To be honest I left this late, I did not have my questions sorted out by Sunday, and it was only by Monday did I have it all worked out properly including the review. Luckily for me hermitgames's Matt James actually put together a bunch of cohesive and coherent responses. To which I am very thankful (especially for not pointing out I under researched these questions)

First off, to set the tone, could you introduce yourself and say what you do in relation to Leave Home?

Matt James, hermitgames founder. Code, art, audio and design on Leave Home.

1 - I am not really sure how to properly describe Leave Home, if you have read the review then you might have noticed me struggling. What were your biggest influences?

In the game notes I list my influences and references as: "Jonathan Mak, Vacuum Flowers, Jonathan Blow, Terry Cavanagh, Jason Rohrer,Kokoromi, Oddbob, ABA, RDJ, John Peel, Sinclair Research". I think I should have included Jeff Minter too because I love some of his stuff and it was formative for me when I was a teenager even if not during the specific development of Leave Home.

2 - I went into some Hyperbole about the underlying message in Leave Home. Can you confirm that, even if my interpretation of the events was wrong, I was on to something? That true ending gave me shivers.

You're interpretation can't be wrong, I wanted the player to be able to interpret the game however they want, there isn't one single 'true' reading. Having said that lots of the game is very deliberate and personal to me, I have my own interpretation that I have the advantage of having created the game around. I'm interested to know what your feelings about the ending were considering you found them so chilling. I'm also pleased you picked up on this aspect, the mainstream review sites largely ignored the meaning and feel and just described the base mechanics and aethetics in isolation. When I was making the game I tried to be pretty overt and bold but some people still find it too subtle.

(BC note: I told Mr. James my interpretation of the ending, he very politely did not tell me that I was full of it)

3 - The setup of the game is damn fine, if you don't mind, what are the exact triggers for making the progression through each area harder and different?

There are several factors that determine the way the game reacts: screen position, player movement, anger level, anger velocity, enemies targeted, number of deaths, previous enemies. But I want the exploitation of the game to be a discovery to the player which is why It doesn't signpost the adjustment too much. To get the highest scores (but not necessarily achieve everything the game challenges you with) play in the most aggressive and destructive way possible and never die, which, obviously, ties into the theme of the game.

4 - You recently mentioned on your blog that you had reduced the price of Leave Home on both X360 and PC as a means to push sales, this mirrors some of the other indie developers, like the makers of World of Goo. Has this yielded results?

It's sold a few more copies. The XBLIG service only allows you to change the price every 3 months which means that I'll actually probably end up doing worse having dropped the price because although I sold a bit more than 3x the copies for the first 2 weeks or so the numbers have now dropped back down to the pre-sale levels, except now it's only 80pts for the next 2.5 months rather than 240pts. I have at least got some more players. I'll keep making games whatever anyway.

5 - Even if you rubbished question 2, I believe that Leave Home is one of the games that is helping people find a voice in video games for conveying experiences is distinctly unique to other art mediums ('The passage' and 'Limbo' are others that immediately spring to mind), do you reckon there is hope for games to expand past Michael Bay levels of exposition?

I really bloody hope so. I'm an adult and I want to play interesting stuff, so many games are pitched to that idiotic 15 year old brain.

6 - With Leave Home being such an interesting game, what are your plans for the future, possibly to take the evolving gameplay of LH and apply it to another genre?

Yes, I want to move a bit further away from the traditional shmup. I definitely want to develop the alegorical mechanics, thematic reference and atmosphere stuff I started with Leave Home.

7 - Finally, my less game-focused question. Are you a fan of David Lynch's films?

I've only seen a bit of Twin Peaks and Mulholland Drive, I liked them though. I think Cactus (I think this is a reference to cactusquid  guy Jonathan Soderstrom - BC) and Jon Blow have the market covered in Lynch fandom. I'd go for Woody Allen, Wes Anderson, Bill Forsyth and Stephen Poliakoff as directors to aspire to.

 Cheers for the intelligent questions
-Matt James

Leave Home is available on both PC and X360, make sure to check out the hermitgames website. I recommend trying out 'troid.

My breakdown of the Summer of Indie Games will take a hiatus next week as I write the review for the '12 Games before Christmas' challenge: Tales of Vesperia, ugh.