"A postcolonial parody to the Civ series": Nikhil Murthy on Syphilisation and its ambitious project

Nikhil Murthy's Syphilisation is a game that makes you think about the generic themes of the 4X genre, and how it goes about it further nuances the experience. Genres such as this one have certain presumptions or themes that are ever replicated - defeat the enemies, take the resources, build your army, repeat, and win. What does it look like when this hegemony of ideas is poked and prodded?

In this interview, Nikhil Murthy gives a peek at what he wanted to showcase through the gameplay and premise of Syphilisation, its influences, the choice of the genre, and more.

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Nikhil Murthy discussing Syphilisation, its influences, its underpinings, and more

Same machinations, different underpinnings (Image via Why Not Games)

Q: Thanks for taking the time to chat with me. Can you give a quick introduction about yourself and the game for the readers?

I'm Nikhil Murthy, I've been making games professionally for over a decade now. I made Syphilisation, a postcolonial 4X game in which you play a student doing a group report on Gandhi, Churchill, and the Raj.

Q: Nikhil Murthy's Syphilisation. I do notice the parallel with Sid Meier's and the James Joyce inspiration there. I would love it if you would talk about the choice of the title and what you wanted to convey to someone who comes across the title.

A few years ago, I was thinking about how to solve parody in video games. Other forms of media have strong traditions of parody, and it was strange to me that video games didn't have one as well. At around the same time, I happened to read James Joyce's Ulysses, and he makes the pun Syphilisation about the British civilization in there. So, the idea of a postcolonial parody to the Civ series with the name Syphilisation came to me.

My hope was that people would be able to see the way the word syphilisation pokes at the word civilization and understand that this game intended to do the same to the Civ series. It then made sense to put my name in the title as well to reinforce the idea of this game as a postcolonial intervention, even if it means forever linking my name with syphilis.

Q: Why did you choose 4X as the genre?

I started the game with the name, and the name felt strong to me because of how deeply the colonial ideology is embedded in 4X games and how much of a pillar of video gaming they are. There have been over 30 years of Civ games, and they have never meaningfully interrogated their core pillars of growth-for-the-sake-of-growth and winner-take-all.

The rest of the genre similarly sees these as axiomatic. However, these are not beliefs that I hold myself, and these do not define how I would like nations to act. This tension and this unexplored space both made the 4X genre appealing to challenge.

Exploring space (Image via Why Not Games)

Q: When I initially picked up Syphilisation, I must admit that I had difficulties wrapping my head around what was going on and what I was expected to do. Now, while most of it could be ascribed to my ineptitude, I did wonder whether the obfuscation (as I felt it to be) was intentional, maybe to stymie players who are well-versed in other 4X titles. Was that the case?

Syphilisation was built to demonstrate how much space is still unexplored in 4X games. Usually, a player can assume some basic rules to a genre, but in order for the game to say what I wanted it to, I had to break some of these fundamental assumptions. So, the game inescapably became more challenging to pick up.

This challenge is the core of the value of the game, though. I want players to see how I represented ideas in Syphilisation and contrast that with how other 4X games represent similar ideas. To do so, I did need to make sure that the player engages with the systems as they are and not how they may have assumed them to be.

Q: Talk to us about inspirations or works that might have had influences as you developed Syphilisation. Are there other games that you would love our readers to try out after Syphilisation?

The largest influence is probably Gandhi's work and ideas. If I were to recommend one piece from him, I would pick Constructive Program to help move his ideas from idealism to practice.

Syphilisation's influences (Image via Why Not Games)

Syphilisation contains a full bibliography but I would pick out Nationalism by Tagore, The Kingdom of God Is Within You by Tolstoy, The Conquest of Bread by Kropotkin, The Age of Capital by Hobsbawm, India Essays by Naipaul and Colonialism and Neocolonialism by Sartre with an introduction by Fanon.

For video game recommendations, the most important one is The Indifferent Wonder of Edible Places by Studio Oleomingus. I would also recommend The Cat and the Coup, along with Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, simply because it is the best game ever made.

Q: How do you think the postcolonial lens impacts genres that have generally used colonial elements, including 4x?

Postcolonialism does two things for established genres. It lets you make games with beliefs that better reflect your own, which is very rewarding, and it shows you open space in the genre. Often, games struggle to differentiate themselves in a crowded genre. Taking a strong ideological lens like postcolonialism to the genre lets you easily separate yourself from other games.

Q: The choice of students and group reports as dictating the politics of the game is an interesting one (and one that reminded me of the MUNs, maybe erroneously, I heard of during college). What was the thought process behind this choice of a protagonist? How did it impact how you wrote the narrative of the game in terms of opportunities or limitations?

I decided early in the game's development that I wanted to present actual history instead of a framework for alternative histories. To do so, I needed a setting that presented actual facts to the player.

So, I chose students doing a group report as this kind of mirrors the journey of learning about the history of Gandhi, Churchill, and the Raj that the player undergoes.

Working together (Image via Why Not Games)

This worked out very nicely with the rest of the postcolonialism of the game. It's a lot easier for players to want to help out their fellow students than it would be for them to want to help other nations. For some reason, we are less harsh about a country being unethical than a person.

Q: Do you think such subversions of genre tropes and the expected narratives are/can be met with resistance from gamers, especially if done/seen in big-budget titles?

I think that there can certainly be resistance, but I also think that there can be interest and excitement. There are a lot of players out there, and when we flatten them into a monolith, we lose a lot of the picture.

Q: What's next in store from you?

I'm working on a basketball tactics game right now. Expect it out later this year!