Shack: Have you started working on any other projects?

Jonathan Mak: There's collaboration work I'm doing with this musician, but that's sort of on hold since I'm trying to finish this game. And there's all these ideas I have, but I'm really burnt out. I'm really fucking tired here. The only plan I have is sort of getting sleep again. I don't think my lifestyle is really healthy right now. I really can't sleep.

Shack: This came after you started to work on the original freeware game or after the deal with Sony?

Jonathan Mak: It is self imposed. It's not imposed by Sony. I really want to get this game out. It would be good to get back to a regular sleeping schedule, and also clean up the house. I have a PS3 but I have no furniture to put it on, so it's just sitting on the box that it came in. I have this widescreen TV to test the game, but it's sort of on a milk crate on a chair because I don't have a table to put it on. And I can afford it now, which is great, I just need time to go and buy furniture.

Shack: Have you thought about expanding the Queasy Games staff to someone beyond yourself or is that not a direction you want to go in?

Jonathan Mak: No. It's not a business goal. I'm lucky this great business opportunity happened, but the goal is to just make games that I want to make.

Shack: Do you have a goal of even making commercially available games?

Jonathan Mak: That's a sticky question. This is something I battle with a lot. The question of accessibility. I'm sure every artist sort of battles. Part of it is wanting people to experience your work. For people to want to experience your work, you have to make it accessible somewhere. And if people want to experience your work, it's commercially viable.

A lot of it is sort of discovering how accessible I want the work to be, and recently I've been discovering, yeah, I want people to play my game. That's not crazy. Before I was like, "If you don't get it, fuck you. Go play your whatever game." But that's stupid. I want people to play my game.

Shack: Would you consider having other projects published on the PlayStation Network in the future?

Jonathan Mak: Yeah, I'm sort of forging this relationship with Sony. Particularly the Santa Monica guys, because they're just really fucking cool.

Shack: Would you develop for any other platforms?

Jonathan Mak: I'm not done with freeware. I want to make freeware and Sony knows this. Where would I be without Kenta Cho? If I didn't play that game, none of this would have happened. I sort of feel indebted to it.

Shack: What are some games you've played recently or heard about that you've been impressed with, independently developed or otherwise?

Jonathan Mak: There's a backlog of amazing indie games that I haven't even touched yet. [Daisuke Amaya's] Cave Story, Kenta Cho's new one which is old now, the Knytt guy--Within a Deep Forest. Just shitloads of games.

There is one game that I will mention because I think it's quite hilarious. When I was a kid I used to be a really huge John Woo fan. One time I watched "The Killer" 20 times--three times in a row at one point.

I read that John Woo's treating Stranglehold as the sequel to "Hard Boiled," and when it comes out on PS3 it's going to come with "Hard Boiled" on Blu-ray. I just have to see this, just to see what he's up to. There's just possibly a lot of comedy in the context of how huge a fan I was when I was a little kid. Maybe that's not funny. I think it's funny.

Shack: Have you played flOw? Kind of a similar situation--an independent game published on PSN.

Jonathan Mak: I finally played flOw, but I played it on my crap-ass TV with the most garbage speakers. I played the PC one ages ago. It was really cool. It's such an easy game to get into. It's sort of like a couple guys having a beer, except instead of drinking beer and being stupid, they play flOw.

Shack: Thanks for the interview. Good luck on finishing up the game. Get some sleep if you can.

Jonathan Mak: That's a cruel joke.