COLLECTED WORKS SAM LAKE

Talking parallel dimensions with the would-be novelist who accidentally became the public face of Remedy

- BY ALEX SPENCER

For Sami Järvi in the days before he adopted his anglicised nom de plume becoming a game designer was never really the plan. "I did love computer games," Sam Lake tells us. "Commodore 64 was my first gaming machine, and I especially loved roleplaying games, with the worldbuilding and all." But over time, he began to drift away.

"I was playing, for sure, but I was much more passionate in my teenage years and as a young adult when it came to tabletop roleplaying games. And I was reading a ton of fantasy books. And those two together really set off the spark to want to write, to tell stories." That spark led Järvi to Helsinki University to study English Language & Literature, the first step along his intended path. "I was writing a lot, and thinking that I wanted to be a novelist. But then," he laughs, "Remedy happened."

One of the studio's founding members, Petri Järvilehto, was a childhood friend and a regular player in his tabletop RPGs. The team had started out in the Finnish demoscene, taxing the hardware of the time to produce audiovisual spectacles but as their attentions turned to videogame development, they realised they'd need someone to write the text.

Thirty years on, Lake is one of videogames' most celebrated names. In January he picked up the Andrew Yoon Legend Award at the New York Game Awards, followed by the Lifetime Achievement Award at this year's GDC.

In July, he'll be adding Develop's Star Award to the trophy cabinet, with an accompanying keynote at the Brighton conference looking over his career to date.