Production Line: An Interview With Positech Games' Cliff Harris
Tycoon-style games are some of the most interesting strategy sims out there. They challenge us to wrap our minds around how various businesses work and push us to maximize the results of those considerations in various amusing ways. It is interesting to think that despite the great many various types of these games, there’s seldom been a notable one, if any, that took a deep and considerate look at the moving parts of the automotive industry. Positech Games aims to change that with Production Line.
This game puts you in the seat of a factory entrepreneur set upon building a grand vehicle-producing empire, but it won’t be easy. Anyone can throw together a single assembly line. You’ll be tasked with creating a multi-car-moving, well-oiled machine built to overtake the hearts of automotive casuals and enthusiasts everywhere. It might sound daunting, but never fear. GameWatcher reached out to Positech Games Director Cliff Harris to guide us into the foreman’s post. Cliff happily expanded upon how Production Line came to be, what sets it apart from previous business games, and what lies in the future for the impressive car-crafting sim.
GameWatcher: This is an interesting approach to the tycoon-style sim. How did you arrive at the idea for Production Line after the likes of Gratuitous Space Battles and Democracy?
Cliff Harris: I bought an electric car in a mad moment. At the same time I had been reading a lot of the favorite books of Elon Books, one of which was the life story of Henry Ford, My Life and Work. It’s quite fascinating and talks about the whole way the original production line was invented and laid out. It was a huge ramp up they got in efficiency they got just from splitting complex things into tiny tasks. I kind of knew about it and most people do, but reading about it in ridiculous detail really enkindled something. I’ve played games like Factorio, published games like Big Pharma, and have dabbled in all sorts of games like those. It occurred to me that these games always started you off with making something simple and would eventually lead you to making something really complicated. What Henry Ford did was pretty much the opposite. He created something complicated and then broke it down into simpler components to make it more efficient. I thought that would be an interesting mechanic for a game, not necessarily to build something bigger, but to build something that becomes as efficient as possible.
GameWatcher: That’s an interesting thought. Henry Ford pretty much invented the original assembly line, and he did it by taking this complex factory and breaking the whole creative process into a series of basic parts, which is sort of the opposite of most building sims where you start from the bottom up.
Harris: Yeah, and to be honest, it’s easier to create a game that way. Starting with something simple and bolting stuff on later is easier to code and design, but making and playing this has brought up something quite interesting. If you just want to build a single car, you only technically need a very small space in which to do it and it’s incredibly inefficient. However, the moment you separate that process into two tasks, you need twice the room. You find yourself in this situation where you always need more room and it’s never quite as efficient as you might like it to be. So the game guides you to continue to improve and plan upon a very inefficient platform to smooth it out as much as you can later. You prep this space for a future where you might have more money to do more things, a lot like a real business. I wanted to take that sort of feeling and put it across thoroughly in the game.
GameWatcher: Even just from the trailer, it’s easy to see there is a lot going on here. There are ton of moving parts. Where does one start with Production Line?
Harris: At the start, it’s quite simple. You need to build the chassis, which are the axles and machinery under the car. Then you build the body. That translates to dropping a slot in the work area that builds the chassis, a conveyor belt, and a slot that builds the body. Next comes painting, building the engine, then the accessories, and quality assurance. Finally you export. Once all these systems are connected, you’ve got a whole assembly line that builds cars from start to finish. Additionally, you’ll have to connect all of these to import slots that bring in their components, but that’s a basic peek into the basic procedure of the game. That said, you’ll find quickly that building a car like this is expensive and inefficient. Moreover, you’ll find certain bottlenecks in the time it takes to finish certain pieces of the procedure. For instance, it takes longer to assemble the body than the chassis, so there’s an immediate hitch in the process. You might decide that you need two body stations for one chassis station and you end up expanding the factory to solve the problem. Meanwhile, a big part of it is research that goes into breaking an opponent up into several more easily accomplished parts. You can split the body assembly into machines that separately handle the shell, roof, and doors, and you can further split things like doors into components like panels, windows, and more. Before you know it, it becomes this ridiculously complicated system of machines that each play a small part in the factory layout.
GameWatcher: How did you prep for a game like this? Was there a lot of research to be done in the car manufacturing process?
Harris: Yeah, I did and I became incredibly obsessed about it. Right now, I have a Model T pricelist on my desk because originally I had the game set in the Model T’s time period. Though I went deep into it, I actually tried not to go too far because once you get too technical, it can become a bit boring from a gameplay standpoint. For instance, when you paint a car in this game, there’s an undercoat, overcoat, and polish, but in actuality there are a ton of lacquer and sealant layers that go into that process. I want players to play a game about running a factory, rather than actually run a factory which is a horribly tedious job, so there is some approximation. That said, I did do the homework. I ended up going to Detroit, Michigan in the United States to visit a car factory and observe a tour among many other things. I studied enough to know that one manufacturing system can differ greatly from another and I want that to matter in the game, but I also want there to be an enjoyable level of detail without the game slipping into “edutainment” territory of the factory management process.
GameWatcher: It’s not just machinery either. There’s quite an extensive management side to Production Line that goes far beyond spending and making money. Can you take us through a few of the business systems in this game?
Harris: There is a lot of research. I’ve always enjoyed tech trees in games. I actually once designed a game that was entirely a tech tree from beginning to end. Some people really like that part of games and I’m one of them. Fortunately, there’s an enormous amount of technology in modern cars, not to mention a huge difference in quality between things like the cheapest steel budget car from one region and the top-of-the-line Lamborghini. So you’ve got difference of research and quality going into this system of competitors. No one really has tech at first. You’re just making cars with basic demands like steering wheels, tires, and windows, but as time goes on, the AI competition researches things like heaters and electric windows. You need to keep up or you’ll be left behind. If you’re the first to research something like anti-lock brakes and export it, you earn a period where you can sell that car for a premium price because you’re the only one with that tech. It’s inspired by real-world models. For instance, Tesla is making a premium on their cars right now because they’re the only ones producing a car with any sort of serious self-driving. On the other end, if a tech becomes universal among all cars, like electric windows, you can be penalized for selling an embarrassingly outdated design. That means you need to balance keeping up on the standard devices with getting ahead on certain techs. There’s also going to be a marketing side to Production Line. We haven’t worked it out just yet, but it’s an entire system we’re going to create and implement down the line.
GameWatcher: There’s a level here where you’re capable of churning out megatons of vehicles in different styles and brands and competing with other manufacturers in the game. How big does it get in Production Line? Do you ever control more than one factory at once?
Harris: You don’t ever control more than one factory, but it is pretty optimized now. When we first started having people play the game, we got complaints about the game slowing down. Turns out they were designing massive factories where they were producing over 250 cars per hour, which was amazing to me because I’ve never managed more than 30. We ended up identifying this new and interesting problem and went out of our way to optimize the game to allow for those ridiculously large factories and processes. I’ve always been into the idea of games like Factorio and Cities: Skylines that dare you to fill their map full of stuff. I really like that and hope that when we’re further along that players will be able build up these factories that are like ten times the size of the current ones and engage in these insanely big games that take hundreds of hours.
GameWatcher: One thing we see in a lot of simulation games that sort of spices things up are the events. For better or worse, you might have these boons or disasters that can make or break parts of your empire. A car manufacturing plant seems like a great place to play with that. Are there any plans for disastrous or beneficial events with Production Line?
Harris: Yeah, definitely. I’ve only just implemented a little notification bar that pops to let you know certain news, like when research is complete or when there’s a new component available and there’s plans down the line to play with that feature. You’re right, there’s a whole lot to do with it from things like perspective of your brand or how you handle the regulation side of business. Like if one of your car models crashes, not only do you see a loss in sales for safety features, but there could be new regulations or, even worse, a model recall. There’s also just standard things to play with that could screw you up, like if new emission standards make one of your models unsellable. It’s the kind of kinks that could stop your production lines for a time or force you to consider maintenance. I also like the thought of allowing players to invest in cheap robots over quality ones and take the risk of poorly assembled vehicles in comparison to higher quality, more efficient machines.
GameWatcher: Let’s talk about difficulty. This is a very particular type of game and it can be confusing to those who are unprepared to see all those moving parts and stats in action. Does Production Line have any sort of cushion to guide the newbie into the system? Moreover, are there ways to make the game more difficult for the seasoned tycoon?
Harris: It’s a little bit intimidating at the start. We’ve got a tutorial in there, but it’s not quite up to the level I want it to be yet. I’ve been working on a Steam Guide that’s going to be on the Steam page and on my site before too long, but there’s a lot of videos out there to help players out as well. I would say that it’s easier to get into than a lot of indie games. It’s not too bad once you’ve worked out the very basic production line. Once you put that down, it’s fairly self-explanatory in my opinion. That said, we’ve got a lot of challenges for players to conquer that are quite difficult. One of the achievements is to sell 1,000 cars that cost $25,000 dollars or more. As we add more tech and more options, we’re going to continue to challenge players to accomplish some pretty difficult stuff. And we’re not talking about standard achievements like making a certain amount of money. The goal here is efficiency and we have achievements that adhere to that, like one that asks you to maintain a consistent production slot usage ratio. That means setting up a factory that runs extremely smooth and that’s not an easy task.
GameWatcher: With Production Line’s arrival in Early Access on Steam, you’ve arrived at a somewhat larger audience with an easy means to be vocal about it. How are you handling the Steam community? Is there a lot of cooperation with the community going into the game?
Harris: Originally I had it set up where they could pre-order Production Line through the Humble Widget. I wanted to get some good feedback before I pursued Early Access, but I ended up moving about 10,000 orders, which is great. Everyone has been really supportive so far. It’s kind of a scary thing because with Early Access because you’re basically putting out a half-finished game and sometimes people can be less than understanding of that, but with the early start this year, we’ve moved along quite well. By the time we got to Early Access, I felt like we had put out something with more substance than the standard Early Access arrival, which was one of my goals. The game is very playable in its current state and has a lot to offer. With as long as people were playing Production Line before Steam Early Access came up, I feel like we’ve had ample time to squash the most constant and ridiculous bugs and problems.
GameWatcher: Production Line’s arrival on Steam also leaves the door open for a modding community. This seems like a game begging to have specialized cars, machines, or systems that a modding community would be happy to dig into. Are there any plans for mod support on Production Line, perhaps in the Steam Workshop?
Harris: I love modding. I did Democracy 3 and there is a massive modding community there with all sorts of great ideas. Actually, it annoys me when a lot of modern games don’t have modding opportunities. Obviously there’s quite a bit of code involved in this matter, but I’m absolutely into the idea. There’s a level editor for people to mess with the values and create stupidly big maps, though it’s not very well explained at the moment. There’s also another editor I’m cleaning up right now for implementation soon that will allow the editing of production slots. With this editor, modders will be able to do things like mess with values or create new scenes for a production slot based on certain props. I already kind of use this for my own purposes to do the same thing with all the props. I hope to make it easy to use and make it public soon. People have already hacked certain parts of the game though. I’ve seen them do mods where they build certain features like seats from different components to offer different benefits in their build. The only reason I haven’t implemented my own new editor yet is just a matter of time. That said, I’ve worked with Steam Workshop before and I’m most certainly going to make sure it’s ready for Production Line. I won’t corral all mods into Steam Workshop – I support modding bases wherever they happen to come up – but I really do hope Production Line sees a healthy modding community.
Production Line looks set to deliver an interesting new wrinkle into the typical tycoon fare. Money might be the bottom line, but efficiency is the main means to the end and every new robot and technology seems set to deliver more niches to our ever more complicated factories. It will be interesting to see what hours of game play bring out of this game and, even further, what Cliff and Positech create as they continue to build upon this already deep-looking car factory sim.
Want to learn more or get in on the action with Production Line? Check out the official website and Steam page.
