HomeLAN - What are some of the more surprising or interesting things you learned about game development while writing and researching the book?

David Hodgson - Well, without giving much of the content away, there were dozens of interesting anecdotes and information pieces that no one's read about before. For example, one of the company's original names was Rhinoscar (I even got Gabe to draw me the logo!). Gabe talks about Prospero, there's an extremely amusing story about Ted Bachman's interview with Gabe and the inception for some of the freakier looking critters in the game. How Gordon's name came about. Who influenced Hal Robins' during his vocal recordings for Dr. Kleiner. Then there's the photography models for G. Man and Alyx; they're are really cool to see! The Source code theft is talked about candidly. The sheer insanity of the modeling that went on in City 17 shows how meticulous Valve are. Some of the entities that got cut from HL2… how development stalled for months when the physics engine was finished and everyone started building crazy contraptions… I mean, there's loads of surprising elements I wrote about during the development of Valve's games – that's just a smattering!