Shack: With the budgets for games constantly rising, have you ever considered making a smaller, casual-oriented title? Maybe on Xbox Live Arcade, or with Flash?

Peter Molyneux: Yeah, I have, I really have. I've thought about casual titles, I've really thought about making games for the casual space. But I'm greedy, I want all the drama that something like a high-budget game can make, as well as having all the innovation. I always fall down upon wanting more, and that's my crime.

At this stage in a project, I always say, "God, I know what I'm going to do. After I finish Fable, I'm gonna lock myself in a room for six weeks and I'm gonna make this little casual game."

I've had a great idea, in the last two weeks, for a little mechanic to do with a mouse, which is kinda like the mechanic that I did on the original Populous for raising and lowering land. I thought, "What I'm going to do is when I finish Fable 2, all the playthroughs, me and a friend are gonna go and we're gonna lock ourselves away for six weeks. And we're gonna make this little casual game and just release it on Xbox Live Arcade. It'll be brilliant."

But, of course, I never get around to doing that because there's always something else to do, and there's always my family as well. I probably won't get around to do it, but I'd love to do it.

Shack: Has there been any talk or mention of reviving or remaking your older games, such as Dungeon Keeper or Magic Carpet?

Peter Molyneux: When we were doing Black & White, we did actually talk about releasing a smaller version of Populous. We talked about that for quite a long time, and then I think that fizzled out.

There's been no talk recently. There is Populous coming out on the DS, someone's doing it--it has nothing to do with me. I haven't seen it even.

I would love, I really would love to redo a version of Syndicate. Syndicate was probably one of my favorites. I'd love to redo Syndicate.

I'd love, everyone would hate me to do this one--because it was so wrong--I'd love to redo a game called Power Monger, which was back in 1991.

Strangely enough, Magic Carpet was one of the ones where, god, we could have made so much more money if we had just stuck you in a dungeon with a big gun. But no, there's not talk about a [revival] at the moment.

One day, I'm sure that opportunity is going to come up and I'd love to do it.

Shack: What other games have you been playing lately?

Peter Molyneux: At the moment, I've been playing a lot of, and almost finished, Phantom Hourglass on the DS, which is great. I really, really enjoyed it. That's all I've had time for, because I'm literally working about 15 hours a day on Fable, and normally I get starved of playing computer games.

If I have my choice, I would be playing a lot more, definitely. I'm looking forward to Grand Theft Auto.

Shack: Have you heard about the multiplayer?

Peter Molyneux: No, I haven't.

Shack: There's 16-person online multiplayer, with 15 different gameplay modes.

Peter Molyneux: Wow. So can you play the story multiplayer?

Shack: No, you can't play the entire story in multiplayer, but there is a co-op mission. Most of the game modes are objective based, like Team Deathmatch, Territory Wars, or racing to see who can assassinate a target first, and it all takes place in the same map as single-player.

Peter Molyneux: Wow, that's incredible. So it's a bit like Crackdown, and I know that Dave Jones is doing APB, which is like a big multiplayer arena.

Shack: Everything I've heard about APB is pretty exciting.

Peter Molyneux: Well, [Grand Theft Auto IV] is only a month away, so that's really exciting.

Shack: Alright, last question. Is it different being a designer now that you're constantly in the public eye? Do you ever miss just being another guy at Bullfrog?

Peter Molyneux: Chris, you know, the funny thing is, I've kinda forgotten what that world is like. I am a big show-off, that's what I am. I'm just a kid showing off his toys, really. I love doing it so much.

I love showing things to people who haven't seen it before and I love having a tired, worn-out journalist come into a room and sitting him down and saying, "Look, this is the vision of what we're trying to create," and then get excited by that. It's a wonderful feeling to be able to do that. I've kinda almost forgotten what it's like to be not like that, because it's been like that since 1992, it's been like that for a very long time.

Sometimes, I wish--I truly, vehemently wish--that I could close the door and I could just focus and not worry about thinking, "Gosh, what's everyone going to think of this and how will this fit into everything else," but I think that's just a general frustration of being a designer.

If you asked me, would I forgo the ability to say things and see my work being talked about in the press and on community boards, I wouldn't forgo doing it.

What I am trying to do--and seriously, seriously trying to do--is trying to, firstly, allow people to understand why when I talk about something, that I'm talking about it in a way that's important to me, rather that it being a definite feature that's on the back of the box.

When I talk about a game feature, then that feature I always show now, because of mistakes I've made in the past. I've talked about combat, but I've shown what combat is going to be. I've talked about drama, and I've show the dog and what that's going to bed. And I've talked about the co-op, and I've actually shown it.

I think people got very, very frustrated when I would talk about, "Hey, we're experimenting with this, isn't this exciting," and then it didn't end up being in the game. That's where this acorn [in Fable 2] came from in the first place.

I just realized that that must frustrate the hell out of people. They get very excited about those things and then understandably, when they're not there, they feel slightly betrayed. I promise not to do that. I've been very, very careful in [Fable 2] only to talk about things that are definitely, definitely in the game.