Neptune's Pride is the kind of game you don't see very often. Games can take weeks to resolve; players will finish a round and swear to never play again - seething at the betrayal of their former allies.

Eight players are pitted against each other in a fight for survival, with the winner determined by the number of stars a player controls in the galaxy. But with most of the stars already occupied at the start of the game, the only path to victory is a road full of deceit, skulduggery and underhanded alliances.

The original Neptune's Pride received rave reviews among the press, with one of the most notable instances being a seven-part cross-feature between UK sites Rock, Paper, Shotgun and PC Gamer.

Earlier this year, the beta version of Neptune's Pride 2 was released to the public. Jay Kyburz, founder of the game's developer, Iron Helmet Games, published a trailer video explaining it all for the uninitiated.

Thanks to HTML5, the game is playable on just about every mobile device, tablet and computer. And having received funding from the Federal Government's Screen Australia, I wanted to know more. So I sat down with Kyburz and asked him where it all got started.

Before founding Iron Helmet, you worked at 2K Australia on Bioshock 2 and a prototype for XCOM. How did you go from that to making strategy games for browsers and mobile devices?

I wanted to make the kinds of games I enjoyed playing and I found I just didn't have a passion for big budget, single-player, console-based first-person shooters.

Did you have any experience developing for the web when Iron Helmet started?

I have always followed and been interested web technologies, but other than test pages and a few tiny side projects, nope, no experience at all.

What made you decide to jump into browser/mobile gaming when you did?

I really love the idea of the web. The idea that you can write a simple app everybody can use it and interact with it without having to install or download anything.

I think this is the future or all applications.

NP 2 received a grant from Screen Australia two years ago. What was the process like? What made you decide to apply, and how important has the grant been to the game and the studio?

The process was quite simple, I just sat down one weekend and wrote an application. Screen Australia make it very easy and they have some good documentation about what they want to see and how you should present it.

I think the best part about the grant was that we were able to employ a number of very talented local Australian artists and writers to help us test new features and make the game look great.

As a very small developer, it's hard to take money out my own savings to pay artists to draw spaceships for you.

The machinations of compromise and betrayal are central to NP's gameplay. One issue that can arise is that players can become very frustrated, especially after investing weeks into a game only to be sabotaged at the very end. How do you deal with that kind of reaction as a developer, and what changes have you made in the sequel to encourage gamers to keep playing?

Lets take a step back a little, there is nothing in the game rules that say you should betray your allies. Neptune's Pride just doesn't have any rules that prevent players from doing it. This creates tension in the game. Makes it exciting.

What makes the game truly enjoyable is the positive relationships you can build in the game. When you meet somebody you can work with and trust. It's a real friendship because they could betray you at any time but choose not to.

Something that's always fascinated me about multiplayer games are the stories players tell. Have players told you about their own stories that unfolded while playing NP? How do you accommodate this aspect of social interaction as a developer, and do you find that the narrative becomes more intricate in NP because of the length of time spent playing?

Of course. This is called Emergent Narrative and it's why NP works. The length of time playing is critical because it gives you time to sit back and think about the situation you are in, your relationship with the other players.

All you need to do to accommodate it is to have a good chat system, and not have too many game mechanics that automate communication between the players.

There's an interesting tension throughout the game, knowing that any decision you make will take hours to resolve. In one sense, the game plays out like a turn-based strategy, even though the game is constantly, albeit slowly, progressing. What encouraged you to make the game a real-time strategy, instead of a turn-based or even simultaneous turn-based game, in the first place?

In a turn based game you can just put it out of your mind until the next turn is due. When the game is always ticking away in the background you are always thinking about it.

As the game progresses, there are lots of little things you can do throughout the day. You can just drop in and visit your game for a few minutes each or fiddle with the orders of your units or upgrade your stars. This helps with keeping your game alive in your head.

More and more Australians are getting their start in the industry in the mobile space instead of developing for the PC or console. As someone who left a major studio and all the trappings that came with it, how does that make you feel?

I don't really have any feelings about folks getting started on mobile. I'm a huge PC gamer and think the mouse and keyboard is a far superior interface to anything else.

I was sad to watch the "consolation" of the first person shooter and the death of the strategy game in the era of the Xbox and PS3, so I guess it will be fun to watch the slow death of the console now we are in the era of mobile.

What advice would you give to people starting out in the industry, or those looking to make a career in game development?

Start small and polished, release early and often. Have a plan for how you are going to make money. Take a game that you love, give it a twist and make it better.

Neptune's Pride 2 is free to play right now, with extra features for a paid Premium service.

Alex Walker is the regular gaming columnist for ABC Tech + Games. You can follow him on Twitter at @thedippaeffect.