Adventure Gamers: Obviously you have a fondness for vintage video games. When did you decide to branch into making games of your own with Videlectrix?

Brothers Chaps: Some of the first Atari-style games we made were hidden on an old message board we used to host. Then we made the Duck Pond Simulator in a Strong Bad Email. Once we got to Awexome Cross, we decided these games needed a developer. We looked through our collection of Atari, Activision, and Imagic game catalogs for inspiration and Videlectrix was born.

AG: Arguably your most popular game is Peasant's Quest, an old OLD school adventure game that hearkens back to the early days of Sierra. Are you long time fans (or at least players) of the genre? Any particular games you have a soft spot for?

Matt: We grew up playing adventure games. I just found an old disk caddy of 5 1/4" floppies at my Mom's house over Thanksgiving. Gold Rush was in there, Zak McKracken, Leisure Suit Larry 2, Space Quest II and a King's Quest IV save disk. We love point-and-click games but there's something about that text parser we just can't shake. Maybe it's only the illusion of freedom, but for some reason when you ask people to type in commands, it blows the world wide open.

AG: When did you start considering the notion of turning Homestar Runner itself into an adventure series?

BC: When Joel Dreskin from Telltale Games emailed us and said they wanted to talk about the notion of turning Homestar Runner itself into an adventure series. Before that, we were content making Awexome Crosses, Peasant's Quests, and Thy Dungeonmans. There wasn't anything we wanted to do that we couldn't do ourselves with Flash (along with programmer Jonathan Howe).

AG: How did the arrangement with Telltale come about for SBCG4AP?

BC: After Telltale contacted us, we eventually went out to San Rafael and met everybody and talked about possibilities. It's amazing how much of what we talked about in that first meeting actually ended up as part of the episodes. Once the paperwork was finished a few months later, full-on production began.

AG: Turning a cartoon into an adventure game doesn't seem like a huge stretch on the surface, but there's still a sizable gap between a short animation viewed passively and a larger, fully-interactive game experience. Did you have doubts going in about how well the series would make the transition?

BC: The length and sheer amount of content in a game was definitely a concern for us. I think our longest cartoon is like 7 minutes long. So making a game with 2-4 hours of gameplay felt like it might be a stretch.

AG: Are you pleased with the way it's turned out? Is there anything you might have reconsidered with the benefit of hindsight?

Matt: We are! I think each episode gets progressively better while each has its own individual style and merit. Maybe we shoulda made the first episode include more of an introduction to the characters and the world for people that are unfamiliar. It sorta did that but you definitely hit the ground running. We also could have tried to make more of a narrative through-line bridging the episodes but that's not really the way we make our cartoons so it's hard to know if that would've worked or not.

AG: Being writers for the games, you obviously have direct input into their creation. How does your collaboration with Telltale work?

BC: After a couple conference calls regarding story and puzzles for each episode, we would get a first-pass script from the writer and go through and add or tweak stuff. Then later, when we'd record the dialog for an episode, we'd sometimes rewrite on the fly to keep the sort of improvisational approach we take with our cartoons.

AG: Does it feel strange at all to entrust your creation to someone else, even if you're overseeing it?

Matt: It was definitely a new and sometimes stressful thing for us. We'd never licensed our stuff before. Thankfully, Telltale was incredibly cool about the collaboration. I could see that sorta thing not going so smoothly at most other development houses. It definitely helped that they have a few Homestar fans over there and that we were Sam & Max fans.

AG: What's been the general response from Homestar Runner fans?

BC: Seems great from what we've seen. They seem to dig each episode more than the last.

AG: The traditional adventure game market probably isn't the same demographic as the stereotypical Homestar Runner fan. Were you concerned at all that those who play such games wouldn't relate to the series, and those that like the series (or at least, enough of them to add up) wouldn't be drawn to adventures? The genre isn't exactly a big seller, as I'm sure you know.

BC: We didn't really worry about that sorta thing. We approached it like we do our cartoons. We like these kinds of games so that's what we all made. If it's good and fun, hopefully people will dig it regardless of their knowledge of our cartoons or the adventure game genre. This was NOT an attempt to cross into the mainstream though, if that's what you mean.

AG: Has the game series brought even more attention to the website, or are the game fans mainly from the existing series fanbase?

BC: We've definitely heard from people that were unfamiliar with our stuff prior to the game, which is great. There are people that just checked out the WiiWare version out of curiosity and then people that are fans of Telltale that checked it out because of their involvement. Hopefully we've driven some Homestar fans back to Telltale as well.

AG: What other kinds of games appeal to you guys personally these days?

Matt: Games on the DS mostly, because that's all I seem to have time to play. I recently downloaded that homebrew remake of Quest for Glory 2 for the PC and I'm excited to dive into that.

Mike: We've been playing Mega Man 9 and I have a Mario Kart time-trial battle going on with a friend of mine.

AG: I'm sure the last few months have been pretty hectic for you, but outside of the added workload from SBCG4AP, what's a "day in the life of a Brother Chap" like? Is Homestar Runner a full-time career gig now?

BC: Yes, Homestar and Strong Bad have been paying the bills since August of 2002. We write cartoons and work on DVDs and other products for the first part of the week, then animate at the end of the week and try to update the website on Monday. Wash, rinse, repeat.

AG: What's in store for you guys and the series? Any plans to expand into other media, or alternatively, is there an end in sight?

BC: We'll just keep doing what we're doing until we get sick of it or until nobody likes us anymore. We never make any plans. Maybe THAT's been the key to our success.

AG: Well, it's a very entertaining series, and we're happy to help spread the word in giving it the attention it deserves. Thank you again for sharing your thoughts with us.

BC: Um...yes?