SS: StarDrive is a space 4X strategy game, but you label it also as an action game. What made you go with this mixed action-strategy non-conventional formula for a 4X game? And, what exactly are the game’s action elements?
Daniel DiCicco: Well, you know, StarDrive has evolved over the course of its development and, I think when I first started it, it was a little bit more focused on your flagship. As I love Escape Velocity, that was also a huge inspiration. You can tell by the graphical style immediately if you look at Escape Velocity and look at StarDrive. So, that’s really about where the action part came in.
Also, you know, StarDrive is a real-time game, and I suppose you can call StarDrive a real-time strategy game but that doesn’t quite capture the 4Xsness of it. But the action comes from the fact that you can actually control any ship in your empire, any ship. You can control a colony ship if you want. You can steer it with ‘WASD’ just like you would in Escape Velocity, and you can fire the weapons manually, and you can aim at subsystems yourself. Or not. You don’t need to do any of that. And that’s why it ended up an action-strategy. But I suppose if I had to say it today, I would call it a 4X RTS.
