This means that the design tasks are not filling a full day, and since I know thing or two about programming, I tend to help out there as well. Johan: I'm currently in charge of the design process at Paradox, but we're a small outfit with an inhouse team of about eight to ten people working directly on the project. RPS: Is coding still important to you or could you drift quite happily into a purely design role? I also spent a lot of time playing games like Pirates, Bards Tale III, Storm Across Europe and other similar classics.
I also spent those early teenage years making my own games on my c64, trying to hide that fact at school where I was trying to be oh so cool.
We started with games like Diplomacy and Axis & Allies, but then spent an insane amount of time playing Advanced Civilization. Johan: I played lots and lots of Avalon Hill game as a teenager with my friends. What were your formative gaming influences? RPS: Most of the big names in strategy game design seem to have been weaned on Avalon Hill boardgames. Then I just kept reading and reading whenever I could, through all the libraries. History was the only subject in school that was close to storytelling, so it started there. Johan: I loved reading books and looking at maps as a child. RPS: Where did the interest in history come from? Before the game was released, I was in charge of the project and have since then been doing this type of games. Since I owned the boardgame, it was an easy decision and I sent my CV there, and was hired within a week.
One day I saw an advert for programmers in my old hometown to work on a game called Europa Universalis. However, as I always loved playing strategy games, I had this vision of one day making one myself.
Johan: I was rather happy at Funcom, as I grew there from a rookie programmer to a lead programmer, while working on some really interesting games. RPS: In the late nineties you went from making fluffy console games for Funcom to incredibly deep historical PC strategy for Paradox. If you've already done that, or don't have the patience/dunkable biscuitry to take on such a task, try the following Q&A in which Lead Designer and Man of History Johan Andersson fields questions on subjects as diverse as HoI3, gulags, and HoI3. The best way to learn about Paradox's rapidly approaching grand-strategy leviathan Hearts of Iron 3 ? Sit down with a gallon mug of tea and a family-size packet of custard creams and plough through the fascinating 30-part developer diary.
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