Thanks for taking the time, Adam. Please give a brief overview of your previous projects for those that may not know what you've done.

From the early 1990s through to 2003 I developed a series of freeware wrestling simulators for the PC called the Extreme Warfare series. From 2004 onwards I have been developing simulators professionally for Grey Dog Software; primarily the Total Extreme Wrestling (Extreme Warfare's "big brother" so to speak) and Wrestling Spirit series of games, with the recent addition of World of Mixed Martial Arts, my first non-wrestling game. I am currently working on Total Extreme Wrestling 2008 for a release this June.

Is there a well-known developer in particular that you admire or have used as a model for your development?

My early inspiration was the Championship Manager series of football \ soccer simulators, as the balance of gameplay, simulation and statistical accuracy was incredible. My early games in particular were heavily influenced by the developers of Championship Manager.

Do you prefer to work as the primary developer or work with a group of other developers?

I prefer to work alone on the design and development of games, with a small team of hand-picked people around me to bounce ideas off (although I prefer these to be people who don't have a coding background, as I think that helps give a different perspective to my own). I think having just one developer working on a title gives a lot of advantages, particularly as it results in a single vision driving the project rather than it becoming a compromise between lots of different viewpoints - I think a lot of projects are sunk by how much compromise goes on, as you end up with a fractured end product.

What kind of planning do you go through when you begin to build a new game?

I tend to use a "blitz and refine" approach; the "blitz" being that I start by simply brainstorming everything I can possibly think of that might be added to the game, and then the "refine" stage is taking all those ideas and cutting them down and molding them into a single design. I tend to modify the design as I go along, in a very organic way, so from that point on it is always being added to and further refined.

What part of game development do you feel is most important to 'get right'?

I think the "hook" is the most important factor by far; the attribute or combinations of attributes, which make a player want to come back again and again, the "I'll just play for another half hour..." feeling. I think that's where a solid design phase comes in, as there comes a certain point where you know you that the project has the potential to be addictive, and that's when you know the game has a future.

What previous project created a learning experience for you that drastically improved your development or testing skills?

My first professional game, Total Extreme Wrestling 2004 was the one that really provided the biggest learning curve. My mistake was trying to cram as much as I possibly could into the game in order to make it as impressive as possible, which really went against my normal stance of only adding items if they actually have a good reason to be there - the "no fluff" approach. That experience taught me to have more faith in the methods that had been successful for my games in the past.

Do you tend to brainstorm on your own for most of the features in your games or do you use certain online communities to get ideas for your game features?

Generally speaking about 75% of what ends up in the game comes from the initial brainstorming phase, and the other 25% comes during the refining stage when I spend a few days reading through the suggestions that people have made on the company forums. I'm fortunate in that I have a very active community attached to my games, so there's always a lot of raw material out there to look through.

You've selected the path less travelled for your development career. That would be the world of fighting simulations. What led to your interest in the fighting genre?

I began writing wrestling games for two reasons; the first being that I happened to be a fan at the time, and the second being that I really wanted to play a Championship Manager-style game set in the wrestling world but couldn't find any (mainly because there weren't any). So, I started writing my own. I continued in that genre because there was such a good reaction to it, and being a perfectionist I am never happy with my games as I can always find something that could be added or improved - so there was a cycle of always wanting to do one more. I recently started working in the Mixed Martial Arts genre too for the same reasons - being a fan of the sport and not being able to find any decent simulation games that covered it.