Remedy's Sam Lake

There are a ton of different elements in that. During the time when we were working on the Max Payne games, I wrote a movie script called 'Undertow' and quite a few different elements from that made their way into Alan Wake. Basically, I stole from myself. Undertow was a thriller about a burned-out character who goes on vacation in a cabin by a lake and strange things start happening. That was the start of it.

We knew also we wanted to make a thriller rather than a horror game. All too often in video games, horror just means blood and gore and monsters. Even if there are many elements in Alan Wake that you would call horror if you saw them pop up in a movie, we feel that 'thriller' is a much better definition for what we're doing.

Very early on in the project, when we were sorting out our main vision, we knew that we wanted the game to centre around an everyman. We didn't want an action hero, rather we wanted someone to grow into the role of a hero.

Also, with the Max Payne games, we had been using voice-over narration as a storytelling tool. We knew we wanted that for Alan Wake as well, but we wanted a different angle. So we decided that the best fit for that would be to make the lead character a storyteller - a writer - and then the natural extension of that was that Wake's writings became part of the plot-line.

Well I think that in general - well, at least it's true for me - you tend to put something of yourself into the story as a whole. Not necessarily in any character, you understand. But you've got your own way of looking at the world, and that naturally will affect how you craft a story.

Certainly, there are pieces of me like that - although we're talking about fiction here - and there are small details in there. There are small glimpses into Alan Wake's childhood, for example, which are based on my own childhood memories, but these are very minor things.

If you look at Max Payne, for example, there are moments when mobsters or henchmen are having funny conversations before the action starts. Some of those conversations are office talk you hear while the game is being made and you go "oh, yeah, that's funny" and suddenly you're writing them into the game.

That's really great to hear. That has been our goal from the start. We wanted to create a protagonist who felt like a real person - someone who has a background, who has problems and who has strengths and weaknesses. Someone who has a human touch. You very very rarely in video games - epecially in action games - have main characters who have this. Alan's got problems - his marriage, his work - and all of this lends him depth.

It's also very important to make sure that the main character and the player are completely in synch. Early on, we want the player to be slightly disorientated, like Alan - there is definitely a learning curve for the gameplay, but also for the plot. The entire experience should go forward from there.

[Laughs] Oh yes, you could say that!

Oh definitely looking forward to doing more with him. From the very beginning, we planned to do more with Alan Wake than just this one game. Whether that means taking him into new mediums or into a new game remains to be seen. With the TV series as a model for the structure of the game, we kind of had plans to take things forward from there.

Of course, a lot depends on how people react to the game and whether they want to see more of Alan Wake. That being said, we feel that the game needs to reach a conclusion. The player needs to achieve the goals he's been challenged with and Alan needs to reach the end of his journey. At the same time we need to open doors to a larger story beyond this one. There are many plot elements that open up possibilities for further opportunities and story strands in this game. We'll just have to see how it does.