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.

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About Patrick Hickey Jr. 14262 Articles
Patrick Hickey Jr. is a full-time Assistant Professor of Communication & Performing Arts and Director of the Journalism program at Kingsborough Community College and is the chairman of the City University of New York Journalism Council. He is the Founder and Editor-In-Chief of ReviewFix.com. He's also a former News Editor at NBC Local Integrated Media and National Video Games Writer at Examiner.com where his work was mentioned in National Ad campaigns by Disney, Nintendo and EA Sports. Hickey was also the Editor-In-Chief of two College Newspapers before he received his BA in Journalism from Brooklyn College. Hickey's work has been published in The New York Daily News, The New York Times, Complex, The Hockey Writers, Yahoo!, Broadway World, Examiner, NYSportScene Magazine, ProHockeyNews.com, GothamBaseball.com, The Syracuse Post-Standard, Scout.com and the official sites of the Brooklyn Aces and New York Islanders. His first book, The Minds Behind the Games: Interviews With Cult And Classic Video Game Developers was released in April 2018 and is chock full of interviews with legendary developers. His second book in the series, The Minds Behind Adventures Games, was released in December 2019. His third book, The Minds Behind Sports Games, was released in September 2020. His fourth book, The Minds Behind Shooter Games, was released in March 2021. The Minds Behind Sega Genesis Games and The Minds Behind PlayStation Games were released in 2022 and The Minds Behind PlayStation 2 was published in January 2023. Hickey is also a contracted comic book writer, currently penning his original series, "Condrey," as well as "The Job," "Brooklyn Bleeds" "Dem Gulls" and "KROOM" for Legacy Comix, where he serves as founder, owner and Editor-in-Chief. Hickey Jr. is also a voice actor, having starred in the 2018 indie hit and 2019 Switch, PS4 and Xbox One release, The Padre (also serving as English language Story Editor), from Shotgun With Glitters. The sequel, The Padre: One Shell Straight to Hell was released in February 2021- Hickey also served as a Story Editor and Lead Voiceover performer. He has also done narration and trailers for several other titles including The Kaiju Offensive, Relentless Rex and Roniu’s Tale. Hickey is also the lead voiceover performer on Mega Cat Studios’ upcoming title WrestleQuest, responsible for nearly 90 characters in the game, as well as Skybound's Renfield: Bring Your Own Blood, where he voices both Dracula and Renfield, as well as several other characters. He also stars in Ziggurat Interactive’s World Championship Boxing Manager 2, where he performs the VO of nearly every male character in the game. He also worked on the Atari VCS’s BPM Boy.

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