Every Snapshot will see us ask five questions of a game developer, hopefully providing you with a little insight into what they do and why they do it. Also, we show you their desk.

First up, we have this guy. He made Puzzle Quest.

Who Are You?
My name is Steve Fawkner. I’m the CEO and Creative Lead at Infinite Interactive. It’s my job to come up with the crazy ideas for our games, and also to try and take credit for other peoples’ crazy ideas when they’re better than mine (which is frequently the case).

What Work Did You Do Today?
I spent most of today helping one of our teams add our cutscene system to their project. I made them a small example scene with a huge Daemon asking for Ice Cream. Other than that, it was the usual round of Production/Design meetings to make sure all of our projects are on track.

How’d You Get Your Job?
I started Infinite Interactive about 20 years ago, so I guess I promoted myself to my current position.

What’s The Last Game You Played And How Was It?
The last game I played was Assassin’s Creed. I’d been meaning to play it for about a year, but finally got around to it last weekend. Technically, it’s just a beautiful game. I’m not averse to a bit of subtle assassination either.

What’s On Your Desk?
Surprisingly little gaming paraphernalia, but lots of empty Red Bull cans, and every designer’s friend, the Thesaurus!

(Note the crazy herbal drink from Sweden and the D&D Monster Manual, a blatant clue that they’re not yet done with exploring fantasy worlds – Ed.)

If you’re a game developer who’d like to be featured in Snapshot, we’d love to hear from you. Just answer the above questions and send us a photo of yourself and your desk.

She’s like the most hardcore Puzzle Quest player you’ve ever meet. She’s finished it six times now, [been through] the expansion pack twice with four different characters – one of them she completely maxed out to level 50 and unlocked everything in the game.

When your mum gives you a pat on the shoulder and says “that’s nice dear” she’s being polite. But this? Yeah Steve, your mum is addicted.

The PALGN Podcast, Episode 42 [PALGN]

The article also has some great insights into the minds of casual gamers. Take this, uh, gem, from the end of the piece:

* Some of the standard RPG conventions were absolutely mystifying to casual gamers, such as matching purple gems to level up.

I know I don’t blink an eyelid at terms like “level up”, “skill points” or “man girdle”, so it’s hard to imagine how a casual gamer would feel faced with such esoteric concepts.

There’s loads more on how Infinite pitched the game and the challenges it faced with different platforms, as well as the steps the developer took with the original prototyping.

Postmortem: How Puzzle Quest Saved Infinite Interactive [Gamasutra, via Sumea]

We recently caught up Steve and asked if he could provide us with an update on how the game was going:

In this game, codenamed Warlords-Online for the moment, you create a Warlord character and play puzzles to gain gold. You then use that gold to help your character conquer the World of Etheria. All this takes place in an internet environment where other Warlords are trying to help their chosen races conquer the world too.

Fawkner says it’s a present to everyone who’s supported Puzzle Quest and the Warlords series of games over the years. I have to say – it’s a tasty sounding gift.

We also asked him a bunch of questions regarding Puzzle Quest, the Australian games development scene and balancing hardcore and casual gameplay.

Hit the jump to read the interview!Kotaku AU: How did you get started in the industry? Do you have any specialties (design, coding, etc?)
Steve Fawkner: I wrote my first game back in 1983 when I was 17 years old. Back in the 80s you did everything in the game: coding, design, art, sound and QA!

However, as I moved through the industry over the next 10 years, I specialised in design, even though I frequently found myself doing a lot of coding and even a fair amount of artwork. Today, 90% of my work on a game is all design. I don’t get much time to write code any more, which makes me sad.

Kotaku AU: What are the advantages of doing games development in Australia? The disadvantages?
Steve Fawkner: Australia is a great place to make games. Our industry has a real culture about it that is quite distinct from the USA and Europe. We work hard, we work smart, we are creative and we form great teams.

We are uniquely situated between the USA, Europe and Asia. Our origins and allegiances are split between those 3 major markets and nobody else in the world (except our Kiwi friends) can say that. I’m very optimistic about what we can achieve here.

Disadvantages? Well, although we are close to our major markets culturally, we are a long way geographically. I think that distance makes it sometimes a little harder for us to form and maintain the relationships that we need to survive. But that’s a problem with an easy solution – we just need to work harder sustaining our relationships.

Kotaku AU: Have you ever thought of packing up shop and moving the studio elsewhere? Where do you think you’d go?
Steve Fawkner: It has honestly never occurred to me. I’m Melbourne born and bred and I love this town. Occasionally, in winter, like all Victorians, I think it might be nice to live in Queensland, but then again we’re two hours from the ski fields here in Melbourne, so that more than makes up for the colder weather.

Kotaku AU: How did you come up with the idea for Puzzle Quest? Did you intentionally set out to create a game that mixed hardcore and casual elements?
Steve Fawkner: I love Bejeweled and I love RPGs. It seemed kind of natural to experiment and put them together. I was really making the game for myself though – I wasn’t aiming at a particular audience. I find that I do my best work when I’m creating something just because I want to play it.

Kotaku AU: How hard is it to find the balance between hardcore and casual? What “warning signs” should a developer look out for?
Steve Fawkner: We never gave much thought to the hardcore/casual divide until we had a playable version of Puzzle Quest. Once we realised that we had a game that could bridge this gap though, we did quite a lot of useability and focus testing with different groups. That testing will soon tell you whether you’re hitting the mark for a game with broad appeal. If you can’t afford a formal test of this type, make sure your friends and family – especially the ones of the non-gaming variety – enjoy the game.

Kotaku AU: What’s the biggest lesson you’ve learnt from Puzzle Quest?
Steve Fawkner: The biggest lesson for me from Puzzle Quest is that design can still win out over graphics. Ideally you want to produce a game that has both, but Puzzle Quest is a graphically simple game, and it’s still been quite successful. That’s very heartening for a designer to see.

Kotaku AU: Of the platforms you’ve developed for, which do you feel is the easiest to work with? The hardest?
Steve Fawkner: PC will always be the easiest platform to work on, because the tools and development pipeline are the easiest to manage. Of the console platforms, Xbox 360 is an absolute delight to develop on because of its similarities to PC. The hardest would certainly be the Nintendo DS – it’s a great platform with great games – but its difficulties stem from the fact that it is very low-spec machine and a lot of compromises have to be made to get a game to work.

Kotaku AU: Of the platforms you’ve developed for, which do you feel is the best for small/new developers to start on?
Steve Fawkner: We still prototype and do our main development on PC, then port to all other platforms. It’s by far the easiest way. I would recommend small/new developers do the same – a PC prototype is a great thing to have. For the console platforms though, small/new developers should try to get onto the Xbox 360 Live Arcade. The games are a manageable size and the platform is very close to the PC that they’re probably familiar with. Wii Ware and PSN would be my equal second choices.

Kotaku AU: Do you believe Australia provides enough opportunities for game developers? How mature do you feel the industry is in the country?
Steve Fawkner: Overall, we have some great mid-to-large-sized studios in Australia. I haven’t seen many good graduates who can’t get a job here, and experienced developers are in high demand. We also have good support from our governments, both state and federal. So for programmers, designers and artists I think we have plenty of opportunity.

There are whole areas of the industry in Australia that are under-developed though. Due to the lack of publishers, we miss out on much of the business side of the cycle. QA, production, marketing and business development are really only represented in the larger studios – it’s very difficult to find those people here because there is no fertile ground to grow them.

Kotaku AU: What is your opinion of MMOs? Do you think the genre is a good place for a new/small developer to start?
Steve Fawkner: I love MMOs – I have suffered unhealthy addictions to most of the major ones at one time or another. But I think they are absolutely the wrong place for a small developer to start unless they are doing something very conservative that is largely web-based.

MMOs have so many requirements that are mixtures of technical issues, design problems, and logistical nightmares – I think a studio should really have one or more successful releases in their portfolio before they get this ambitious.

Kotaku AU: At Game Connect last year, you mentioned that Infinite was working on a free web-based game to tie in with Puzzle Quest and the developer’s future titles. I don’t suppose you could provide some more information regarding this project and what stage it’s at right now?

Steve Fawkner: We have a free web-based game in development – mainly as a thank-you to all of the fans who’ve been so good to us with both Puzzle Quest and Warlords over the years.

It is planned that it will eventually link to Puzzle Quest, as well as to a number of older Warlords games.

The initial version will be stand-alone, however the link to Puzzle Quest will be provided a little later.

In this game, codenamed Warlords-Online for the moment, you create a Warlord character and play Puzzles to gain gold. You then use that gold to help your character conquer the World of Etheria. All this takes place in an internet environment where other Warlords are trying to help their chosen races conquer the world too. It’s a simple game, but quite a lot of fun, especially if you enjoy a bit of casual puzzle gameplay mixed with a bit of world domination.

Kotaku AU: Can you confirm whether Puzzle Quest will be coming out on PS3 and Mac and if so, are tentative release dates available?
Steve Fawkner: We haven’t made any official announcements about this yet, but with Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords being so successful on six platforms already, we are still evaluating how we can bring the game to a wider audience.

Kotaku AU: What games are you playing now?
Steve Fawkner: I’m just getting over a Guitar Hero III addiction. I’m playing Akkadian Warriors from Xbox 360 Live Arcade quite a bit. I’m also still battling my way through Gears of War on Xbox 360. On DS, I’m playing Pokemon Diamond when I’m travelling.

Kotaku AU: Other than your own titles, what games are you looking forward to in the next 12 months?
Steve Fawkner: I’m waiting to see Dark Sector, Age of Conan and Warhammer Online, and of course anything that Popcap might release!

Thanks for your time Steve. I’m sure I speak for everyone when I say we’re looking forward to seeing what Infinite Interactive comes out with next.

During his talk “Widening your Audience: Casual Games, Hardcore Appeal” at Melbourne’s Game Connect event, Fawkner let slip that the developer was working on a new project. But it wasn’t Galactrix as I had first guessed.

Launching in around a month’s time, the game will function in a similar way to that of Neopets. Although Fawkner was light on the details, he did mention that players will be able to buy armies and conquer a “world map” using gold pieces, gained by submitting your scores from – I’m guessing – Puzzle Quest.

Fawkner also mentioned that the game would be free of change, would link in with Infinite’s future releases and will be for the PC version of Puzzle Quest, at least for the time being.