Feature: 'Road To The IGF: Keith Nemitz (The Witch's Yarn)'

One of today's main Gamasutra features and this latest 2006 Independent Games Festival interview chats to Keith Nemitz, developer of unique story-based game The Witch's Yarn, which is nominated for an Innovation In Game Design award at the 2006 IGF. In this interview in the build-up to the 2006 IGF, Nemitz was kind enough to tell Gamasutra about his beginnings in the video game industry, the concepts behind his fascinating Direct'Nject story engine, and his favorite IGF title thus far, commenting of his unique game: "We would liked to have had enough funding to develop an autonomous agent filled, 3D, living-world with voice acting. The Witch's Yarn is a 2D, abstract stage play. Our budget was $10,000, and the entire product (10 hours of play) had to fit in 8MBs. That was the inspiration, to bring interactive fiction to the masses, cut costs, and increase the player's immersion. Casual gamers were the only market we could approach for $10,000. So, The Witch's Yarn was written as an interactive sit-com. Dear readers, please tell your non-gamer friends and relatives, who enjoy a leisurely read, The Witch's Yarn was developed for them. Actually, it was intended to appeal to women, but our sales have been fifty-fifty. We're not unhappy about that." You can now read the full Gamasutra feature on the subject, including plenty more on this unique IGF finalist (no registration required, please feel free to link to the article from external websites).