Today we bring you an indie interview with Brian Greenstone, the creator of Enigmo 2 (among may other awesome titles)!

Company: Pangea Software, Inc.
App Store: Enigmo 2 $2.99

How long have you been developing for the iPhone/iPod touch? What did you do before you started developing for the iPhone/iPod touch?
Since the day the first SDK became available.  Previously we were doing Mac games, so the move to the iPhone was very easy.

How long did it take you to develop Enigmo 2 and how many people were involved?
The original Mac version took just a few months, and porting it to the iPhone took about 2 weeks.  There was 1 programmer, 1 artist, and 1 musician to make the game.

How did you come up with the idea for Enigmo 2?
Well, it was just an advanced version of Enigmo, but the original idea for Enigmo was inspired by a toy that my grandparents had in the 70’s where a marble would bounce off drums.  In college I thought that concept could work as a video game, but it took another 10 years for me to do it.

What inspired you for Enigmo 2 from initial concept to formalized game?
We were going for an ethereal, space theme for that game, so I guess we were inspired by that.

What inspires you? And is it different for each game?
I’m inspired by seeing cool things on the screen.  I like to come up with an idea, execute it, and see how it comes out.  It’s the whole creative process really.

What have you found most difficult about being an indie developer?
Getting visibility and exposure.  Everything else is easier being independent, but being small means it’s hard to get seen.

Can you describe your development process?
Usually I’ll come up with a game concept, create a prototype / proof-of-concept, and then I get a team together to work on it and we hash out the details.  Then we’ll spend 2-10 months developing it.

What does the creative process look like during the initial stages?
It looks like a lot of programmer-art.  I’ll often just have cubes and spheres moving around the screen to represent objects as I try to build the prototype.  Then gradually the artist will replace the temp-art with legit stuff.

Did you do any pre-marketing before Enigmo 2 was released?
Not really.  Apple wanted us to keep the iPhone version quiet so that we could get a bigger bang out of it when it went live.

What are you working on now?
Porting everything to the iPad.

Any plans for updates to Enigmo 2?
Possibly.  Enigmo 1 has been updated in some major ways for the iPad, so we may do the same for Enigmo 2.

What was your most frustrating task while developing Enigmo 2?
Dealing with performance issues.  The game is pretty complex and it is important that it runs at a high frame rate.

What have you found to be the most successful way to market Enigmo 2?
If I knew the answer to that… I really don’t know.  It’s hard to market anything for the iPhone.  YouTube videos, reviews, and word-of-mouth seem to be most effective.

How much does user feedback affect your planning of updates and also future projects?
Quite a bit.

Do you write games for yourself or for others? And why?
We only do internal projects at Pangea, although we did do an iPhone game called Beer Bounce that we had a different company publish simply because we didn’t want to tarnish our image with a drinking game.

What process do you go through to overcome creative block?
Play other games to get inspired.

Since its release what you do differently looking back?
Nothing.  I’m very happy with Enigmo 2.

What was the development atmosphere like? What kind of music did you listen to?
That game was done so quickly that I don’t really thing a development atmosphere had time to develop.  We knew we wanted to a full 3D version of Enigmo, so we were pretty focused on that.

What was a must have during the development process of Enigmo 2?
Nothing in particular.

What games influenced you in your decision to make Enigmo 2?
Well, Enigmo 1 obviously, but Enigmo 1 was inspired by The Incredible Machine.

How close was the end product to your initial conceptualization?
Pretty much spot-on.  I was actually surprised how well it came out in the end.

Before the release of Enigmo 2 were there any huge last minute changes?
Nope.

How did you keep yourself motivated?
Kept thinking how well it might do since Engimo 1 did so well.  In the end Enigmo 2 hasn’t done anywhere near as well as Enigmo 1, but it still sells quite well.

How much did the art drive the game? The vision of what it was to look like how much of that was the driving force?
Well, it drove the theme, but not the game itself.

What tools of the trade are a must have for you when it comes to programming, art and music?
Maya and Photoshop.  We use all internal tools for just about everything else.

If you were stuck on an island with a laptop and no internet access what apps would you have loaded?
The US Army Survival Handbook!

We want to thank Brian for his time and look forward to seeing what Pangea comes up with next!