Interview with the man behind Post Script, Lewis Denby

We have posted a lot of news recently about Lewis Denby’s series of Half-Life 2 mods, Post Script. Well, we emailed the man to see if we could get an interview with him about the game, and lucky for us he did so! In fact, he has that kind of sense of humor that fits perfectly with the site. He also told us that due to personal plans, he is moving the release date forward (there IS a first time for everything!), from it’s Dec. 18th to Dec. 16th. Not a huge change, but definitely worth noting. Thanks again Lewis for the interview, and I wish him best of luck with the game and I can’t wait to play it!

So without further ado, the interview:

First off, would you like to briefly explain Post Script to us real quick?

Artsy-bollocks pretentiousness in mod form, probably.  It’s an “interactive narrative,” as I’m terming it, split into five short episodes to be released over the next however many months it takes me.  It’s about the end of the world, and how that came to be.  It’s about the people who were around when it happened.  It’s mainly about exploring an environment, though there are a few light puzzles thrown in along the way.

Lots of things!  Most obviously, this is a P.S. — in our timeline, the world has already ended, and we’re looking back to before it to find out what happened.  So it literally takes place after anything, so the whole thing’s a bit of a post-scriptum. PostScript is also a programming language, and the idea of virtually constructing something comes into play later on.  It’s also actually a line in the script itself.  And a more personal reason that I may or may not have just made up now: I didn’t start making the game itself until I’d written the words, so it came into existence quite literally post script.

Oh, man, where to start? Okay: the book The Eclipse of the Century by the sadly departed Jan Mark.  It is absolutely the greatest piece of children’s literature in the modern era.  It’s a book I’ve returned to multiple times as an adult, and still found myself absolutely enthralled by.  In it, Mark has a fabulous ability to create this weird, warped world that’s so close to what we expect from an odd little town yet equally so far removed – it’s like the whole place lands in uncomfortable uncanny-valley territory.  A lot of the ideas for the town in Post Script came from Mark’s descriptions.  The story itself bounces off a few ideas in Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake, another absolutely stunning work of fiction.

In terms of games, there are a few: STALKER, for the environments; Dear Esther, for its wandering sense of awful discovery; and The Path, structurally and thematically.

Also, finally getting around to buying games-journo-pal Kieron Gillen’s comic Phonogram, and realising I totally should get stuck into something creative.  And it being convenient, since the idea for Post Script’s been knocking around in my head for a year or so, emerged from a grander idea I hope to go back to some day, so I was able to get straight into the writing part instead of sitting around deciding what I wanted to make.

What are you looking at doing once you release all of the Post Script episodes?

I’ve barely started Episode 2 yet.  I’ll probably get more work done.  And maybe scare my girlfriend half to death by sitting with her in the living room rather than staring at a computer monitor.

I’d love there to be really specific, clever reasons for the engine choice.  Fact is, Source is the only reasonably modern engine I’m familiar with, and I was too impatient to sit down and learn another. I’d like to learn Unity next, though.  The idea of making something standalone is appealing.

Because of the engine?  Yeah, totally.  It’s not the right engine for the job.  Source is made for linear shooting games, not meandering exploratory things.  I’d have loved to be able to make Post Script in a huge open world, with new areas unlocking as you go through each episode. The Fallout 3 engine would have been stunning, but I’ve never got to grips with it.  There are also plenty of little quirks Source has – stuff where it totally should do something but just flat-out refuses to work properly.  I absolutely insist it’s Valve’s fault, and not mine.

But the thing with Source is… it’s just reliable.  It’s a solid engine, y’know?  It generally works, and isn’t fiddly.  You can make it do things it’s not designed for with a bit of creativity, and it still looks astonishingly pretty if the art assets and lighting are good enough.  The enormous player base of Half-Life 2 and its episodes helps, as well.  I know I’ve an audience to aim at.

That said, that is a problem.  I feel Post Script would find a niche within people who don’t usually play games – or at least who don’t usually play FPS games.  Yet those people won’t have the means to play it, as it requires HL2: Ep. 2 to run.  That’s a shame.  I genuinely regret that.

No problem. Thank you!