We spoke with artist David Deen about PopTop Software and the making of the first Tropico.
Tropico came out in 2001 and put the player in charge of a small Caribbean island as its dictator. It was made by PopTop Software, a team of ten people. The series is still going, and Tropico 7 is due in January 2027. David Deen was one of the two character artists on the first game. We asked him about the studio, the look of the island and the people who live on it.
Can you introduce yourself and tell us a bit about what you do today?
Hi, I’m David Deen, artist and illustrator. Today, I do freelance illustration, mostly in children’s literature and the scientific field, plus illustration and writing for third party Dungeons and Dragons adventures.
How did you end up at PopTop? What were you doing before, and how did you get the job?
For several years before, I had been working part-time as an artist for Ensemble Studios, doing clean-up work and colorizing for Age of Empires I and II. I lucked into that position because my brother was a programmer there. So when I moved to St. Louis and had to give that up, I worked at a movie theater for about six months until my brother once again stepped in and let me know that PopTop was nearby and searching for artists. From then, it was just a matter of applying and joining the team.
What was PopTop like as a studio? How big was the team, and what was the atmosphere like?
When I joined, I believe it was just four others, maybe five, so we were a very small team. We were working on Railroad Tycoon II at the time. The atmosphere was about what you would expect for a team that size – serious about the work, but fairly open and informal when it comes to office dynamics. If you had a question, you’d just go ask the other person. We would joke, stay late to play third-person shooters, and walk to lunch together.
By the time we got to Tropico, we had doubled in size to ten people in total, and out of necessity there was a little more of a divide between programmers and artists and more of a system of meetings and emails, but it was still fairly open in general, and we still held the frequent after-work full-office third-person shoot-outs.
How did you get involved in Tropico? What was your role on the project?
When we were wrapping up the expansion to Railroad Tycoon II, we held a company meeting to decide what the next project would be. Various ideas were thrown around, and Tropico was the one that won.
Throughout the development of Railroad Tycoon II, I was what I called a pixel-pusher, because it was just 2D clean-up of other people’s 3D work. At that time, we weren’t making 3D assets in the game itself. I think some other games were at that point, but we were modelling assets in 3D and then rendering them out as sprites. Those sprites needed to be cleaned up. That was my job.
But I taught myself 3D in my spare time so that by the time we worked on the Railroad Tycoon II expansion, I was able to dip my feet in and make some of the 3D assets myself.
I kept pushing myself to learn more, and by the time we started working on Tropico, I was moved up to full-time 3D artist. I mainly worked on characters – modelling, rigging, animating, the whole deal.
Which parts of the game did you work on, and what does a day of that work actually look like?
I made half of the characters that walk around on the island. The professor, the teamster, the general, the fisherman with his goofy walk, and plenty of others. I also made a building or two and a lot of (all of?) the thought bubbles and other graphics that float over characters’ heads. And I did a lot of work on the Official Presidente’s Guide (Property of Tropico) and part of the work maintaining the website. As a small team, we all had to wear a lot of different hats and work on what was needed at the time.
Where did the look of Tropico come from? Did you have references for the buildings, the island and the people, or was it mostly invented?
It was a little bit of both. Cuba was a large share of the inspiration, so even if we could afford to go on a trip for reference and inspiration (which we couldn’t), we wouldn’t have been allowed to at the time. So we would synthesize news articles, non-fiction books, and pop culture to create the artwork.
When I was working on the cigar factory, for example, I dug around for references online, but there were few shots of Caribbean/Cuban cigar factories specifically, so I looked at lots of factories in general from those areas and developed my own idea with the thought of having it be plausible and fairly culturally accurate but still distinct from the other industrial buildings already in the game.
With the characters, it was a constant juggling act to make people that were inspired by the cultures we were looking at without mocking them. We wanted to make the characters a cartoon version of themselves, but still respect the cultures. I hope we succeeded.
What was the hardest thing to get right, visually or technically?
Well, I agreed to be one of the two main character artists with little to no animation experience, so learning to rig and animate the characters as we went was the biggest challenge. The talented artists working on the buildings did a great job of setting the flavor of the island, which was a huge inspiration for the characters.
Were there ideas, buildings or art that got cut along the way?
I don’t remember any buildings or art getting cut. But as I think is pretty standard for computer games, there were a lot of gameplay ideas that got left on the cutting room floor, ideas having to do with trying to juggle knowing who you could trust, playing politics with other countries, things like that. I think some of those ideas lived on with the different factions, elections, etc., but we had grandiose ideas that went into a lot more detail, ideas that probably would have made the game very different.
Did you have any idea it would become a series that’s still going 25 years later? What do you think it was about the first game that made people love it?
I knew it had the chance to be iconic, but I really didn’t expect it to keep going as long as it has. Tropico 7 coming next year?! Really?
I think people like the sandbox city-building gameplay to begin with, and adding the fun, thematic, tongue-in-cheek political layer on top just builds on that. That, and all of the amazing talent that went into it from the other great artists and programmers.
What are you most proud of in Tropico?
As one of the two character artists, I’m still most proud of the people. We spent a lot of time giving those little islanders their own personalities; each one has their own animations, walking speeds, and general vibe that (hopefully) gives the population its own character.
Thanks to David Deen for taking the time to answer our questions. You can see more of his work at daviddeen.com.