Spiderweb Games - Interview @ IndieGames

IndieGames Lena LeRay published a new interview with Jeff Vogel of Spiderweb Software earlier this week. Credit for this news-bit goes to Kordanor.

You've rereleased Exile twice now, first as Avernum and then again as Avernum: Escape from the Pit. The same is true of Exile 2 as Avernum 2 and then Avernum 2: Crystal Souls. What motivated you to rerelease them not just once, but twice?

A lot of reasons. I think releasing remastered versions of quality old games is a pretty established practice in the industry now.

For example, consider our newest rewrite, Avernum 2: Crystal Souls. It is a rewrite of Avernum 2, which came out in 2000. Fifteen (!) years ago. I think it's pretty fair to rewrite a game that old.

In the intervening decade and a half, a lot has happened. My interfaces and design have gotten a lot stronger. The resources available to me for art, sound, etc have grown greatly. Meanwhile, fifteen year old programs don't run well on Macintosh or 64-bit windows. The rewrites have three purposes: to make them function in the first place, to make them better, and to use the new engine to port the games to tablets. There's been a lot of demand for our games for the iPad, but this takes a full ground-up port. The archaic code won't work.

Rewrites of fifteen year old games are going to be a good part of our business going forward, as they are great games and the demand for remastered versions is high. Simply put, they sell really well. It helps that we don't half-ass these rewrites. Everything about them, ever space, every item, every line of dialogue, is gone over. Lots of new material is added.