Trevor Chan, the game designer behind Intaractive Magic's Seven Kingdoms, doesn't make it to Atlanta very often. Chan is based in Hong Kong, In fact, as GameSpot News pursued Chan in the weeks preceding E3, all efforts to connect failed - and failed again. Actually, IMagic staffers started to worry a little that Chan had decided to leave the business of computer game development behind. Our worries were quickly routed when Chan walked into the E3News booth on the show floor and introduced himself. He was, to be expected, quickly engulfed by a small sea of curious GameSpot reporters and editors.

　　Chan was able to spend some time with us on the show floor. Here is the Trevor Chan interview as it appeared in E3News. We hope that readers will enjoy reading this interview again - or maybe for the first time.

　　GameSpot News: Hong Kong is mighty far from the gaming markets on North America and Europe. Can you tell readers briefly why Enlight is Located in HK, and have you ever considered moving anywhere else?Trevor Chan: As a matter of fact, Hong Kong is the place where I grew up and I developed my first commercially released game product Capitalism there. The development of Capitalism was first started out as a part-time interest when I was working as a consultant for a local airline company. It was then turned into a full-time project when it reached a stage where I believed that it is promising enough to get a publisher to publish it. At that point, Enlight Software was formed to meet the serious challenge of commercial game development.

　　I think I am happy with the growth of my company and the highly competent development team that we have built up during the past two years. While moving to the US or other places in the world that provide higher concentration of game development talent sounds attractive to a developer, with the strong commitment my team is giving to the company, I think it would be my full intention to be working with them in Hong Kong for a long time to come.

　　GameSpot News: Given that most marriages don't last five years even, what were the factors that motivated you to sign up with Interactive Magic for such a long period?Trevor Chan: The relationship between Interactive Magic and Enlight Software started to build up since an early year of the both companies. Capitalism is one of the early titles that Interactive Magic published and has much significance to the growth of the two companies. The success of the title, which can be mostly attributed to Interactive Magic's effective and innovative marketing and the quality of the product itself, sent us a clear message that this was a relationship that we all hope to continue to maintain and develop further. So after the collaboration on Seven Kingdoms, and its success we again achieved together, we decided that it would be the time for both companies to make a bigger commitment, which we all believe would have a strong and positive impact on increasing both companies' competitiveness over the long run.

　　GameSpot News: Were you completely happy with Seven Kingdoms or do you think about ways you could have improved the title? Are you considering a sequel?Trevor Chan: One thing I have realized clearly since the development of Seven Kingdoms is that Enlight was not on par with most of the other developers in terms the resources and experiences it had in developing cutting-edge graphics. That inevitably led to some disappointments in the game's graphics. Though, to many gamers, what ultimately counts is the gameplay. And to that end, I believe Seven Kingdoms has done a good job in delivering it. However, in reality, eye candies are still crucial to a game's sales, and the relative lack of visual attractiveness somewhat kept the game from getting the full attention it deserved. The positive side is that we have managed to build Seven Kingdoms into a game with a high level of gameplay depth and a multitude of strategic possibilities, which are the elements most hard-core strategic gamers value most highly. It is our intention to come out with a sequel with vastly improved graphics and an option to allow the player to play the game from a completely different perspective, which we believe will add much new excitement to the game.

　　GameSpot News: What games are you playing now? What games did you play as a youngster?Trevor Chan: I still play Seven Kingdoms and Seven Kingdoms Ancient Adversaries quite some bits from time to time. I also constantly play games of all types from other developers to get a sense of what the latest developments in the industry are. There are two PlayStation games I was particularly impressed with recently. One is Final Fantasy VII from Square Soft and another is Residence Evil II from Capcom. While I didn't have time to finish them, I was impressed by the level of coherence between storytelling and interactivity the two games exhibit. When I was a youngster, I played a lot of Apple II games. It is not an overstatement to say that I spent far more time playing games than doing school assignments in those days.

　　E3News: What games are you most interested in seeing at E3?Trevor Chan: I would like to see what approaches different developers take in integrating 3D technology into strategy games. All signs show that 3D technology is going to play an increasingly important role in games of every genre. It would be interesting to see how inspiring and innovative it is being used in games that traditionally rely on 2D graphics, like strategy games.

　　GameSpot News: Do hardware development (in video and sound cards, for example) influence you in your game design?Trevor Chan: When I first started the development of Capitalism, high-resolution VGA display was still not common, and the amount of memory a typical game had was just 2MB to 4MB. By the time Capitalism was released, high-resolution VGA display was the standard already and machines with 8MB memory were everywhere. This reinforced my belief that it is always a good decision to be more aggressive with predictions of hardware development when a game development is started. The advantage of this is that when the final product comes out, an early decision, like going for a larger gaming world that needs a bigger chunk of memory or crafting a more complex AI system that demands more computing power, will pay off as they utilize most of what a user's machine is capable of offering.

　　GameSpot News: Is there a game out there you consider to be the one that defines what a perfect PC game can be?Trevor Chan: In my opinion, Civilization is a prime example of what a perfect PC strategy game can be. Doom and Quake also demonstrated what a perfect action game could be at their times. Basically, for every genre, we can always identify a couple games in the history of computer games that achieved perfection in their design and execution and set new standards for their genre at their times.

　　GameSpot News: In five years, do you think computer games will look more or less like the games already on the market? Or do you think there will be substantial changes in the industry?Trevor Chan: Visually, I think games will continue to improve, thanks to the seemingly ever-increasing power of 3D acceleration cards. Expectedly, there will eventually come a point where the quality and realism of real-time computer graphics will rival that of real photos and videos. When that becomes a reality, developers will be tempted to build stronger and more convincing storytelling components in a scale that substantially surpasses the current standard. And we may see games appealing to and exerting influence to the public at a level similar to what movies are doing currently.

　　GameSpot News: What do you think of this whole "Trevor Chan is the next Sid Meier" comparison? Are you flattered? Are you yourself a fan of Sid Meier?Trevor Chan: Sid Meier is one of the most successful game designers in the history of computer games. I am most impressed by his unmatched ability in designing games of different genres. He is one of the pioneers in flight sim design as his work in F-19 demonstrated. His mastery in designing strategy games is reflected in Pirates!, Railroad Tycoon, and Civilization. The revolutionary approach he took in designing Sid Meier's Gettysburg set new standards in wargame design. As far as what I think about the comparison, I think it is really a compliment and my work in the future will tell the validness of the statement. My wish is to continue to create games whose subjects and designs are not driven by market reality but my belief of what would give gamers an inspiring and enjoyable gaming experience.

　　E3News: Thanks Trevor.

　　Seven Kingdoms' sequel, Seven Kingdoms II, is currently in development at Chan's Hong Kong-based design company Enlight Software.