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We got to focus on the stuff that went down well - the puzzles, the character dialogue, the horror themes - and ditch what didn't work - the combat, those epileptic dogs, and the over reliance on written notes. Tom Jubert: That process was fantastic, because we had lots of time to take on board all the press we received, and all the fan feedback on the forums. RPS: What did you learn from Overture, and how did that affect the approach to Black Plague? The actual plot, to be honest, has always been the least popular aspect of the writing - the tone and the characters have been the real success story - so Requiem is more abstract, and more focused in those areas. I consider the story to have ended with Black Plague, and Requiem is the chance to further explore themes we hit on in the first two games, to expand on under-used characters, and return to favourites.

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It's less the series conclusion, and more the epilogue. Requiem won't be the 'third episode', though. The ending in Black Plague has split people - it's certainly a little out of the blue in retrospect - and maybe you can chalk that down to the cut and paste job - but I don't think much was lost from that process, certainly not in the characters, or thematically.Д«lack Plague went down better than Overture, and Paradox was keen for an expansion, so I suspect that was a no-brainer for the boys in charge.

After preliminary plotting, I ducked out for a good few months while things got sorted out, and when I came back Paradox had ridden in on a white horse to save the day and finance the sequel, but I think three games was suddenly looking like quite a slog, and my first job was to condense everything down.

Put it this way, if Lexicon Entertainment ever offers you a publishing deal, turn them down, then give the guy a slap.ДЄfter the issues with Overture, even the second game was 50:50. Tom Jubert: Frictional had some problems with the publisher that it's not really my place to go into. RPS: Can you explain the confusion over the number of chapters in the Penumbra series? There were to be three, then it was two, and now there's a third again?

We had an excitable chat before release, and we all banked for scores somewhere around 70% - 80%, which was about right, so we were pretty chuffed with the reception. We knew Overture was superior to the tech demo, but at the same time it's a low budget product in a niche genre. The tech demo was what got me involved with Overture in the first place, and it was an astounding technical achievement for three students - but I think it's easy to turn community love into commercial disregard. Tom Jubert: There's a fine line between something being charmingly amateur, and just being broken, and that difference is the ВЈ15 price tag. What were your expectations of how Overture would be received? Was there a sense of people demanding a lot more for a commercial game? RPS: There was already had a great reception for the Penumbra tech demo.

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In our chat with Tom Jubert, he explains the collaborative process of taking an amateur tech demo into the professional market, the role of fear in games, which publishers we should be slapping, and some juicy tid-bits about the nature of Penumbra: Requiem's unique design, further taking advantage of the engine's stand-out implementation of physics. Now, somewhat confusingly, there is to be a third part - Penumbra Requiem - although we're told it's not a sequel, but rather an expansion of Black Plague. This was originally intended to be the first of a trilogy, which was then shrunk to a two-parter after difficulties discussed below, with the narrative completed in Penumbra: Black Plague. So London-based Jubert was brought on board to work alongside the Swedish developers, and the result was Penumbra: Overture. To do this well, they'd need to plug a weakness: the narrative.

After Frictional released the tech demo of their remarkable 3D engine, it became clear that creating a fully-fleshed game was the smart move. Tom Jubert is the lead writer on the Penumbra series of games.

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