I would recommend online-only so each player only has their own screen so you don't have to deal with same-screen gameplay. I don't think you can make it work.

EC: I think I have solution. (Laughs)

Oh, you do?

EC: Yes, yes. It's good to be close to someone, and, when sitting together. When people are playing, the other is saying, "Okay, please do that." We can keep interaction, but then they are not really playing together.

If people have their own avatar, everybody can take matter and act together, maybe on the same screen. They can go for each other and the game world.

Yeah, that would be interesting for co-op, but for competitive it would be trouble.

EC: You suggested split-screen.

That would be really hard with the kind of crazy simulation you have, maybe. But maybe not. So with a game that has so much unpredictability, how did you ensure that the game displays things properly?

EC: Experiments. We can't do special cases in the simulation. It is very simple rules, and these rules -- there is a kind of convergence. So when there is a pattern, maybe there is a very loud pattern. Okay; it happens. But what we wanted to avoid is repeating patterns. These kinds of patterns we can identify just by creating a different extreme or different situation.

It's like rendering in a way. You create the situation, you let the simulation run, and you just observe how it evolves. If it looks wrong or weird or patterned, we just change the parameters and check if it's is okay. It evolved in this way; okay, this parameter doesn't influence this kind of pattern. It's really an empirical process.

When you were thinking about this, you were trying to think, if you died tomorrow, what game would you want to be remembered for? Do you think that this game is turning into that game? Is this game turning into what you really envision for that?

EC: Okay. You're saying, if I die tomorrow, would I be happy with that game and would it be a really...?

...fitting legacy for you. But you said it first!

EC: (Laughs) Well! Uh, not yet, because the game is not finished, of course!

But do you think it will become this? I'm not going to let you out with an easy answer. (Laughs)

EC: I think yes. Because the project evolved from my first idea, and I did not reach fully what I wanted because it is very difficult to bring it exactly. But what we have today is partly what I wanted and partly varies more into incredible things I did not expect. So overall, yes.

But if it's not fully the game for your legacy, I guess that means you can't die tomorrow and have to make another game!

EC: Yes! Okay. It is just -- which game would I want to do if I died tomorrow?

I know; I'm just giving you a hard time.

EC: (Laughs) So after this game --

-- you have to think which next game you might want to --

EC: -- I would want to if I die tomorrow. (Laughs)