you know, I love the universe, I love what we've done with it. I love the stuff the artists and designers have come up with. That's like the core IP of Amplitude. You know, of course, we're thinking of things, what do we do next? That sort of thing. So the Endless Universe is endless. It will keep going. But this is the game I guess you probably heard it in the uh...

CW - Presentation.

JS - Thank you, man. It's been a long day [laughs]. In the presentation.

So this is what we've wanted to do since we started the studio. We literally didn't know how to at the beginning. All the founders love 4X strategy games, turn-based games and others of that style. Master of Alliance, Civ. I mean, there's tonnes of precursors. So we've always had this in mind.

We had to go through a number of steps because you can't just do that out of the gate. Starting with Endless Space, which was relatively simpler and more inexpensive, it was done in a time where we got together and we raised money. If we didn't ship by the deadline, we closed. Very straightforward business plan, you know?

CW - I suppose that will make you do your work anyway [laughs].

JS - Yeah, you know, it's like, deadlines were serious back in those days [laughs]. No, but after that, we got our own funds going, we could build Endless Legend. We started learning the terrain, the movement, 3d issues and all that sort of stuff. Then back into Endless Space 2, more sophisticated diplomacy, trade systems, adding a little bit more each time.

So we decided now we're ready to do one that's clearly much more of a mass-market product than what we've done before. Sci-Fi is niche, fantasy is niche. Sci-Fi 4X turn-based is even more niche. We love it and it's a niche that's treated us well, but we've always wanted to take a shot at this.

CW - So this is sort of the Civilization version of your style of game? There seem to be a lot more input here based on the actual cultures, the history of the world compared to other titles in the genre. You've mentioned sixty different cultural influences?

JS - Yeah. So the idea was that one of the things is - it's not just civilization, it's our games as well - you pick a faction, you play it all the way through. Once you pick of action, you've kind of picked the gameplay style and the victory condition. You're kind of on the rails, more or less, 80% of the time.

That's unfortunate, particularly with a historical Earth game. It doesn't allow you to shift your strategy much in midstream. If you do, it's a huge risk. Whereas if era by era, you're seeing what the world looks like, you know what situation you're in, you can adjust - go more science, go more military, open up trade routes because it's a pretty peaceful planet, that sort of thing. I think it's great to be able to react in-game - culture, by culture.

Even more importantly, I think there's this idea that we're not monolithic. I mean, I'm American. That doesn't mean like necessarily, I'm a white dude from Western Europe. That means I can be Native American, African American, Central American, and even if I am from Western Europe, I've gotten pieces of a dozen different cultures me and that's the reality of a modern nation.

CW - Essentially, we're all a hotbed of different inputs.

JS - Exactly! We absolutely are. We're like this DNA stew of everything that came before. We really wanted to make a game about our history that respected that. So this idea of having 10 cultures in six areas which mathematically is indeed one million potential play through possibilities. I think it's respectful of Earth history and Earth cultures, more than playing the Americans, being American, they're always Americans and always going to be Americans.

It's like "Yeah, but, I'm in the medieval era now in front of the Babylonians who were gone by now", that sort of thing. We'd like to get away from that kind of anachronism. If there is an anachronism, we like it to be purposefully chosen by the player. So, I chose the Romans in the classical era and I'm doing well enough and I want to gain more fame - which is our victory condition - so I'm going to push and be the Romans in the medieval era. If you're going to be out of step, it's voluntary. When you're the medieval era, you're going to look around see medieval cultures, not classical or Bronze Age cultures. So we have a nod to historical accuracy as far as the other cultures that appear at a period in the time of the game.

CW - I'm guessing since you can choose to remain as an older culture, the AI is able to remain as an older culture?

JS - The AI theoretically could. I don't know how it's being coded. I mean, it would have to be the optimum path for the AI, given the game situation to earn fame. I assume that's what it be. You may need somebody more technical than I am for that.

CW - I always have to ask an awkward question [laughs]. So with you moving between cultures, do you have aspects of the cultures? So if you're the Egyptians, you'll have certain rules, you'll want to build and expand certain ways, then moving into another culture. I imagine you'll have some disparity between different cultural types?

JS - Sure. Part of it is we want to get that purely abstract gameplay mechanic, possibility for the player to say "Gosh, I need to be more military now. So I will choose x". You want to let the player be able to do that. What happens when you choose your new culture is that it's not a delete-replace sort of thing. You keep the traits and you keep the buildings you've built into the cities. You're adding a new type of quarter a new type of emblematic building. It's additive, it's not something that replaces the past.

If you look at a city like Paris. There are Roman ruins, there are ruins from the Gallic tribes. There's this whole architectural history from the 17th, 18th, 19th and the 20th centuries. Realistically cities are that, this confused map of everything they've been beforehand. Me, as a creator of games, I want to see that. I want to be able to show that to the player, I want them to look at the city, this great megalopolis and say "Yeah, that's where I was and that's what I did". If it's just like, boom, your city is Roman now, you lose that anchor with the past, you lose that sense of having chosen different cultures for a reason.

So yeah, it's all of this. I mean, there's a lot of different ideas coming into that.

CW - So this might be a little out of your wheelhouse. You mention the whole megalopolis side of things. So, what I was shown seems to say the cities can get like insanely huge. I don't know if that'll mean they look too big, in that case, you'd only have so many so much space for cities on a map in that situation.

JS - I think that was done for demo purposes. It's possible in gameplay, but not reflective of all gameplay. I think it was also sort of a mid-sized map and you can do large and very large maps. So it'd look the same but there'd be more hexagons, right. So your city won't be quite as... megalopolithic? [laughs]. Which is clearly not the word. But anyway.

CW - I like it, call Oxford! [laughs]

JS - Yeah. Quick - bring me a thesaurus! [laughs] So yeah, that's true. So you're looking at the demo it's like you have a city that goes almost from the Baltic to the Mediterranean?

CW - Yeah, that was it. I was just thinking you've essentially covered the whole Balkans with one city. I understand for demo purposes it's to show the growth of the city from one culture to the next, showing it as a melting pot.

JS - Exactly. From this nomadic tribe to this huge thing. But you like all 4X Games, you can also build tall more than wide. So you have some options and you see the scope of what is possible. I like it because you really are seeing the mark that you left, seeing very visual, very evocative feedback of what you've done in your strategy and where you've been with your culture.

CW - Certainly. The actual design of everything, it's a beautiful looking game.

JS - Thank you

CW - It really is. Was that a conscious decision? You've got such a variety in terrain, the height map, terrains types and even the melding of types. One of the first things I noticed was actually a rocky forest. That's something you don't really see in other games. Of course, you get forests on rocky terrain, so I suppose I'm asking how much variety has been put into the game and terrain.

JS - There's a fair amount of variety. I mean, as far as the different elevations, and as far as the terrain types of each elevation. I couldn't tell you how many different terrain tile types there are. I think it's one of the differentiators. As you said, people are going to compare us to Civilization.

The type of terrain, the 3d terrain and the importance of it is something I think is really different. It's going to lead to tactical battles, the elevation, the positioning of armies, their movement and to the settlements themselves. The map is almost like another player. It's almost like something that you have to take into account every time you're moving, settling and doing anything like that. It's a living thing.

CW - Terrain can tell a story in itself. The expansion from a hill to a river, or from a river expanding outwards. That's how civilization started, looking at the ancient Mesopotamians. Is that the sort of things you're going for?

JS - Exactly. Yeah. If you start with like, the Euphrates and the Fertile Crescent. Yeah, you know exactly, exactly that.

CW - So, the question I do have is how did you choose the cultures you wanted in the game? You have 60, but, well, there's so many to choose from so why.

JS - Why not 2000? [laughs]

CW - [laughs] Well, there are limitations. It's more, how did you go about selecting 60 out of what could be a pool of thousands?

JS - Well, we hired a historian and we work with others. We have a guy who's like full-time Amplitudian now. They've helped us to go through period by period, essentially "Here are your options. Here are the cultures who, at that time, were really doing amazing things and making a mark on history". Whether or not they were militarily powerful, and conquered a whole lot. We tried not to use that as a metric but things like political influence, religious power, economics, that sort of thing.

We tried to find 60 examples over the course of human history that really exemplify cultures that really left their mark was really particularly important or powerful in that particular era. That's tough. One thing is that we'll certainly be releasing more cultures after the release date. We hope people will be modding them in as well. There'll be modding tools. If a culture is missing, or you don't like the bonus, fix it or add something, we're very open to that.

CW - Another thing, linking into your other titles is, will there be a space race in the game? At least to an extent - It's got to be asked!

JS - [laughs] Basically, we're bringing you up to the modern-day, maybe a hair beyond. Let's say maybe 2020, 2030, something like that. We're not going to take that next leap to the stars.

CW - Not so much as colonising the stars, but will you have the technology and possibly your civilization gains fame from launching into stars. Such as a first man on the moon - a Neil Armstrong of sorts.

JS - Right, yeah. It is something you can do, an element, but we're not looking for the next Elon Musk, who's going to settle Mars or something. We're not taking it to that to that next step. But yeah, we want it to be... I mean, realistic has is a very stretchable word and video game. We want each historic element to be very accurate and very realistic. Then the player gets to combine those into the history of the story they want to tell.

CW - So, I've actually got a very important question. I want a pet woolly mammoth, but I'm guessing you can't get one sadly. But is it possible to preserve things from history? So, for example, don't allow certain animals like the woolly mammoth go extinct. Can you keep some features throughout history?

JS - I think the writing is pretty much on the wall for the woolly mammoth

CW - Aww

JS - I can't give you hope in there. There is a very legitimate question about things like climate change and deforestation and where that goes. I can't say right now when and how that's going to be implemented. But clearly, it's something we're going to look at. Your city centre, buildings and all that is preserved though.

CW - So you're thinking of climate change, rising sea levels and such as that?

JS - Yeah, right. There's a lot of things that, you know, as responsible 21st-century developers were looking at. We're figuring out how to put them in the game and what the mechanics will be. You know, we can't say more about it now. But yeah. It's all stuff that's important to us.

CW - Excellent. Thank you very much.

JS - It's my pleasure. I can talk for hours about this stuff.

CW - To be fair, so could I. I don't think they'll let us though! Thank you very much for your time.

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