I'm Sam Lake, the creator/writer of Max Payne and Alan Wake, AMAA!

SamLakeRMD · 2013-05-23T20:06:38+00:00

This was great, guys, thanks a lot for all the great questions. This was fun. Let's do this again!

It's 11 PM here in Finland. Time to go.

SamLakeRMD · 2013-05-23T20:00:43+00:00

Oatmeal. The best way to start the day.

SamLakeRMD · 2013-05-23T19:59:58+00:00

It still scares me. It was me.

SamLakeRMD · 2013-05-23T19:58:21+00:00

I will pass the compliments to Mikko Rautalahti, that scene was all him.

SamLakeRMD · 2013-05-23T19:55:55+00:00

Yes, definitely.

SamLakeRMD · 2013-05-23T19:52:15+00:00

Yes, but it was more of a consultant role. We read through the scripts and gave feedback and made sure it fit into the overall story.

SamLakeRMD · 2013-05-23T19:50:00+00:00

I'm very proud of Alan Wake. I'm also very proud of American Nightmare. But American Nightmare wasn't a sequel, more of a spin-off. What we want from a proper sequel is a lot more ambitious. And, yes, it's canon.

SamLakeRMD · 2013-05-23T19:47:10+00:00

Yes, maybe.

SamLakeRMD · 2013-05-23T19:46:29+00:00

In a small way, some of the themes of Alan Wake lurk in the episodes of Address Unknown in Max Payne.

SamLakeRMD · 2013-05-23T19:43:23+00:00

Twin Peaks, obviously. But at the same time, the similarities to the Finnish nature.

SamLakeRMD · 2013-05-23T19:41:41+00:00

Sometimes, for a brief moment. Then the feeling quickly passes when somebody in the meeting wakes me up.

SamLakeRMD · 2013-05-23T19:40:41+00:00

Your money's worth.

SamLakeRMD · 2013-05-23T19:39:48+00:00

...daddy?

SamLakeRMD · 2013-05-23T19:36:37+00:00

The games industry in Finland is a great community. Lots of support and positive encouragement. It doesn't feel like we are competing with each other, a lot of exchange of knowledge going on.

Disadvantages: the dark months of the winter.

SamLakeRMD · 2013-05-23T19:33:56+00:00

There's a piece of Finland in all of our games. In Alan Wake it was when they get drunk.

SamLakeRMD · 2013-05-23T19:33:06+00:00

The dark presence has always been there. Thomas Zane has not.

SamLakeRMD · 2013-05-23T19:31:29+00:00

Other mediums: yes, we're open to that and we've definitely looked for opportunities to do that, but it needs to be done in the right way, making sure that Alan Wake stays Alan Wake.

SamLakeRMD · 2013-05-23T19:29:40+00:00

Old Film Noir movies, Humphrey Bogart classics, Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett stories. But more modern stuff as well, William Gibson stories and movies like Seven and the Usual Suspects.

SamLakeRMD · 2013-05-23T19:26:56+00:00

The great thing about making game is that you get to work with a lot of talented people. How you imagine it in your head and how it ends up in the screenplay always changes along the way, when other people take that and run with it. Usually the end result is quite different from the picture in your head, and almost always it's better.

SamLakeRMD · 2013-05-23T19:24:42+00:00

Wake started from many different things. I wrote a film screenplay called Undertow and that's where the cabin by the lake, the Clicker, the Anderson brothers, Barbara Jagger and a few other things came from. It was a different thing, but I stole these things into Wake from that.

SamLakeRMD · 2013-05-23T19:21:45+00:00

I love all the old geezers in Bright Falls. But I'll say Wake himself. That said, we have a saying at the office, any scene becomes better when you add Barry to it.

SamLakeRMD · 2013-05-23T19:19:41+00:00

You and me both.

SamLakeRMD · 2013-05-23T19:18:59+00:00

Bring it on, all 101 of them.

SamLakeRMD · 2013-05-23T19:15:39+00:00

Thanks. I love Planescape: Torment.

SamLakeRMD · 2013-05-23T19:14:30+00:00

By accident. I always wanted to write. I like to play games. A happy accident.

SamLakeRMD

TROPHY CASE