In the weeks preceeding Christmas The Clumsy Box did a review of The Shivah. The mind behind the Shivah over at Wadjet Eye Games, Dave Gilbert, was kind enough to answer some questions posed to him by The Box.

The Clumsy Box: I thought the pervasive theme of old world thinking versus newer more cynical values was interesting. With all religions and with philosophies that battle is especially relevant today. What were the challenges in showcasing this argument but not being heavy handed?





Dave Gilbert: Honestly, I didn’t think about it much! I don’t have any strong opinions one way or the other about the issues presented in the game, but they are questions that Jews have wrestled with for a long time. My goal in making the game was just to explore the issue, not try and answer it.

The Box: The days of the adventure genre were thought to be over, and now Kickstarter has given these games a perceived second wind. What is the next step for adventure games? Most games are desiring to be old school, but at some point there has to be innovation to keep adventure games steadily popular in my opinion. What’s your take on that?

Gilbert: I think either course is fine. A strange issue with adventure games is that there’s this tendancy to pigeonhole them as being one specific thing. That’s silly and self-defeating. They are just a medium for telling stories, and there are all sorts of different stories and ways of telling them. It’s like saying that movies should be a certain way, or novels. If you want to go old-school, that’s great. If you want to innovate with new mechanics, that’s also great.

The Box: How long have you been involved with games?

Gilbert: All my life! When I was a kid I programmed short text adventures in BASIC (including one awful Star Trek game that is on a 3.25 Apple IIGS floppy disc in a landfill somewhere - SO glad the internet didn’t exist back in 1987), and in my mid 20s I discovered Adventure Game Studio and started making games for fun. I’m 37 now, and I’ve been selling games professionally for about 8 years.

The Box: When was it that you knew you wanted to make a game? Was there a specific title that tipped the scales when you played it?

Gilbert: It was September of 2001 and I live in New York, so you can imagine what things were like. I was looking for something to get my mind off things, and I read about the Reality on the Norm project; which was basically a “shared universe” of games where anyone could create a game set in the world. I played a few of them, thought to myself “Hey, I could totally make one of these!” and then downloaded Adventure Game Studio and poured over the tutorials. I made a game called “The Repossesser” in a weekend, and uploaded it to the forum. People seemed to like it, so I made more. Thirteen years later, I’m still making them!

The Box: What’s next for Wadjet Eye Games?

Gilbert: Next up is the final game in the Blackwell series, called “The Blackwell Epiphany.” After that are a few other games we’re publishing, all of which I’m very excited about. We’re also porting our back catalog to iOS and Android.

Everyone should go out and play The Shivah if you haven’t, the game is utterly fascinating. Special thanks to Dave Gilbert!