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Interview: Cascade Game Foundry's New Lease On The Simulation Genre
by Leigh Alexander [PC, Console/PC, Exclusive]
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November 10, 2009
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When Microsoft closed Flight Simulator developer Aces Studios, several simulation veterans from the company established their own sim-focused studio, Cascade Game Foundry. They hope to combine lessons from their storied experience with the agility and inspiration of a small studio in order to breathe new life into the genre.
Co-founder and managing director Kathie Flood spent about 15 years with Microsoft in various roles, mostly concentrated on Aces and sports titles like Project Gotham Racing 3 and 4; she's joined by co-founder and creative director Rick Selby, who spent half his 10 Microsoft years with Aces, primarily working on Train Simulator, product design and business development.
Selby also has experience developing simulations for learning and development; given that, he says, "I'm interested in what we can do with sims, not only on the entertainment side, but other things as well."
The team is comprised currently of 15 individuals: "We're a bunch of people very passionate about working on sims that can take us to the next generation," says Flood. "We loved doing that inside Microsoft, and we decided we wanted to keep doing it. It turns out there are a lot of opportunities to do things different, better... as much as we loved doing it inside Microsoft, we're having quite a lot of fun."
Resetting The Genre
Selby sees an opportunity to "step back and do a reset of what sims could be about." The genre has traditionally focused on the same elements; vehicles, for example. "We thought there's a lot more you could really do with this," says Selby.
The hardcore simulation audience is "a very loyal, viable entity for us to pursue," he says. "But I think there are some things we can build into the sim titles to give them more of a broad appeal."
For example, Flight Simulator pleased its hardcore fanbase with its detailed renditions of the nuances and details of flying. "That's all still valid," says Selby. "But what's missing is... if you start thinking about what you could do around those single-player experiences that do simulate some aspect of a life or a location, suddenly you start to see a lot more opportunities."
Flood says that traditional sims have been somewhat "intimidating" to those outside of the genre's fans, and Selby says that simplicity is definitely now a design goal for the team.
"We want stuff to be simple enough that my mom can use it," he says -- and yet it's important to offer the opportunity for a player to grow into the high level of detail traditional sim fans have always desired. "We still want to give the ability to grow into that level of caring, but not eclipse any gameplay opportunities that may exist downstream from there... those complexities can't be a barrier to [other players] enjoying the experience."
Reaching Broader Audiences
Flood envisions "sliders on reality," simulation experiences where players can customize the granularity of realism to a level that's comfortable and interesting to them. "You could turn off or tone down certain elements so that somebody who is less knowledgeable can still enjoy the fantasy of the experience."
And the idea of allowing players to control the complexity of their experience -- having further details open to them as they acclimate into the simulation -- necessarily lends itself to learning experiences, something Selby is excited about.
Another area of focus for the Cascade team is offering high-quality toolsets alongside their projects. Flood notes that traditional simulation fans have enjoyed modifying and working with toolsets to customize their experiences even when those tools aren't very good.
"Certainly, the tools that we will need to build the games ourselves... can be a much more accessible toolset, and extend the audience of people who can participate."
Flood and Selby say that part of what makes the simulation genre so exciting is the devotion of fans around it. Their experience working with the community around Microsoft games has informed them that they want to cultivate a similar community relationship around the work they do with Cascade -- except to reach even more audiences with broader simulation experience.
"I would like to see us really broaden out the category," says Selby. "In terms of who our customer base is, there are a lot of potential customers that may not fit the traditional gamer category.. there's the opportunity to hit a lot of different types of audience sub-segments as well as age ranges."
Closing The Gap
The challenge ahead of the Cascade team, then, is making experiences that are compelling and yet approachable -- and therefore bridge a gap Flood sees in the addressable audience.
"There's such a big gap in the game market right now between, say, the big blockbuster first-person shooters and the casual online games. We feel like sims, if done correctly, the design would be multigenerational," she explains, pointing to the broad audience that enjoys television programming on Discovery Channel and National Geographic.
"We want to tap into some of that same magic... a lot of the topics we're thinking of here have a lot of that broad appeal," she says.
A good example of that gap-bridging is the Guitar Hero and Rock Band franchises, says Selby -- it offers an opportunity to live a fantasy while offering challenges for all skill levels, and creates an experience that people of varying ages and proficiencies can enjoy.
Bringing The Past To The Present
To accomplish their goals, the team hopes to combine the best elements of their experience within a large corporation like Microsoft with the agility and creativity of an independent studio.
"There's something very motivating and freeing at the same time you suddenly realize you own your destiny, and you have the ability to make the decisions you need to make," says Selby. "Sometimes that's harder to do inside of a large organization."
"I spent my entire adult life at Microsoft," reflects Flood. "We loved our jobs there, so this has been very fun -- it almost feels like graduating from school."
One thing Selby hopes will stay with the team from the Microsoft days is the sense of commitment and discipline. "One of the things we knew how to do v well inside of msft is ship titles," he says. "That rigor and that discipline and that level of perfection we strive for... is something that is definitely worthwhile bringing forward. It will help us build what our customers want."
Investment in community is another key lesson from Microsoft, says Flood. "At Microsoft, we spoke to people in our audience every day on the bulletin board and through the website... we got loads and loads of feedback, and we recognize how valuable that community is. We definitely want to leverage that as much as we can."
"Every project I worked on at Microsoft was really good at using that community to come up with the next set of features, address which things needed to be fixed... it was just amazing to have a v engaged group of ppl who were willing to help us. I'm hoping we can generate that same sort of community in our next project."
Flood and Selby aren't ready to discuss what that next project is, but say to expect some announcements soon. In the meanwhile, they feel strongly about their team vision and that Cascade is bringing with it the important lessons from Microsoft combined with new ideas about what the simulation genre can be and who it can reach.
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It might be a vehicle, as the interview points out, such as a car or an aircraft or a space shuttle. But that's not necessarily the only kind of thing that could be simulated. Processes can also be simulated -- that's pretty popular in the scientific and engineering worlds (e.g., ecosystems, infections, industrial plants). And SimCity seems to be popping up on many platforms, for that matter.
Interestingly, the subject of a simulation need not even be a real thing. This actually comes up with some frequency whenever a new online game based on an existing intellectual property is being discussed. It's common to think of "simulating" various aspects of the IP in the gameworld, even if that IP is something as (currently) unreal as a living dinosaur or alien or robot, or an imaginary process like the casting of magic spells.
So while Cascade could limit themselves to simulating vehicles, the tenor of the interview leads me to hope that they may be willing to stretch themselves somewhat to creating simulated experiences of other kinds of objects, as well as processes and even imaginary worlds.