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Interviews
Just Adventure Interview with Howard Sherman – Malinche Entertainment
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JA – Even though it’s covered quite exhaustively on your web page, could you describe us the research and travels you made in order to create PFL?
I always enjoy recounting my research because of all the fun I had doing it. First I started out with some caving in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania before flying across the pond to London to explore the Tower of London and Windsor Castle to get a real feel for the magnificence and glory of royalty as well as the more utilitarian uses of castles and keeps. Then me and Mrs. Sherman went to Kent and explored the 22 mile expanse of Chiselworth Caves. They really aren’t caves as they were all manmade which gave me the inspiration to create the tunnel system located in the game.
Going further we then flew to Paris and spent a good deal of time at the Palace of Versailles and other residences of French royalty to really crystallize the full range of emotion one gets when walking the halls of royalty. I faithfully recreated that in Castle Delphin. It’s the largest structure of its kind ever implemented in a text adventure game.
JA – Have you received some feedback (suggestions, opinions, etc) from Pentari‘s players? If so, do you like getting such kind of messages?
Yes, quite a bit of feedback comes in every week and I welcome it all. Since the Interactive Fiction I create is for the players I take their input very seriously. Player comments have been taken into consideration and used in perfecting PFL from Revision 1 released in March, 2003 to Revision 6 which is being released on May 25th. Players have been great in reporting bugs, making suggestions and sharing their insights with us. It’s fantastic.
JA – If you don’t mind, would you share with us how many copies have Pentari: First Light sold so far?
Sorry, but no numbers. I will say that I am quite satisfied with sales figures so far and our forecasts going into the third and fourth quarter are very exciting.
JA – PFL is written with Inform. Why did you choose this programming language? What do you think about other widely known parsers, such as TADS or Alan?
While TADS is a mighty fine platform but I cut my teeth on Inform and Graham Nelson, Inform’s creator, envisioned Inform being used to further the IF genre created by Infocom which is a vision I share, albeit from a slightly different perspective. I’m aware of Alan’s existence but I don’t see it as the very best platform for the development of the Interactive Fiction I create.
