Interview Matt Chat 219: Guido Henkel's Career After Realms of Arkania

[Infinitron]

Tags: Attic Entertainment; Black Isle Studios; Fallout 2; G3 Studios; Guido Henkel; Interplay; Matt Barton; Neverwinter Nights; Planescape: Torment; Realms of Arkania: Shadows Over Riva; Realms of Arkania: Star Trail; Square Enix

The last episode of Matt Barton's interview with Guido Henkel is titled "Guido Henkel on Planescape: Torment", but it's actually about a lot more than that. Over the course of 35 minutes, Guido describes the circumstances behind his departure from Attic Entertainment and Germany, his employment at Interplay and the atmosphere at Black Isle Studios during the development of PS:T, his minor involvement in the development of Fallout 2 and Neverwinter Nights, his work on a cancelled superhero-themed MMORPG for SquareSoft after leaving Interplay, and his involvement with formal game design education.

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Guido also spends a surprising amount of time talking about his music career and musical education, and also about the story of how he ended up posing as The Nameless One for PS:T's box cover.

 

[NotAGolfer]

Ah, schon wieder der Guido Hinkel. ^^
Psst, Matt, it's pronounced "Haenkel".

Interesting stuff, will continue watching.

 

[HobGoblin42]

 

[NotAGolfer]

Damn, why didn't I make that joke!

Nice interview, especially the stuff about RoA.
I wonder if that LMK fiasco would have gone down differently if he still was on board at that time, as versatile as he is.

 

[Severian Silk]

Someone tell Matt to interview the developers of Prelude to Darkness. I enjoyed the game more than Arcanum.

 

[Infinitron]

More from Matt: http://mattchat.us/?p=449

What is the secret formula for Kickstarter success? Well, I haven’t done one myself, but as you know, I’ve interviewed plenty of folks who have–and tried my best to support the ones I felt passionately about.

As you’ve probably heard by now, Guido Henkel’s Deathfire Kickstarter failed to meet its $390,000 goal, coming in at only $204,344. You probably also know that this was Guido’s second attempt at a Kickstarter; his earlier Thorvalla project raised only $47,074 of its $1,000,000 goal. Guido did much better this time, but it’s sad to see what I thought was a remarkably promising CRPG fail to raise a modest sum for such an ambitious project. He’s since gone to “Plan B,” which amounts to re-thinking the project as a series of episodes and accepting donations through PayPal (the reward structure is similar to the one on Kickstarter).

When I interviewed Guido, I specifically asked him what he had learned from his Thorvalla project and what he intended to do differently with Kickstarter. He said that this time, we’ll create “presentable material.” He felt that the earlier project didn’t have stuff to show potential supporters. This time he wanted to develop a prototype and flesh everything out with more detail on the Kickstarter page. He also stressed how committed he was to engaging with the community, blogging and giving people more insight into what they were doing: “With Kickstarter, it’s important to show people that you’re invested.” While I agree that it’s important to convince folks that you’re serious and committed to your project, and that you have some tangible evidence that what you’ve got in mind works, I don’t think that’s what is most important.

So what is? Well, that’s the area where Guido needed the most help. In the same interview, Iasked what I ask everyone doing a Kickstarter: If you were a gamer on the outside looking at this, what would you need to see before you’d pony up the money? Unfortunately, Guido had a hard time with this question, as though he had never really considered it before. I then tried asking him about other Kickstarters he’s supported, but again his answers didn’t do him justice.

 

[kaizoku]

So what is? Well, that’s the area where Guido needed the most help. In the same interview, Iasked what I ask everyone doing a Kickstarter: If you were a gamer on the outside looking at this, what would you need to see before you’d pony up the money? Unfortunately, Guido had a hard time with this question, as though he had never really considered it before. I then tried asking him about other Kickstarters he’s supported, but again his answers didn’t do him justice.