{"id":1255,"date":"2017-02-23T07:01:12","date_gmt":"2017-02-23T14:01:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.designer-notes.com\/?p=1255"},"modified":"2017-02-23T07:01:12","modified_gmt":"2017-02-23T14:01:12","slug":"offworld-trading-company-gdc-postmortem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.designer-notes.com\/offworld-trading-company-gdc-postmortem\/","title":{"rendered":"Offworld Trading Company GDC Postmortem"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"session-description-speaker-list\" class=\"left\">\n<div class=\"session-speaker-role\">I am going to be speaking at GDC this year on the design\u00a0and development of\u00a0<em>Offworld Trading Company<\/em>. I&#8217;ve included the <a href=\"http:\/\/schedule.gdconf.com\/session\/offworld-trading-company-an-rts-without-guns\">description<\/a> below and a few sample slides. Hope to see you in SF &#8211; my favorite week of the year!<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"session-speaker-role\">\n<h2><\/h2>\n<h2>&#8216;Offworld Trading Company&#8217;: An RTS Without Guns<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"session-description-speaker-list\" class=\"left\">\n<div class=\"session-speaker-role\"><strong>Speaker:<\/strong>\u00a0<a class=\"speaker_link\" href=\"http:\/\/schedule.gdconf.com\/speaker\/johnson-soren.20304\">Soren Johnson<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0|\u00a0\u00a0<span class=\"session-speaker-title\">CEO, Mohawk Games<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"left session_description_legend\">\n<div class=\"session_details_location sbTime\"><strong>Location: <\/strong>\u00a0Room 3016, West Hall<\/div>\n<div class=\"session_details_date\"><strong>Date: <\/strong>\u00a0Wednesday, March 1<\/div>\n<div class=\"session_details_time\"><strong>Time: <\/strong>\u00a05:00pm &#8211; 6:00pm<\/div>\n<div class=\"list-view-filter-list-wrapper session-format\"><strong>Format<\/strong>: Session<\/div>\n<div class=\"list-view-filter-list-wrapper session-track\"><strong>Track<\/strong>: Design<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 10pt;\">For &#8216;Offworld Trading Company&#8217;, Mohawk Games set out to make a new type of real-time strategy game, one that focused on economics instead of combat. Following this initial vision led Mohawk Games to shed other standard tropes of the genre, such as unit selection, on the way to creating a unique gameplay experience, one that de-emphasized micro dexterity challenges in favor of macro high-level strategy while still hewing to the standard half-hour RTS format. This postmortem details the twist and turns of Offworld&#8217;s design process, from conception to prototyping to Early Access to final release.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<h3 class=\"takeaway\">Takeaway<\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 10pt;\">Despite the increasing quantity of games released each year, there are still huge areas of unexplored territory for new gameplay, even within established genres such as the RTS. The development of &#8216;Offworld Trading Company&#8217; serves as an example on how to find these hidden kingdoms.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3 class=\"intended-audience\">Intended Audience<\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 10pt;\">This talk will be of interest to developers interested in the details of how design decisions were made while pioneering a new type of real-time strategy game. Developers interested in open development should also benefit as the talk will give positives and negatives from Mohawk&#8217;s Early Access experience.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.designer-notes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/Offworld-Postmortem-AoK.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-1257\" src=\"http:\/\/www.designer-notes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/Offworld-Postmortem-AoK.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"960\" height=\"540\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.designer-notes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/Offworld-Postmortem-AoK.png 960w, https:\/\/www.designer-notes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/Offworld-Postmortem-AoK-300x169.png 300w, https:\/\/www.designer-notes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/Offworld-Postmortem-AoK-768x432.png 768w, https:\/\/www.designer-notes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/Offworld-Postmortem-AoK-500x281.png 500w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 960px) 100vw, 960px\" \/><\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/www.designer-notes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/Offworld-Postmortem-History.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-1258\" src=\"http:\/\/www.designer-notes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/Offworld-Postmortem-History.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"960\" height=\"540\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.designer-notes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/Offworld-Postmortem-History.png 960w, https:\/\/www.designer-notes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/Offworld-Postmortem-History-300x169.png 300w, https:\/\/www.designer-notes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/Offworld-Postmortem-History-768x432.png 768w, https:\/\/www.designer-notes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/Offworld-Postmortem-History-500x281.png 500w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 960px) 100vw, 960px\" \/><\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/www.designer-notes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/Offworld-Postmortem-Steps.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-1259\" src=\"http:\/\/www.designer-notes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/Offworld-Postmortem-Steps.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"960\" height=\"540\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.designer-notes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/Offworld-Postmortem-Steps.png 960w, https:\/\/www.designer-notes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/Offworld-Postmortem-Steps-300x169.png 300w, https:\/\/www.designer-notes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/Offworld-Postmortem-Steps-768x432.png 768w, https:\/\/www.designer-notes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/Offworld-Postmortem-Steps-500x281.png 500w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 960px) 100vw, 960px\" \/><\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/www.designer-notes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/Offworld-Postmortem-Release.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-1260\" src=\"http:\/\/www.designer-notes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/Offworld-Postmortem-Release.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"960\" height=\"540\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.designer-notes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/Offworld-Postmortem-Release.png 960w, https:\/\/www.designer-notes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/Offworld-Postmortem-Release-300x169.png 300w, https:\/\/www.designer-notes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/Offworld-Postmortem-Release-768x432.png 768w, https:\/\/www.designer-notes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/Offworld-Postmortem-Release-500x281.png 500w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 960px) 100vw, 960px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I am going to be speaking at GDC this year on the design\u00a0and development of\u00a0Offworld Trading Company. I&#8217;ve included the description below and a few sample slides. Hope to see you in SF &#8211; my favorite week of the year! &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.designer-notes.com\/offworld-trading-company-gdc-postmortem\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":829,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1255","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mohawk"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.designer-notes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/otc-1000x288.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3EGlq-kf","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.designer-notes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1255","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.designer-notes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.designer-notes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.designer-notes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.designer-notes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1255"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.designer-notes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1255\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1261,"href":"https:\/\/www.designer-notes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1255\/revisions\/1261"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.designer-notes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/829"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.designer-notes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.designer-notes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.designer-notes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}