@DocSeuss: Oh, geez, "Asguard" is just an unfortunate typo. I think Microsoft fixed it now, but that kind of change always takes a while — somebody pointed it out to us on our forums, I pointed it out to one of our guys, he pointed it out to someone at MS... I don't know how far the chain went after that. But I think…

@DocSeuss: Well, I guess we pretty much did to you what L4D2 did to us with the stage scene, then. ;)

@eleventeen: No, you're correct, Nightingale doesn't attack you after he gets yanked out of the sheriff's station.

@NeöStarr: Heh. Sarah Breaker could break Wake in two. Unlike him, she actually knows what she's doing. From a gameplay point of view, that can be a little difficult situation to be in, but honestly, I'm glad it feels that way to you.

@PunkyChipsAhoy: Oh, Barry is very much aware of his role as the clown. He's sharper than he looks, really. I mean, admittedly, he's a neurotic weasel, too, but those aren't mutually exclusive things. He's got a lot of heart.

@Ursus-Veritas: We open up Nightingale a little more in The Alan Wake Files, the book that comes with the LCE of Alan Wake, but yeah, we didn't really delve too deep into his background in this game. I don't think we're quite done with that guy yet, though...

@PunkyChipsAhoy: I am once again glad to see that Barry is working as intended. Everybody starts out hating him and ends up really feeling for the guy. (Props to Fred Berman, who provided his voice; that guy knows how to make a whiny weasel guy sound like someone you wanna hug. Or punch and hug. A punch-hug. A phug?…

@KupoCheer: We don't necessarily have a thing for Norse mythology as such, but it's a lot more identifiable and thus more useful as an iconic shorthand type of thing than, say, Finnish mythology. We've also got some Slavic folktale stuff in there, though. Among other things.

@petethepanda: Heh. I can tell you that when those first videos about that L4D2 scene hit YouTube, there was quite a bit of uncertain laughter around the office. "Wait, they're doing what? That's coming out when? Aw, man. Uhhh... so, we're still doing this, right?"

@DocSeuss: We refer to it as a "psychological action thriller," which is admittedly a mouthful, but there's a point to it — we don't refrain from calling it a horror game just to be contrary. We're not really trying to scare people as such. A lot of people DO get scared, absolutely; you can see people in this thread…

@Ursus-Veritas: Alice refers to Wake as "the most stubborn man she ever met," and it's certainly true that he just isn't the quittin' type. He may have all the impulse control of a demented wolverine and a tendency to leap before he looks, but he can bash his head against a wall with the best of them!

@dantevsninjas: You know, I think your experience with Barry is very common — a lot of people start out hating him and end up having a lot of affection for him. I've seen a lot of people say the same thing about Wake, too. He's not necessarily a terribly likeable character in the beginning of the game, I know.…

@Does Not Equal: Yeah, we want you to find them — or at least a lot of them. It's not just about them being memorable (although I certainly hope that they are), but we also do a lot of our storytelling in them — if you don't read certain key pages, you're probably not gonna understand what's going on too well, so we…