A quick ten-minute interview with Paul Eres, creator of Immortal Defense (and a couple of other projects as well).


Are you still working on Immortal Defense? Were you happy with the results of RPGC's first commercial game?


I'm still working on ID, yes, on the level editor and a few other improvements, which are taking longer than I planned for. And I'm happy with the results yes, but I'd have been happy with any results. One thing I predicted was that I wanted to sell 100 copies in a year. It's already been more than 100 in 6 months, so it was more than I expected.


You submitted Immortal Defense (ID) into IGF. How do you rate your chances?


I'd guess 20% chance of being in the finals, 0.1% chance of winning. ^_^ But predicting the future is hard, so that's just based on my feelings about how my game compares to the others and how the judging process works and so on.


Anything in this year's IGF that impressed you immensely? Which game(s) do you think would be in the finals?


I'm easily impressed -- every game I've played actually has impressed me somehow. I'd have to look over the list, though if I had to bet I'd bet Penumbra would win at least a few of the prizes.


YoYoGames Winter Compo. We know you're in. What exactly are you planning to submit as your entry then?


I started something small with the Fedora Spade's "Tomato Engine" -- so if I finish it and enter it it'll be an adventure game and look a bit like Fedora Spade. I'm going to go for only a few (or no) puzzles though, so it'd be similar to Photopia in that way.


Name a couple of your favorite Game Maker developers.


My favorites are probably Cactus, Clysm, Pug Fugly, Hpapillon, Jph of Iteration Games... probably a dozen others that I'm forgetting. I tend to like authors who are better than I am at some particular aspect of game design, so for each one of those I saw them do something in a game that I haven't done yet. For instance, Cactus makes them very fast, whereas I take ages to finish them.


Apparently you're making a guest appearance in Orchard-L's Fedora Spade 3. Anything we should know before trying out the latest episode?


Haha... okay: in the game the character based on me sticks out his middle finger. I do not really do that to people in real life; it's somewhat of a caricature. There's also a character based on Charbile (who made Sword of Jade). Oh, and here's a hint for the game too: If you see a bunch of phone numbers lying down somewhere, write them all down!


Tell us something about yourself which we never knew. Have you played any decent indie games lately?


Something about me that you never knew... I have a hard time deciding on anything interesting. One dark secret might be that I used to make fan-games: I started work on a TMNT fan-game, a Zelda fan-game, even a Weird Al Yankovic fan-game. But that was long ago of course. And... my favorite indie game currently... The newest Trilby game actually, I'm having a lot of fun with it. I've a short memory so any game that I'm currently playing is my favorite.


How does your release schedule looks like now? A couple of hints or rough estimates would be nice.


My schedules are never accurate so it'll almost likely change, but my current release plans for 2008 are to finish up the editor and improvements to Immortal Defense and finish the Game Maker winter contest if possible; for 2009 I want to release my next largish project called Saturated Dreamers.


Two shareware, one freeware?


I have a few small games that I may release as freeware too, one is a boomshine clone. Not sure when that will be done.


Alright, grace us with an unreleased screenshot from one of your upcoming projects.


This is very much a work in progress. The real game probably won't look too much like it. But it's from Saturated Dreamers.

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