The long-running strategy series from the brain of Sid Meier, Civilization, is finally heading over to the Nintendo DS portable system for the first time ever and IGN was fortunate enough to catch up with some of the members of Firaxis to see how development is going on the touch-screen platform.

Talking with Don Wuenschell, Lead Programmer on the project, and producer Clint McCaul, the team quizzed them on various subjects, such as the game’s core technology, visual presentation, and how difficult the task has been trying to squeeze such a large game into a smaller format. What is clear from the question and answer session is the the entire Civilization game is being re-envisioned for the Nintendo DS edition, with the team going back to the drawing board to figure out the best way to get the most out of the portable format. McCaul mentioned how they “had a lot of big decisions to make in order to make this a really fun and unique game,” whilst Wuenschell stressed how “the internal game core for DS is the same as the 360 and PS3.”

The game initially got the greenlight back in April 2007, with full production commencing a couple of months later, with development just about to be wrapped up in what is definitely a very fast turnaround for a small team such as Firaxis. Wuenschell talks about how the DS version is essentially the same game, yet probably a little quicker on the whole since users will obviously not have unlimited battery strength and using Wi-Fi and wireless play could sap battery life even more, so brevity to some degree was seen as a must. As for the multiplayer aspect, both local wireless and online Wi-Fi matches will be possible, for simple two-player head-to-head modes, as well as a free-for-all four-player mode, plus team battle.

Below is a snippet from the main interview article:

IGN: You’ve mentioned previously that there are 16 different civilizations to play as in the game. Is that number totally confirmed for the final version, or is that still in the works? As for the DS version specifically, does that number still apply?

McCaul: Yes, that number is set in stone. There are 16 civs, and the game core is the same from DS to 360 and PS3, so you won’t see many differences there. It’s the presentation on DS that is where things really change. All the combat and city screens are defnitley at a different pace and cadence than the console versions.

Wuenschell: But again, the core experience is still the same. Everything is still there, and we didn’t have to remove anything; we’re just displaying it in a different way for the pocket platform.

IGN:On the visual front, will we see a blend of 2D and 3D, or did you focus mainly on sprite work and animation for a fully 2D look?

Wuenschell: It’s mostly 2D work. We’re using some 3D to help show it off, but as far as the art goes it’s a 2D look. We started off looking at it like a game board for the bottom screen, and then the top screen is used for the combat and city layout. Most of the tile information and stats are all on the top screen, so we tried to keep the bottom screen used for the map, and just for the map.

IGN:Is there any action gameplay thrown in as well, or does it stick to its roots with turn-based strategy?

McCaul: It sticks to its roots. Full-on turn-based strategy.

IGN:On a broader note, Civilization is a very asset-heavy game. In bringing that to DS specifically, how did you condense the gameplay down to fit into a gamer’s pocket?

Wuenschell: Well once we knew what visual style we wanted - 2D - it was really a matter of letting the artists go to town. We basically told the artists “this is how much you can have loaded in at a time”, and let them do what they needed to do to make the game look as cool as they wanted.

IGN:As for the actual core technology, were there any games from the DS library you looked at specifically? Obviously there are things like Advance Wars, but then you’ve also got games like Age of Empires DS…

McCaul: Since the game is originally turn-based as part of Sid’s vision, we weren’t going to change that. As far as other games on DS, we did do some market research and checked out Age of Empires and Advance Wars, and just tried to look at what they did well, and look at what they didn’t do so well, and mesh those pieces into what we wanted to do with our game.

IGN:Now is the core game going to revolve around a full-on campaign mode, or is there another aspect such as “instant action” or “quick play” that gamers on the go can use to get right into a match?

McCaul: Right now we don’t have any specific mechanism in place for that, but based on the level of difficulty you play you’re going to have games that are rather fast or slow depending. Each match is essentially “stone age to space race” with different goals for each, so how fast you can get to those goals on a given difficulty level will determine if you’re playing a 45 minute game or a three hour game.

Finally, IGN touched upon how since the game is in 2D, would there be any sort of level editor or additional customisation for players, to which Wuenschell delivered the sad news that unfortunately there is no specific mechanism in place for such a thing right now. However, he did slip in that “should we come up with a second game, I don’t see why we wouldn’t come up with something like that in the future.” So perhaps we could be seeing more Civilization on DS after all.

But will we ever see the recently canned Wii game come back? Apparently if the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 editions do particularly well, then Firaxis will indeed think about resurrecting the project. However, for the moment it will sit on the shelf as it was the version with the most question marks hanging over it, due to starting so late in the day.

Stick with Nintendic for more news updates throughout the day…