Review Fix Exclusive: Jon Ingold Talks ‘Down Among the Dead Men’

Review Fix chats with inkle’s Creator Director Jon Ingold about the company’s newest iOS adventure, “Down Among the Dead Men.” Although designed only take about an hour or so to complete, Ingold and his inkle mates think it’ll have you embracing your inner pirate in no time.

For more information on the game, click here.

Review Fix: What has the development process been like?

Jon Ingold: Development on ‘Dead Men’ was pretty smooth, because we were building directly onto the engine and framework we put in place for our previous Dave Morris collaboration, ‘Frankenstein.’ The only difference this time was that, instead of Dave writing the game-text, we adapted it from a gamebook he wrote several years ago; fleshing it out, and using a few adaptive-text flourishes to personalise the story around your choice.

Review Fix: What is your favorite gameplay element of the game?

Ingold:The best moments in Dead Men are moments when the player is out on a limb and taking a risk. How long can you wait below decks gathering supplies before being found? Can you sneak past the pirates digging buried treasure on the island in the Caribbean? There’s a real tension to those choices, like a hand of blackjack, the value rising card by card…

Review Fix: How does this game separate itself from the other inkle games?

Ingold:This game was actually made two years ago, before we began our adaptation of Sorcery!, and long before 80 Days was conceived. As such, it’s a lot simpler than both of those games – in fact, this is really an interactive story, rather than a game. But a lot of what we discovered in making Down Among the Dead Men has informed what we’ve done. The pacing and drama of interactive storytelling is something we’re really focused on, and with each game, we feel it’s just getting stronger.

Review Fix: What did you guys learn from those other games and how did it influence this one?

Ingold: It was the other way around in this case! We meant to release Down Among the Dead Men two years ago, but weren’t able to. So it’s arrived in a time-capsule.

Review Fix: Considering the success of the original gamebook, did you guys feel a certain amount of pressure here?

Ingold: Not too much; it’s such fun and flavoursome source material that we felt it was mostly just a question of getting that to shine through. The original book has great encounters, wide exploration, and a tight rags-to-riches storyline; we simply tried to draw that out in our adaptation.

Review Fix: Who do you think will enjoy this game the most?

Ingold: Story lovers with a penchant for the pirate genre.

Review Fix: How do you want this game to be remembered in a few years?

Ingold: This is a minor game in some ways – a cheap buy that’ll provide an hour of entertainment. So we hope it’s remembered, as we hope all of our games are, as a quality product that did what it set out to do. In this case, to buckle your swash.