Call me Ishmael. No wait! Call me Franz Felsl. Sure it's not dramatic, but I usually respond to this name. I'm not a doctor, nor do I play one on TV. I'm a designer/artist at PopTop Software in Fenton, Missouri, a suburb of St. Louis - the absolute center of the computer gaming world. You trust me now don't you? Recently I was asked to do a designer diary on PopTop's latest project, Tropico, for GameSpot. I was confused, so I said yes. As the days passed I naturally forgot about this task and basked in the warmth from the fire of my forgetfulness. Suddenly I remembered my duty, before anyone even had to remind me! This is a good sign. As the sweat cooled my ponderous mass, I began to think hard about what I should write and began to sweat again. This was going to require memory power, and I was fresh out. So I stepped back into the barren marble halls of my mind and tried to recall my ninja journalist training, with all its rich colors and aromas. I realized then that I had never had this kind of training and what I was remembering was something completely different. So instead I'll have to rely on my English 101 training, with all its silly rules and structure, and try to tell you a bit about Tropico and how it came to be.
October 11, 1999
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Dear Diary,
After the completion of Railroad Tycoon II and the Second Century expansion pack, the men of PopTop Software and I found ourselves adrift on the seas of ambition. Our minds atwitter with things that could be, we all began paddling our boat in different directions trying to get to someplace we'd never been.
"Let's build a pirate game!" shouted Paul.
"No. Let's build a game around Greek mythology!" demanded Dave.
"What version is this boat? I hate it!" snarled Todd.
Brent continued to calculate how much air was left in our life raft.
"I know! A game about political elections!" chimed Frank.
"Wait! A nudibranch simulator!" I screeched. My paddle snapped suddenly and I was left stabbing the creative waters with a jagged piece of wood. Ineffective.
We drifted; how long I can't be sure. Phil Steinmeyer, owner of PopTop, began to stir from his postgame coma. "I don't think this is getting us anywhere, guys."
I looked at my broken paddle and decided to agree. Phil peered out to the horizon and pointed. "That way!" he said, his voice stern. Phil explained that he remembered a game he'd once dreamt of and told us that it was a strategy game about being a dictator. Surely we could agree on this path? Quickly we broke out Junta, the father of all banana republic-style games, and filled our minds with vivid images of Latin American political lunacy. With this bit of information we began paddling slowly toward our salvation, or at least toward something we could play with.
Tropico
