For more information go to:  www.pinnaclegameprofiler.com

As long as I can remember!  My mother made the mistake of buying me a copy of "Wishbringer" when I was 11, and I haven't looked back since.

Adventure games always have a place in my heart, although they are few and far between nowadays.  Bioware style RPGs have also been a favorite.  They have yet to do me wrong.  I love RPGs that allow you to shape the story as you go along - or at least give you the illusion of it.  You can play something like "Baldur's Gate" or "Fallout" a dozen times and have a different experience each time.

I started to seriously write games back in 2001, when I found myself unemployed and in need of distractions after 9/11.  Being a New Yorker at that time was a trying experience, and writing games for fun helped me through it. 

So many! Blackwell is basically me trying to do Gabriel Knight.  What impressed me about the GK series is that it has a huge epic backstory but it doesn't interfere with the gameplay.  You talked to interesting characters, solved (mostly) interesting puzzles, and discovered the backstory through the gameplay; instead of just picking up a history book or diary and reading about it.  This is a balance that is hard to reach, and is something I strive for in the games I play.

Another big influence, albeit not a game-related one, is mystery author Lawrence Block.  I love his mystery stories because they are usually character studies about the murder victim.  By the time the mystery is solved, you REALLY know the ins-and-outs of the victim's life.  That's also what I try to do in the Blackwell games - you find a ghost, and you have to research their life in order to discover how to free them.  By the time you free them, you have learned alot about their lives.

I'm supposed to enjoy it?  GAH.  I've been doing it all wrong!

Seriously though, I love writing the dialog.  It's often a struggle to figure out what happens within the game itself, but once I get that down the rest is easy.  Dialog is something that flows very naturally for me and I have a lot of fun doing it. 

Also, I love working with the voice actors.  Sitting down with them and hashing out how to read a line or express an emotion makes me feel like the character is truly coming alive for the first time. 

I have DEFINITELY learned from each game.  Creating Blackwell Legacy was a nerve-wrecking experience, because I had never done such an ambitious project before and there was never so much at stake.  During the last few weeks of development, I was an exhausted, caffinene-addicted, bleary-eyed mess.  Unbound went much smoother, since I learned how to organize my time better. 

Usually it's based on personal experience, or a desire to create a certain type of game.  My last freeware game, "Two of a Kind", was criticized because the main characters (a pair of detectives) didn't have any personal interest in their case.  As a result, I wanted to create a detective that wasn't an actual detective, and had a personal motive for solving a case instead of it just being his job. 

I came up with the idea for Shivah during a year I lived abroad.  I was living in Asia as an ESL teacher and during that time I never met another Jew.  I am not religious, but it was the first time in my life I was acutely aware of my culture and how unfamilier it was to most of the world.  When I came back to the states, I knew the "new york jewish experience" was something I wanted to show in a game. 

As for Blackwell, I once saw a movie that had a medium in it.  Whenever she was in trouble she'd put her fingers to her temples and ask her spirit guide for advice.  I remember feeling bad for the spirit guide, and wondered what it must be like to be at this medium's beck and call.  The character of Joey eventually evolved from that, and the whole Blackwell series came about later on.

Blackwell Unbound is Wadjet Eye Games newest release, yet it's a prequel to The Blackwell Legacy.  Are the two titles directly connected?

Yes.  I did my best to make Unbound independent, and not force players to play Legacy first.  However, there are some nice treats for those who played Legacy already.

Yes!  I'd looove to do an RPG some day.  I even have one planned out.  However, it will take a much bigger budget and timeframe than I currently have, so it will have to wait one day.

Sure.  The next game (Convergence) will see the return of a few characters from Unbound, and in future installments you'll start to see some more changes.  The fourth game in the series (tentatively called "A Blackwell Holiday") will see Rosa finally leaving New York City to solve a case in the suburbs, and later on she will even leave the country.  You'll also see more playable characters introduced, and a heck of a lot more angst for Rosa.

I love creating stories, and find that games provide a good medium for telling them.  If I was suddenly forbidden to write games, I'd turn to novel or screenplay writing.