Cool, congrats on getting the interview. Here are some questions I thought of:

- What are three things about Asylum that every person will love?
- How do you feel about the state of adventure games?
- Where will adventures be in 5 years?

Can you explain this a little more? Not sure if I completely understand what you mean by "unrelated puzzles."

Yeah, I was very tired and had to type quickly before my eyes fell shut, so I wasn't very clear. Sorry. ;)

What I meant was: There are several puzzles in the game that can't be solved before some other, unrelated event has taken place. For example (Spoiler!) at the end of the game, you have to dig in the ground, but you will _only_ be able to find what you're looking for after you tried to leave the house in your car. I think there are similar situations earlier in the game, often related to the phone calls to Jerry (you have to call him, otherwise the game won't progress), but I don't remember those exactly.

Personally, while I liked the game (and recommended it to others), I felt that this type of puzzle design detracted from the atmosphere. After a while, I didn't walk around in the house thinking "I am Michael Arthate, there are mysterious things going on here, I want to find out what's happening" - instead, I was thinking: "Okay, I am pretty sure that I'm on the right track here, but apparently the developer wants me to do something else first, which may be unrelated to the problem at hand. What may have been in his mind?". And I'm curious about his stance towards this type of puzzle design. Clearer? :)

Ask him about his latest project, Asylum.

www.facethehorror.com

I'd be curious to know his thoughts on the relative merits of using text vs narration to convey information and mood in a horror game, since Scratches uses both.

Argentinian, huh? Ask him if he's available.

Yes, much. And not only did I feel the same way about the game, but that's also one of the questions I'm eager to hear him answer :3

It's an odd contrast. I'm not sure if you read my review or now, but basically I said that the puzzles both destroyed immersion since you ended up thinking about what the developers might want you to do rather than what you would actually do, and helped immersion, as in some cases you were forced to think and act like your character rather than going "well, this is an adventure game, so naturally I'm going to do this this and this." Then again, sometimes it had the opposite effect. "This is Scratches, so naturally I'm going to have to keep trying to call Jerry and keep trying to go to sleep."

I think I'd adore the game if it just had a different puzzles, because the subtle horror and the way it gradually unveiled its mystery were both fantastic. And just thinking about some of the scares still makes my hair stand on end.
What exactly do you mean by "narration?"

Well, I guess in this case "dialogue" would be a better way of putting it - it's been a while since I played Scratches, but as I recall, you get most of your insights into the main character through his conversations with his publisher over the phone. But this could just as easily have been done through character narrating his "thoughts" to the player, hence why I lumped them in together. Either way, I'd imagine that this raises different challenges than those presented by trying to convey information through the various books, journal entries, etc. in the game.

Ahh, I think I understand.

Yeah, I'll ask him that.

I totally agree. Also, I'm now even more curious to read the interview. Let's hope that Agustin is open to such questions. :)

I read two other interviews with him to get some background info, and he seems like he's happy to talk at great length about things. So I expect he'll have a lot to say. And I'm not approaching it in an accusatory fashion, so I hope he isn't going to be offended.

Ok, I sent out the email. It may take a bit for him to get back to me, since he said he's doing another interview at the same time. I'll be post a link here when the interview is up.

Really looking forward to hearing what he has to say. From what I've read, he seems like he has a lot of interesting thoughts on things.

An update: He just emailed me and said he'd try to have his answers by this weekend. So the interview should go up around that time.

Designer don't care but, I ask why no French full audio + text support on GOG.. ? I would buy your game!

http://videogamepotpourri.blogspot.com/2012/12/interview-with-agustin-cordes-lead.html

Here's the interview!

Great interview! Thanks.