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Steve Martin is, perhaps, the only actor whose movies I will see just because he's in them. I'd like to say the same for Bruce Campbell, but truth is I never saw McHale's Navy and, God willing, will never have to.

Now, that analogy is a bit inaccurate with computer games because, as a reviewer, I tend to get stuff for free. However, when I move on to other things and find myself having to steal money from my wife's purse to buy computer games again, the only company whose games I will buy just because they make them is Freeverse Software. This is because they understand the one golden rule of game development: There's no game, no matter how ancient, that can't be improved by placing the words "Burning Monkey" at the front of the title.

I recently had the opportunity to sit down and speak with Freeverse vice president and head of public relations Colin Lynch Smith (and, by "sit down and speak with," I mean "exchange far too many e-mails over the course of two months with") to see what made him and his company tick. Here's what I found out...

Applelinks: I don't think people understand exactly how large Freeverse Software has become as a company. Between your immediate staff, associated programmers, contributing artists, mascots, etc., you've got something like 10,000 employees crossing a dozen or so species. Admit it...you guys have lost all control over there.

Colin: Yes, many people don't realize that we've recently expanded our staff to include every adult on the planet (and all children in the few remaining countries where they're allowed to labor). We don't pay salaries, you may have noticed, but we do hand out job titles on request. By the way, Morty down in accounting is retiring on Friday, so we're asking all his co-workers to cough up $5 to get him something nice. You can also sign the card if you want. (That's Freeverse's new "retirement party" revenue model, think it will work? We can only go so far with this whole software thing.)

Applelinks: It could work, I suppose, but most of us employees aren't likely to contribute because we're still bitter you took away our "dress-down Fridays." And speaking of dress-down Fridays...Jared. Let's talk about Jared. Couldn't you at least have dressed him up a little bit for his nationwide exposure on that Blockbuster commercial?

Colin: Hey, skin sells, and Blockbuster knows it! The problem was that we never told them that Jared doesn't have skin so much as a particular Pantone yellow which does in fact, not sell. So in retrospect, dressing him up might have been a good idea.

When he's had a few, Jared still talks about his glory days in television, (he also throws things at the set whenever that "whistling freak" from Wal-Mart comes on). Jared is currently in negotiations with the Dancing Baby's people about a dinner theater production of The Music Man.

Applelinks: Best of luck to them on that, then. I find it encouraging that, in a world so full of hate crimes, acts of terrorism and SUVs, two rivals can work together to entertain the masses. Of course, they may also be feeling the heat from those singing cats. Have you seen them? Those cats? Who sing? "The Immigrant Song?" By Led Zeppelin? On VH1? How does Jared feel about them?

Colin: Jared doesn't have a whole lot of respect for those cats. They're like some feline boy-band. I mean, sure they're cute and all, but do they have the chops? Can they miss every third note...and in Spanish no less? No, they may be riding high now, but in a couple of years they'll be on "Behind The Music" talking about how they cat-nipped all their royalties away. It's sad really.

Applelinks: Yes, compounded by the fact that they're just a cover band, and there's no real precedent for long term-success there, save for maybe Bjorn Again, so, I suppose, if the cats were to just sing Abba songs, kind of like if the cast of Cats were to perform Mamma Mia! in full kitty make-up, then perhaps...maybe they would've...I'm sorry, what were talking about again?

Colin: Your love of musical theater and what a stone-cold fox Ethel Merman was, I think...

Applelinks: Ah, yes. Thank you. Now, there was a rumor circulating that Ethel Merman was originally asked to be the Freeverse spokes-model, but she had to pass up on account of the fact that she'd passed away nearly 15 years earlier. Is this true? Was Jen, in fact, your second choice?

Colin: We had considered Ms. Merman initially (her status as a deceased person was working in her favor, as we figured it would strengthen our position in contract negotiations), but, ultimately, we decided that she just wasn't 2-D enough. Jen on the other hand was perfectly 2-D, dressed in primary colors, and came with her own monkey. She was really the obvious choice for Freeverse spokes-model.

Applelinks: Hmm. By that token, was any consideration given to Greg Evigan? He also came with a monkey and was perfectly 2-D.

Colin: An excellent observation! We did have a meeting with Greg and Bear back in '94. We even made them a very generous offer at one point, but I guess they didn't see it that way and all of a sudden there was a lot of howling and feces throwing (the monkey wasn't too happy either, I can tell you). After that, talks understandably broke down.

Applelinks: Yes, that's usually when they do. Now, Jen is a bit of an anomaly in the gaming world in that, unlike her peers, she doesn't dress like a rejected porn star or swear like a Merchant Marine, and she's even been known to share a cookie recipe or two. Has she found it difficult to maintain this disposition under pressure from teenaged boys and sexist industry moguls?

Colin: Despite her lack of saline implants and closet devoid of leather thongs, I don't think I'm alone in thinking she's the foxiest lady in Mac gamedom. You can keep Lara Croft or BloodRayne, I'd pick Jen any day of the week. Those others are a little "loosey goosey," if you know what I mean, while Jen's the kind of imaginary cartoon girl you could bring home to meet your mother...assuming your mother wouldn't have you hospitalized for something like that.

We've tried to talk Jen into doing a Strip Hearts card game, but she just laughs and shakes her head in that winsome way of hers. Monty, on the other hand, attempts to drop his diaper in nearly every game we make.

Applelinks: Haven't you also had the same problem with Jason Whong?

Colin: Who in this industry hasn't?

Applelinks: As Bill Stiteler would say, Zing! Okay, as fun as it is to talk about a half-naked Jason Whong, we'll move forward. Last summer, a group of dedicated Freeverse card game players got together for a convention, of sorts, in Chicago so they could actually play cards face to face. Admit it; these people kind of scared you, didn't they.

Colin: I wont deny that I had a bit of trepidation going into it (the thought of meeting people you know only by lines of chat on a game server is terrifying in a blind date kind of way). But, once there, it was a total blast.

The people ranged from about 19 to senior citizens, and they were from all walks of life. The one universal was that they were all really smart, some of them scarily so. One word of advice, never play cards with these folks for money!

There are some pictures of the get-together on a fan site...FreeverseFriends.com.

The appreciation and support we get from the Mac community is really the best part of this job...and a large part of the reason we're still doing it after 10 years.

Applelinks: Freeverse Friends...I think I saw that cartoon. It's the one where the Asian American girl, the African American boy, the European American girl, the American American boy, and the Ambiguously American Transsexual join forces to battle the evil, polluting industrialists in a desperate attempt to once again make the world safe for 3D Spades tournaments, right?

Colin: ......

Applelinks: Anyway, despite some great, unrelated titles, it's pretty much your card games that have made Freeverse a staple in the Mac gaming community. At what point did the company look at Mac gamers and think, "These people need to play more cards, and they need also need more monkeys?"

Colin: We were pretty lucky to stumble into the Mac card game arena early on. Card games seldom get the attention that their more explosive cousins receive, but they have some real advantages from a publishing standpoint: Card games never get old, they have built-in name recognition, and the audience is equally male and female (not each individual, but taken as group you understand). They also tend to be older than the audience for most other games, and are therefore a little more responsible about paying for a game if they like it.

Shoving monkeys into every game, on the other hand, has no practical rational, except, of course, that shoving monkeys is really fun.

Applelinks: Wait...we were supposed to pay for those games? Uh, hold on...I...what's that behind you?!

You know, that joke doesn't work too well outside of a visual medium, so I'll pretend it's actually my next question. What's that behind you?

Colin: Well, they say that behind every great man is a great woman. For me, that woman is my brother, Ian. He's the founder of Freeverse, our president, and the guy who actually understands what our programmers are talking about. I try to nod my head a lot, look contemplative, and throw-in questions like, "How will that effect the googleflop of the fliegalhertz?" Mostly, they just start looking around for Ian pretty quick.

Applelinks: So, you don't program the games and you don't talk to the programmers much, yet you're the one after whom Colin's Classic Cards was named. How'd you pull that off?

Colin: Never underrate the awesome authority of alliteration (nor the efficacy of whining)!

Applelinks: Okay, I won't.

Having your likeness in various card games is all well and good, but be honest; in what computer games would you really like to appear? Say, if you could do the Kevin Flynn thing from Tron and get transported inside the computer, in which game would you like to end up?

Colin: Hmmm... Airburst would be cool, but I'm afraid of heights. Dungeon Siege, maybe, although I'm not keen on enclosed spaces. I suspect I might have a severe minotaur phobia, too, but, since I've yet to actually test that one out, let's go with MacSoft's Age of Mythology! I'm a big history buff (even if its fake history).

Applelinks: Well, if you do end up in Dungeon Siege, do Bill Stiteler and I a favor and actually lay siege to a dungeon so the title can finally be accurate. Now, speaking of other games, I've heard many musicians claim they don't listen to their own material when they're not in the studio. Along those lines, what games have proven most popular in the Freeverse Headquarters when you're not working on your own titles or trying to get Monty to sit still for his experiments?

Colin: We've been too busy to play much of anything recently, but I'll give you the entire list of network games that we have played here over the years...

Ian and I once took two Mac Pluses out on the back terrace, hooked them up via appleTalk, and played DeltaTao's Strategic Conquest as a drinking game. That may even have pre-dated Freeverse...or created Freeverse...it's sort of a blur.

Warlords II was pretty popular here over the years. We'd e-mail our turns around the office during the day and then yell down the hall, "I'm going to spank your little Hero!" which, in context, was not as suggestive as it sounds.

Then Marathon, of course. We played that for years and years. Player names included Baby Pistola, Colorful Splat, Doctor Mister Pants, and Colovely, among others.

We played Warcraft I for a while, a bit of Myth, and, more recently, we had a phase of phasers with Elite Force from Aspyr and Age of Empires II from MacSoft. (To save Ian the trouble of writing a letter to the editor, I will stipulate that, yes, his elephants did indeed stomp me into the ground in that game. He's like some kind of pachyderm savant with those things!)

Applelinks: Too busy, you say? I always like to hear that game developers are too busy to do anything other than develop games. Active Lancer and Burning Monkey Mahjong Solitaire were recently released, and Burning Monkey Casino, 3D Crazy Eights and the extremely creepy (in a robots-are-stealing-my-brain kind of way) iSight games are in the works. Anything else you can let us know about? Game related, I mean. If you're too busy with your Off-Off-Broadway musical adaptation of Hillary Rodan Clinton's Living History, I'd rather not know.

Colin: Awww, but you're going love the It Takes A Village number that closes the first act! The neo-conservative villagers chase Al Franken around with torches and pitchforks while Hillary&$151;flying over the audience in a Peter Pan harness&$151;raps about universal health care. It's totally killer!

But, if you're dead-set on talking games, ToySight will be awfully cool. Then, in 2004, we've got WingNuts 2 in the wings, and some nice surprises too. We'll also be at MacWorld San Francisco in January and hope to have a really big announcement then.

Applelinks: This announcement, I have to wonder...I recently read the reports about those scientists who have monkeys playing video games with their mind. Monkeys, scientists, games...all clues lead to Freeverse and that creepy ToySight technology. Would you care to comment on your company's role in this experiment? Is Freeverse now affiliated with the U.S. Department of Defense?

Colin: Well, we have had FBI agents in our office running background checks, but that was because of our advanced Cribbage technology.

Our Monkey Mind Control experiments are privately funded and not affiliated with any government agency. You will be happy to know that they've been going exceedingly well in recent weeks! Right now, for instance, my mind is totally under the control of a female chimpanzee named "Mrs. Buttercup."

Applelinks: That would explain a lot. Or, more accurately, very little. Next to nothing, in fact. It does sound quite a bit like a bad movie adaptation of an even worse Stephen King short story, though, which begs the question...many of your games are riddled with film references. Are there any movies you've seen recently that could benefit from the inclusion of a few burning monkeys?

Colin: Almost any movie could use a few burning monkeys! But they don't have to be real monkeys; I'd accept especially hairy thespians like Sean Connery, Robin Williams, Burt Reynolds, Kirstie Alley, or any of the Baldwin Brothers getting the occasional flaming arrow in the junk. I'm not what you'd call a "purist."

Applelinks: Speaking of celebrities, I've heard tell that Drew Barrymore was really impressed with your "glow stick" during the blackout. Care to comment on this rumor?

Colin: You make it sound so suggestive! In reality, it was quite harmless. My brothers and I were just sitting on the stoop of our building in our rhinestone encrusted ass-less chaps, when who comes walking by but Drew Barrymore! Jared had a supply of hundreds of multi-colored glowsticks on hand for blackouts, unexpected raves, and other emergencies, which we were handing out to neighbors. Drew asked if she could take our picture, and we politely acquiesced.

I've been pitching her ideas for films ever since, like "Charlie's Hairiest Angel" and "Male-Pattern Badness!" (both of which are really star vehicles for me, but Drew would have a few good lines as well). If she doesn't get back to me soon, I may just perform them as one man shows in our booth at MacWorld San Francisco.

Applelinks: Absolutely. Get the whole Freeverse group in there, call yourselves the "The Ass-less Chaps." It's sure to help you sell some Mahjong.

With that image, then, it's probably best we close this hard-hitting and wonderfully insightful interview. Oh, I do have one final question, though...a question that—considering the recent launch of Panther and Apple's bigger push into promoting Mac games—is surely on the mind of all Macintosh gamers right now; with which of these four Mac web personalities would the chick from that Average Joe show most likely end up? Corey Tamas, Tuncer Deniz, Peter Cohen or Bill Stiteler?

Colin: That's a trick question isn't it? Its a well known fact that nothing gets a woman hotter than a guy who eats Cheese Combos and plays Mac games in his underwear for 18 hours a day. No way she could chose between them.

The thing is that every one of those gentlemen (with the possible exception of Corey) is too good for that floozie who probably couldn't find an Orc encampment even if the Fog of War was like, set to "off" and stuff! So I object to the whole premise of the question. This interview has gotten too 60 Minutes. I need to talk to my lawyer.

   

That wasn't a joke. Colin did talk to his lawyer, who then talked to our lawyer, who then talked to us in a very stern way. Luckily, there's no law against getting "too 60 minutes." Getting too 20/20 will get you five to ten, and, specifically, getting too Barbara Walters Special in which she kisses Julianne Moore is a death penalty offense in Texas and much of the Bible Belt, but there's nothing legally wrong with getting too 60 Minutes.

That's really all Colin and I wanted to let you know.