2D Boy's Ron Carmel and Kyle Gabler

Full Throttle. What was the name of the character on the motorcycle in the 3D fighting road? Father something.

Yeah! He felt, to me, to be like an angel, or god-esque character. There was choral music playing in the background. MOM is a combination of him and Norma Desmond, if they were a web 2.0 app. Tragic, lonely. And she inadvertently sets up the events that lead to the climax of the game. MOM was the biggest risk. I was afraid people would get to her and say "WTF", and close the game and never come back.

In the first revision of the game, it was too difficult in the build up to her. So everyone was grumpy when they met her! So we quickly fixed that difficulty spike. Somehow, nobody complained about her. People knew what to do, and she seemed to be perceived as a natural part of the game's progression. We were terrified people just wouldn't get the MOM to 'terms and conditions' acceptance to 'deliverance' progression. Foreshadowing her helped. There are bulletin boards in each of the chapters leading up to her, old advertising messages for MOM.

We ran into the streets gloating and acting like asshole rock stars. But nobody knew who we were.

Every sentence of every review is like an emotion-coaster. Negative comments sting, even now, a couple months later. When a small team makes a game, or any project, I suppose it's easy to directly map criticism about the game or project directly onto yourself, which probably isn't the healthiest thing.

We kinda grew slightly thicker skin after the backlash from the announcement about the more expensive retail release in Europe. That freaked us out. I think people forgot we were humans too. Some nasty things were said.

It was an incredible thing. I'm not proud to admit it, but I checked that thing every morning to see if the 4th score had come in. It's strange. When you have a boss, and you get a year-end performance review and bonus, that's how you get validation for doing a good job. But as your own boss that part is missing. We still need external validation, so we get it from people who write to us to say that they enjoyed the game, and from reviews and, yes, even Metacritic.

The reception has been surreal. One of my childhood heroes, Tim Schafer, actually played the game. With his baby!

I'd say the first two. It's Stockholm Syndrome. You can't help but fall in love a little bit with the thing that's endlessly occupying your life. But I don't think we ever felt self-satisfied about the game. It was probably good that we always hated it a bit too.

Yeah we don't want to make a Temple of Doom. But the next game will be a dumb arena shooter.

Hey, how did you know about my idea? I was going to tell you about it tomorrow.

The next step is to prototype a bunch of new ideas. One week each.

We have a bunch of ideas laying around, none of which is one of those "oh, that's a game" kind of ideas.

Yeah, the plan is to make a bunch of stuff, and see what sticks.

Hell yeah! And it has nothing to do with money, by the way. It was about doing what we love, not about starting a company. That sounds really cheesy, but it's true.

To anyone thinking about quitting everything and making an indie game, it's good to remember that you can always go get a job if it doesn't work out.

There are so many game developers being laid off now, it seems like the perfect time for people to go indie. Yay for severance pay!