Was it hard to know if people were serious, given that they were only volunteers?  Did anyone flake out after a few weeks?

Herb: Almost everyone lost interest after a few weeks.  That’s the hardest part to deal with when you’re trying to put a team together—you think you’ve got a solid crew, and then you never hear from them again… On the other hand, once people have enough invested in the project though, it’s hard to walk away.

How did the team communicate during the initial stages?  Did you have large Internet chats or mass e-mail lists?  Isn't it hard to communicate a vision for a product when you can't physically meet?

Herb: ICQ was the key.  We shared files via FTP provided by Valve’s network guys. 

Speaking of the team, does anyone have any commercial game experience?   Did any of you work in the high-technology field before starting in on this project?

Herb: Nobody has any big experience.  I’d written and even sold a few little projects back in the Atari days, but when I started Gunman Chronicles, I was painting cars for a living.

 When did you first get in contact with Valve about Gunman Chronicles?  Did they make the first contact or did you initiate the conversations?

Herb: There was a point when we ran out of resources to continue the project.  We approached Valve and asked for a little support.  We worked out a good deal, and continued to work.  People liked Gunman Chronicles so much at E3 this year that Valve decided to make a stand-alone game.  We’re happy with this, as you can imagine, but somehow I always knew—or at least hoped—this would happen.

I read that Gunman has now cost upwards of a few hundred thousand dollars to produce.  Did Valve provide bridge financing for the project?   And if so, has anyone quit his or her day job to work exclusively on the project?

Herb: Well, Valve chipped in some--we chipped in some. The most expensive part of creating this game, however, was the Mountain Dew bill.

Let's talk about the size of the game.  After all, with 4 planets and 40 hours of gameplay, this is a major undertaking.  I think a lot of MOD authors have huge dreams about creating a massive game, but these projects are often killed after a few short months of development.  Did Gunman ever reach a point where work on the game stalled?  Did you ever get frustrated and feel the dream of making this MOD might die?

Herb: That happened once, for about two weeks.  Then Valve stepped up and we went back to work on it.

Next, find out when the team finally met each other in person  >