From The Mouths of Indies #2

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From The Mouths of Indies #2

Our series of interviews continues! Following last week's interview with Introversion, I sought out a company in a much tighter niche than the relatively big-name IV.

Today, we bring you Spiderweb Software's Jeff Vogel - the battle-scarred shareware developer of epic fantasy RPGs like Avernum and Geneforge. For a few words on E3, marketing, distribution and - being sly and nimble - the recent XNA Game Studio express phenomenon.

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[Sairon]

Never heard of these guys, Avernum does ring a little bell somewhere but I can't really recall much about it. Checking out the screenshots for Avernum 4 at their homepage reveals a game that could well be over 10 years old. Is that a bad thing? Not really, in fact there's a huge shortage on these kind of titles, and that means that I probably could stand the sub par production values.

[Zane0]

They made the Exile series as well, although that probably isn't very familiar either.  I played the hell out of the Exile shareware games.  They make good low-tech rpg's; glad to see they're still hanging around.

[Signe]

I played the Exile series as well, and really enjoyed myself.  It's an ADORABLE company!  I'm going to shell out the $45 for the Avernum series and possibly for my nephew's Mac, too.  Exile ran on every computer I had why back when so it became my favourite lunchtime and in-between other stuff thing to do.  I only wandered away from the company because they seemed to go for AGES with nothing new.

[Tebonas]

I loved the first three Exiles, I loved them again when they were renamed Avernum and given some facelifting. I am glad there is an Avernum 4 now. I must pay more attention, almost missed that.

[Yoru]

Exile ran on every computer I had why back when so it became my favourite lunchtime and in-between other stuff thing to do.  I only wandered away from the company because they seemed to go for AGES with nothing new.

Turns out JV is a WOW addict. That might explain it.

Oddly enough, it doesn't show through in his games.

[dusematic]

You need to start getting real with these Indies.  Like, now I think it's clear that these podunk devs don't get much out of E3.  So ask them interesting questions, like if they ever imaguined their life ending up in the bargain basement entertainment software development ghetto.