Jeff- First, I would like to take a moment here to welcome Adam Ryland from Grey Dog Software to the “magazine” version of “Just Press Start.” Adam, thank you very much for taking the time to talk with us.

Jeff- Could you tell me a little about yourself and about your games (for people who aren’t familiar with your work)?

Adam- I've been writing PC simulation-games since the mid 1990s; my first series was the popular freeware product EWR (Extreme Warfare Revenge) which was based on the pro wrestling industry, and since 2003 I have been working commercially, primarily on the Total Extreme Wrestling (TEW) and World of Mixed Martial Arts (WMMA) series of games. I currently work with Grey Dog Software, who distribute my games.

Jeff- How did you get your start in game design?

Adam- My first games were written purely as an aid to learning a new programming language; they were released on the Internet purely as an afterthought, and became very popular through word of mouth. Their popularity brought me to the attention of a few commercial studios, and that allowed me to work professionally on the games.

Jeff- The average sports game is usually more action-oriented. What led to the decision to make text-based sims, especially in the fields of Pro-Wrestling and MMA?

Adam- It's mainly personal preference; back when I began my favourites games were titles like Sim City, Settlers and Championship Manager (later Football Manager), and so my background and interest was in strategic games, not action-based ones. It also fitted my skill set, as action games tend to need to be graphic-heavy and I'm not an artist, and there was nobody else producing strategy games in those genres.

Jeff- When you look at the final versions of WMMA2 and TEW 2008, with what are you the most pleased?

Adam- The WMMA series is still an ongoing project, as it has only had two iterations; I'm pleased with individual items like the match engine, but there's still a long way to go before the series will reach the level I have in mind for it. TEW08 I thought was the best overall game I've ever written as it combined a very solid base with a lot of customisation and little touches, so the end result as a whole is very pleasing.

Jeff- What can we look forward to in TEW 2010?

Adam- Essentially it's a game that's already considered to be very good and very popular - TEW08 - with many months of additions, modifications and improvements added to the whole package; so what you're getting is a huge step forward. The new features are being announced on a daily basis on the Grey Dog Software forums as part of an ongoing "Developer's Journal".

Jeff- Why the return to Pro-Wrestling after MMA? Do you plan to return to MMA at some point?

Adam- The TEW series was always going to be returned to eventually, as it still has a huge scope for being enhanced and has a large fan base who are interested in it. By the same token, there will almost certainly be more WMMA games in the future, as there's still a huge amount of potential changes to be looked into to bring it up to the quality of the TEW series.

Jeff- Do you still watch any pro-wrestling product for ideas?

Adam- I keep up to date with the goings on in wrestling for professional reasons, but I don't actively watch it, no.

Jeff- After the success of the TEW franchise (formerly the EWR games), why the switch to MMA?

Adam- As my projects are quite intensive to write due to their size and complexity, I can only do games on topics that I am personally interested in. Being an MMA fan, it was only natural that I'd eventually move into that area as it's a perfect fit for my style of games.

Jeff- Could you talk about the “Cornellverse” for a moment? Is there a similar fictional ‘verse for WMMA?

Adam- The "CornellVerse" is a fictional universe that has been built up over the course of several TEW games. The WMMA games' default databases are also set in the same world, and feature some of the same characters, but is set a decade or two in the past to when Mixed Martial Arts was just becoming known.

Jeff- Is the Cornellverse due a major overhaul for TEW2010?

Adam- The concept is that the universe gets updated with every release, but with a realistic amount of change; if two years have passed, there should be the same amount of change that you'd expect from two years in reality. So it will be a major overhaul in the fact that the whole world has altered, but people shouldn't expect lots of massive shock developments as that wouldn't be realistic.

Jeff- Describe your design philosophy. Did you always plan for your games to be easily modded, or was that based on fan requests later?

Adam- My design philosophy is to make games that I would want to play; the extreme customisability of my games is mainly because I always liked doing that sort of thing to games that I buy, and get fairly annoyed when content is "locked" into place and uneditable. All the major aspects of my games directly reflect my own preferences.

Jeff- I have always been impressed by your hands-on approach with your fans, how quickly you answer questions, etc. How difficult is it to do your work AND keep in almost constant contact with your fan-base?

Adam- It's fairly difficult but is an essential part of what we do - not being a huge company, the fact that we can offer the "personal touch" is an advantage that we have to maximise.

Jeff- What games are you currently playing?

Adam- I don't actually play computer games at all - a hazard of the job is that if you've spent all day writing a game, the last thing you want to do with your free time is then go and play them too.

Jeff- Aside from the work involved in completing TEW2010, what is in the future for you?

Adam- I will take a short break after the release of TEW2010 early next year, then I will start work on a currently-undecided project to keep me busy into 2011.

Jeff- Thank you very much for your time, Adam. The readers and I truly appreciate it, and best of luck with the new game!