Introversion Software - Developer Profile Feature

Introversion, the Britsoft developer is unquie in many ways. Itâ??s not their small size, nor the fact that one of the leading UK distributors Pinnacle support and distribute their games. Introversion are innovative and have an almost cult like following â?“ the last of the â??bedroom programmersâ?, a staple of the decliing Britsoft scene.

Derek dela Fuente recently had an opportunity to speak with Chris Delay Lead Developer from the team, who discussed the commercial disappointments of Darwinia to date (buy it people or at least check out the demo) and much moreâ?¦

Please can you tell us about Introversion and how many people work at the company and what your mission statement is?

Weâ??re a small indie games company comprising of just a handful of staff â?“ myself designing the games and running the website, Mark and Tom running the business, Johnny handling all our Mac and Linux work, and Vicky running our marketing and PR.

Our primary aim is to create original and unique games with complete creative freedom.

"Unfortunately it hasnâ??t yet translated into the sales weâ??d hoped for â?“ a lot of people have trouble understanding Darwiniaâ?¦"

Being such a small team must present problems in the fact that the creation of a game takes a long of time. Are you considering expanding? What are the benefits of staying small?

With Darwinia we had one other full-time game developer â?“ Andy Bainbridge. We like keeping the team sizes small as it means we have to be ultra-efficient and very creative with how we use our resources.

Darwinia like Uplink got some fabulous review marks from some of the main UK mags and web sites. Firstly were you pleased with the kind of coverage you received and did it equate to the kind of sales you expected? Was the game released in Europe at all?

The review scores were incredible, and that certainly felt very good. Unfortunately it hasnâ??t yet translated into the sales weâ??d hoped for â?“ a lot of people have trouble understanding Darwinia, so weâ??ve made an entirely new Demo that does a much better job of explaining and introducing the game to new players.

You are very much tied in with Pinnacle. Do you feel that in terms of PR and getting the kind of coverage required that you really need to be with a publisher to achieve sales UK and worldwide or do Pinnacle fit the bill?

Pinnacle handles our distribution within the UK â?“ they push our boxed game into the high-street stores and handle all the delivery and management of that task. Theyâ??re invaluable in ensuring our games get into the shops. In order to sell our games outside the UK we really need to sign our games with Publishers (weâ??re just too small to handle big countries like America remotely), but within the UK weâ??ve been quite successful at self publishing our titles ourselves.

"We honestly feel weâ??re one of only a tiny handful of companies that actually have control over the games they make."

Do you feel that publishers in general restrict creativity and so developers go the safe route? Darwinia and Uplink go against the trend but are great titles, so do you feel that many developers would like to be more creative but canâ??t afford the luxury!?

We think that if you go with a publisher, you hand creative control of your game over to the people who are financing the project. We think the entire games industry is evidence of this. Publishers are looking for the safe bets, and developers are struggling as well so theyâ??re forced to provide the safe bets. We honestly feel weâ??re one of only a tiny handful of companies that actually have control over the games they make.

Do you create all you own tools and engine and do you spend a lot of time on this area or do you tend to adapt and focus on this when you are creating a game?

Weâ??ve got a massive library of code and tools that weâ??ve written over the years, some of it dating back to pre-Uplink times. It allows us to get programs up and running on Windows, Linux or Mac with minimum of effort. Every time we create another game we add new stuff to this library and modify and improve older modules until theyâ??re up to date. For example with Darwinia we added a whole sound system module to the library. Itâ??s incredibly useful to us.

Your personnel have been around a long time. Do you feel that we are due a big revival in the Britsoft scene and do you also feel that to have a successful scene will have a great knock-on effect?

Thereâ??s certainly a wealth of creative talent in the UK, but our opinion is that thereâ??s very little way for it to express itself at the moment. We donâ??t know what direction the industry is going to move in, but at this moment in time its virtually impossible to get creative game ideas written and published.

Darwinia is a great title for console is this an option you've considered, even for a sequel?

Absolutely â?“ weâ??d love to do a console version of Darwinia. The barriers to entry are much higher of course â?“ on the PC anyone can have a go, but on the consoles itâ??s all much more controlled. But its certainly one of our longer term aims.

"Whenever I look at their launch video the word "Lightsabers" leaps into my head, and all thoughts of any other next-gen consoles fade away."

Does the next batch of consoles and handhelds excite the team and can you see any trends over the next 2 years? What machine looks the most appealing to Introversion?

The Nintendo Revolution controller blew me away. I donâ??t know if itâ??s going to be successful or not â?“ I can see a lot of hard-core gamers snubbing their noses at it â?“ but I really think they might be onto something really big with that design. Whenever I look at their launch video the word â??Lightsabersâ? leaps into my head, and all thoughts of any other next-gen consoles fade away.

Which team/person or industry1 figure do you most respect and why?

At the moment, Iâ??m in awe at Nintendo for having such vision. But it changes on a week-by-week basis.

What comes next from Introversion?

Weâ??re hard at work on our third game, currently top-secret, but due for release around April 2006. Weâ??ll have more information on this project soon.

Anything else youâ??d like to add?

Please try our new Darwinia Demo! Even if you didnâ??t like the game first time around, weâ??re confident youâ??ll have a great time playing it.

TVG would like to thank Chris Delay for taking time away from whatâ??s a typically manic schedule; weâ??ll have further coverage of their secretive third-title soonâ?¦