Australian Gamer Feature :: Interview with Yahtzee from Zero Punctuation

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Interview with Yahtzee from Zero Punctuation

Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw has been entertaining the Internet masses with his rants, games and comics for many years, but has recently found a new audience with his series of videogame reviews entitled "Zero Punctuation". We asked him 10 questions, so you didn’t lie awake at night wondering, "who the hell is this Yahtzee person anyway?"

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If you've been reading my front page posts over the last few weeks, you will have noticed I’ve developed a tendency to post a short video review on Wednesdays by a guy name Yahtzee. Yahtzee, or Ben Croshaw as you may know him, has found himself new fame (and we can hope, fortune) from a taking a deep breath and plunging into a weekly videogame review for The Escapist (http://www.escapistmagazine.com/). The series of reviews entitled "Zero Punctuation" basically involve the aforementioned Mr Croshaw on a mad rant about all things good and evil in videogames. Featuring a wonderful combination of wit, animation and the occasional cuss word you wouldn't say in front of your mother, Yahtzee's videogame reviews are something of an entertainment jewel in the cesspool that is the Internet.

Of course, it would be remiss of me not to mention that Yahtzee was already well known in gaming circles long before "Zero Punctuation" for his game series Chzo Mythos, made using the Adventure Game Studio development tool. This series, as well as Yahtzee's other games are regarded as probably the best series of games made using the toolkit. His games have a substantial cult following, and if you’re a fan of good old fashioned "story telling in games", they are well worth checking out (you’ll find them here http://www.fullyramblomatic.com/games.htm). The site alone is worth a tour, as Yahtzee has a fantastic back catalogue of articles, essays, downloadable games and comics. The best thing about this gold mine is that is all highly entertaining, and it's all completely free. So go looking, and don’t forget to hit the "donate" button while you’re there. Ben was kind enough to lend us a little of his time to answer some of my daft questions.... I really wasted number 5... sorry about that folks.

1. You’ve been running your own web site for many years now, ripping on everything from TFC and Leisure Suit Larry to Star Trek and Jack Thompson. What took you so bloody long to decide to do video?

I guess for the longest time I haven't had the technology on my hands to do it. I've tended towards being a bit of a luddite and it can often take me a while to get new computers and catch up with the latest stuff. I started doing videos because I was bored and lonely after breaking up with a long-term girlfriend and found myself messing with Windows Movie Maker. I wanted to see if I could make a video using only still images and narration, in a sort of stream-of-consciousness style. And now it's all gotten rather popular and out of hand.

2. Does it annoy you that you’ve been around for quite a while writing books, making games, and writing web comics and its only now that bastards like us want to talk to you, and its only about your video game reviews?

I'd be lying if I said I wanted to make silly video reviews my whole life. I always wanted to be a novelist or a game designer. Or any number of other jobs where I can tell my own stories with full creative control. But on the other hand, the sudden popularity I've been gaining from Zero Punctuation will probably be a helpful asset in the other areas.

3. The Chzo Mythos series has quite the cult following, with the most recent of the games released earlier this year, is the series representative of a deep love you have for classic point and click adventure games, or is it just something to fill in the time?

I guess making games in AGS comes from the desire mentioned above to tell stories. It's not about holding adventure games in themselves sacred or anything. To be honest I've grown rather disillusioned with adventure gameplay of late, that's why the latter Chzo Mythos games were more about furthering story than creating challenging puzzles, and I've also been experimenting with other kinds of gameplay (as in 1213 and Galaxy of Fantabulous Wonderment).

The man behind the Yahtzee

4. AGS has been around for about a decade now and has resulted in a massive array of original adventure games. Why do you think “home brew” adventure games are still so popular, and yet the genre is largely ignored by major studios?

I don't think adventure is overlooked. Look at virtually any recent game and you'll find something approaching adventure game elements: dialogue trees, inventory puzzles, a 'use' function... it's just the 'pure' adventure game model that's been dying out, probably because it's just not as user-friendly as most other genres. Many adventure games are based entirely around square-peg-into-square-hole inventory puzzles, sometimes very obscure ones that ask the player to try and guess what the designer was thinking rather than reward logic; it was really only Lucasarts who ever had the best grasp on how to do adventure right and they don't do them anymore.

5. In 5 Days a Stranger, there was a character called A.J. who was described as being, "A nervous, skinny man in the remnants of an ill-fitting business suit", have you heard from my lawyer yet about the improper use of my likeness in a video game?

Ha, ha.

6. Other than from the game of the same name, where did the pseudonym "Yahtzee" come from?

When I was first making adventure games at school in Visual Basic and handing them out to all my little schoolfriends to play I made some - in retrospect - terrible games featuring a character named Arthur Yahtzee, because it sounded funny to me. When I grew up and finally gained access to the internet I used the name as a pseudonym, later dropping the first word. It all kind of grew from there.

7. If you had an unlimited budget, and an office full of minions, what game would you most like to create? And what would you have the minions do after they’d finished making your game?

If you asked me this question once a year I'd probably have a different answer for you each time, I get a lot of ideas for big games that I sometimes like to script out knowing I probably won't get the chance to make them for real. Right now I have an idea for a steampunk FPSRPG incorporating real-time space travel, set in an alternative 19th century when a British navy spaceship flies around the solar system encountering alien races from various works of Victorian pulp sci-fi. I have a design document for it. So if I do acquire a professional team within the next few months I'll probably get started on that before something new distracts me.

8. Given that you’re British, and just living in Australia, how long do you think it will be before we just start claiming you as Australian anyway like we did with the Bee Gees, Russell Crowe and Mel Gibson?

I think it's already happening, I've seen more than one website call me Australian. Only a permanent resident so far, fellas.

9. What’s next for Yahtzee?

Hopefully professional game writing. A company that will go unnamed is privately having me look at their game in my reviewer capacity to give advice on tweaks and changes, while I'm meeting with another fairly large game company that will also go unnamed next month to discuss a variety of matters, so hopefully things will work out.

10. If you had to ask yourself 10 questions, but could only think of 9, what would the 10th one be?

'Do you love me? Yes / No / Maybe'

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