The old-school individualist: independent game designer Jeff Vogel on putting morality into play.

• Author: Malisow, Ben
• Position: Interview

THE GAMES THAT Jeff Vogel creates have their share of cool graphics, streamlined interface designs, and other technological elements that were mere fantasies in the early 1980S. Nonetheless, they hark back to the first generation of computer games, when plot and setting were more important than game mechanics. His Avernum series, for example, features a two-dimensional visual display but has a panoply of divergent story lines, all based on choices the player makes as a game character.

This foundation of plot and setting isn't surprising, because Vogel is also an accomplished writer. He pens first-rate rants for the humor site IronyCentral.com. He wrote a regular column for Computer Games. He serialized a week-by-week, blow-by-blow account of raising his baby on his personal website; Andrews McMeel published it in 2005 as The Poo Bomb: True Tales of Parental Terror. As a literary prank he formed the Scorched Earth Party, the only organization that can make this boast: "We were the first political party to respond to the threat of Barney, and the first to advocate beating those responsible to death with lead pipes."

An independent game developer in an industry dominated by large companies, Vogel regularly inserts themes of individualism into his work. Avernum takes place in a world where inhabitants of a totalitarian society are banished to a literal underworld for such diverse crimes as treason, inappropriate humor, and loving someone of the same gender. His characters include powerful beings who merely want to be left alone, monsters tragically aware that they have been manipulated for evil ends, and heroes motivated by money as much as any ideal.

I spoke with Vogel via phone in September.

reason: What are the advantages of independent game development?

Jeff Vogel: It's much the same difference as between, say, indie film and mainstream, blockbuster film. The blockbusters--whether you're talking about blockbuster games or blockbuster movies--are putting a hundred million dollars into the thing, and you aren't going to see a lot of risks. Usually, you're going to see the rough edges and the oddball things sort of sanded down and taken away.

Indie game developers tend to be more of a bunch of eccentric loners who have a dream and bring that to reality. Sometimes that dream isn't that interesting, but in indie games you are far more likely to find something unusual, or small niche-market things that the larger companies have, by and large...