Brian Greenstone: I have no plans to do any more Mac games

I spoke to Brian Greenstone, President and CEO of Pangea Software, earlier this week about developing for the iPhone, his super popular puzzler Enigmo and why Texas is the centre of the universe.

TMG: What’s your role at Pangea?

BG: I pretty much do everything other than the art and music. I run the company and do the programming.

TMG: How’s Pangea doing these days?

BG: Better than ever thanks to the iPhone!  We’ve always been doing well, but things have never been as good as they are right now thanks to Apple!

TMG: Enigmo – what a marvelous game. Clever, addictive, ambient soundtrack. What’s the feedback been?

BG: Everyone loves the game, so I’m thrilled! I’m just surprised because for me the game is not new – we did the original Mac version like 4+ years ago, and it did well, but we never got the kind of feedback that we’re getting for the iPhone version.

TMG: It was a great idea to allow people to make their own puzzles.  Can you tell us a bit more about that and what the creations have been like?

BG: Oddly, nobody has submitted any new levels to us yet.  The levels that are currently available for download are the ones that user made back when we released the original Mac version, but so far nobody has sent us any new levels specifically for the iPhone version.

TMG: Will we see Enigmo 2 on the iPhone?

BG: Unfortunately, Enigmo 2 requires about 3x the CPU power as Enigmo 1, so there’s probably no way that would ever run well on the iPhone. Too bad too, because Enigmo 2 was really cool.  I prefer it over Enigmo 1 in many ways, but it definitely is a performance hog.

TMG: What was it like to win best iPhone Game 2008?

BG: Very surprising!  I wasn’t even sure if I was going to bother attending the awards show, but I’m glad I did!  I had no idea that Enigmo would win, and I didn’t even want to submit it for the awards but the folks at Apple encouraged me to.  Like I said before, Enigmo is an old game to me, so I didn’t expect much from it, but I guess to most of the rest of the world it’s new and unique.

TMG: What’s it been like developing for the iPhone?

BG: Great!  I was so tired of doing Mac games prior to this.  I wanted to just quit and find a new career, but the iPhone is a blast and it reminds me of how much fun I had back in the early 90′s during the golden age of game consoles. The biggest benefit is that now I can take my games everywhere I go and show them to people.

TMG: Could anything be improved?

BG: Oh, things can always be improved, but that list is too long to go into  here.  There are obviously some bugs in the OS and such, but overall the API’s are really good, and the tools are excellent.

TMG: Any annoyances?

BG: Just the bugs, but I’m sure Apple will eventually squish those.

TMG: Where is the future of Mac gaming?

BG: Is there a future in Mac gaming?  The Mac game market is basically dead; has been for some time. I have no plans to do any more Mac games at this point.

TMG: Why do you continue to develop for the Mac?

BG: Well, up until the iPhone I did it because we were well known in that  market and we’ve always done really well there, but now there’s so  much more opportunity on the iPhone.

TMG: What’s next for Pangea?

BG: We’re currently porting over more of our old OS X games to the iPhone.  I originally didn’t want to do any more ports beyond Enigmo and Cro-Mag Rally, but it’s so incredibly easy and quick to do it that
I figured I might as well.  After that, I hope to do some original iPhone stuff.

TMG: What’s the deal with Austin, Texas? Every band, developer and group I seem to interview or talk to comes from Austin. Is it the centre of the universe?

BG: You know, I ask myself the same thing.  I went to college here and  there was nothing going on in this town.  Then I moved to California to do Nintendo games, and then suddenly Austin because this hi-tech hub.  So, I moved back.  I think the attitude and the quality of life  here is why people move to Austin.  Even though Austin is the most  expensive place to live in Texas, it’s still a tiny fraction of what  it costs to live in California, and there’s no state income tax here!

TMG: Do you play games?

BG: Only my own  I just don’t have time anymore to play games.  I hardly have time to sleep and eat.

Thanks to Brian Greenstone of Pangea.