![]() I think it’s definitely taken a toll on me in more ways than one, both physically and mentally, but I'm hoping the rewards will outweigh the sacrifices in the end. I can’t remember the last time I bought new clothes or went out to a restaurant – I wouldn’t have even been able to attend the IGF awards if it weren’t for the generosity and support of my family. ![]() It’s been tough though for sure I’d only budgeted for a year out originally so have had to adapt to an extremely frugal life in order to stretch my savings out over the past three years. The mod community played a big part in encouraging us to go indie they’ve been so positive throughout and have really motivated me to go the extra mile to create something truly special for the remake. How time consuming was the making of the remake, did it affect your personal life (lives) much, and how did you keep yourself motivated throughout the entire process? As mentioned before, it was originally supposed to just be a fun side project that I’d work on for a year before moving onto another job, but as the project developed it became clear it could be much more than that. I felt that with a bit of polish and care it had potential to be something really spectacular and was exactly the side-project I had been looking for! I spent a lot of time early on just playing through the original mod, pouring over the comments and feedback from it to help get a better idea of what worked and what didn't and I took that knowledge with me into building the remake. I started looking for inspiration on the indie and modding scene and that’s when I stumbled upon Dear Esther – It blew me away! The idea was brilliant, original and inspiring but the design and visuals were a bit rough around the edges back then. I planned to take a year out from the industry in 2009 and return to the UK to spend time with my family, and whilst I recharged my batteries I also wanted to take on a little side project to keep my creative juices flowing. Where did the inspiration for the original mod come from and what made you decide to remake it? Did you read most of the community feedback before starting to try and make it a better experience? The idea was originally conceived by Dan Pinchbeck in 2008 and came from the question of what would happen if you stripped traditional gameplay from a typical FPS space, leaving nothing but the story to keep the player engaged, and what kind of experience it would create? Not only that, but how abstract and fragmented could the story be whilst still engaging the player? To me, it was an experiment to see how far you could push the perceived boundaries of normal FPS play in order to have an original, more engaging experience. We’d built our community around the original Source mod so it just seemed proper in that respect also. I started my career making DM maps for Half Life 2, and part of me still revels in the challenge of crafting something beautiful with it. ![]() Back then there was no UDK or Cryengine and Unity wasn’t really viable for someone with no code experience, so at the time it was simply a case of picking an engine which had access to the biggest audience, which was (and still is) Source! I did toy with the idea of switching a couple of times, especially when the UDK came out, but ultimately I felt I had a certain loyalty to the Source engine. ![]() For the amount of detail we've seen through media, why did you remain with the Source engine? Was it a sense of accomplishment to push the engine as hard as you did, or was it just easier in the long run instead of switching to another high-poly engine that would have supported such detail with ease? Originally, when I took on the remake of Dear Esther, there wasn’t really a lot of choice in the matter.
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