Positech’s Cliff Harris: A life in Games

We chat to the award-winning games developer

Positech Games is one of the great success stories of the UK independent gaming scene. To all intents and purposes a one-man development studio, Positech is run by Cliff ‘Cliffski’ Harris, a former Lionhead employee who took the decision to go solo in 1997. Since then, the company has released 23 PC titles, all of which share Harris’ ‘entertainment first’ ethos. Exemplified by the Democracy and Kudos games, Positech’s output tends to emphasise strategy and creativity, reflecting Harris’ belief that strong coding and outstanding AI will beat big-budget production values every time.

And Harris doesn’t just write all the code for Positech’s games: he also provides most of the in-game art, markets and sells the games, writes an outstanding blog, and personally responds to every tech support enquiry. This is a work routine that would drive most of us up the wall, but Harris seems to thrive on it.

Cliff Harris: "I just get into every aspect of the business and the games"

“I do spend a lot of time doing everything,” he says, “but I just get really into every aspect of both the business and the games. A lot of indies are terrified of marketing, PR and business but I enjoy all of it, so my only problem is lack of time.”

He recognises that his way of working isn’t for everyone, though: “The key thing is that it’s still true that 95 per cent of people who try to make games on their own give up, and that will likely never change. A lot of people treat making games as a fun hobby, but the reality is 50 per cent software development, 49 per cent running a small business, and one per cent fun cool stuff.”

Harris, who has also worked as a guitar teacher, boatbuilder, and stock trader, says that ever since he wrote his first game – “It was pretty bad, basically multiplayer asteroids, but people bought it” – he knew that he didn’t want to work for anyone but himself. Nonetheless, his body of work for the majors is by no means inconsequential: as well as writing code for Lionhead’s The Movies, Harris spent some time working on an internal prototype for The Sims at Maxis, which has since licensed his Kudos code to make SimSocial.

“I only worked in the normal games industry because I needed a job at one stage, and at that point I was really sick of IT work. I would have designed The Movies totally differently, coded it differently, marketed it differently; it’s incredibly frustrating to not be able to influence anything outside your tiny area.”

Surprisingly, given the seemingly unstoppable return of the bedroom coder in the current gaming climate, Harris believes that the market was better for an independent games company in 1997 than it is now. “There were very few people doing what I did (lone developer games) so it was a bit easier to get coverage by the press, and also to get noticed in general online, because the internet was just vastly smaller and simpler. You didn’t have to compete against huge online ad budgets, and so on.

“Actual game development tools are better and cheaper now, but then gamers’ expectations are higher. The potential online games market is way better and bigger, but competition is insane.”

The award-winning Democracy 2 was praised for its strategic depth and superior AI routines

Harris is currently putting the finishing touches to his latest game, the excellently-titled Gratuitous Space Battles. “I’m at the point where it looks great, it plays great, everything is in and coded and working and I am fixing any bugs I come across. My original plan was a beta from August 28, open to people pre-ordering, but my current bug hell might push that back a bit. I want the beta to be all about gameplay balancing, not bugs.”

GSB is a strategy / management / simulation game that gives players the chance to design and build armadas of fully-customisable starships with which to fight the kind of massive fleet actions popularised by Star Wars. Rather than going down the RTS route, Positech’s game emphasises creation and planning over reflexes and resources. Ships are fully modular, meaning that players can decide what kind of weapons and defences to kit their craft out with before each battle, and while Harris says that he has intentionally kept the design element simple for GSB’s first build he also hinted that future updates will add even more options to players’ armories. With some battles involving “at least 20 cruisers, 40 frigates and a good 200 fighters per side, maybe more actually”, it seems like a sound decision if only to keep things manageable.

Two capital ships clash in Gratuitous Space Battles

The other core element of GSB’s gameplay is AI orders. Rather than taking control of ships during a battle, players will watch events unfold according to the commands that they’ve given their ships’ commanders and which formations they’ve assigned to the various sections of their fleet.

“The options are stuff like ‘attack cruisers with 75 per cent priority at range 400′ or ‘retaliate against ships that attack you’ or ‘escort this ship’ ‘protect this ship’. The formation stuff allows you to get a ship to maintain its current relative position to a parent throughout the battle

“These are all quite important, because fighters are vital to defend you against attacks from enemy fighters, but you also want to send some of them out there to attack the enemy, because fighters can attack from within an enemy shield bubble, thus negating the shield.”

The ship design screen highlights the wealth of options available to players

Taking out real-time interaction is a brave move, and Harris is aware of the dangers, but he’s confident enough in the strength of the other aspects of the game not to be worried about any negative reactions. “I experimented with putting interactive orders in, but in fact the battles are hectic enough as they are. You have to keep an eye on everything, to see why certain ships got destroyed, or why weapons proved ineffectual. It makes more sense once you’ve seen how the pre-battle stuff works.”

With no story to speak of (“the spirit of the game is that we are involved in huge space battles, the exact justification for which is either forgotten, trivial, or not our concern”), GSB is shaping up as a true gamer’s game, encouraging experimentation and replay in order to create the perfect armada with which to take on each mission. An online mode where players will be able to challenge each other’s fleets will add a further challenge to the template, and as confirmed fans of the original Star Wars Trilogy it’s safe to say that GSB is one of our most eagerly-anticipated games of the year. Especially when Harris tells us: “The whole game is an attempt to make you Admiral Ackbar.”