With all the casual games in the App Store, it's great to run into titles that stick in your mind, and are involving from start to finish. Scarlett Adventures Episode 1 is such a game and buying it will not only make you chuckle on the subway: all proceeds go to the Red Cross until the end of March. You can read more about this great initiative here.

Scarlett and the Spark of Life is a breath of adventuring fresh air, with its witty dialogue and memorable characters. We enjoyed playing through the game, and were left hungry for more. We decided to ask creators Tim Knauf and Tristan Clark about the time-line for Episode 2, creating games for iOS and managing a software house with just two members:

You guys are low in numbers (2 and expanding?), yet deliver an all-round experience with your games. How do you manage? What exactly are your backgrounds and how did you get involved in the gaming business?

Tim: First up, we’ve got to give credit to the very talented James Ellis for the beautiful backgrounds and character design in ‘Scarlett’. His help arrived late into the project, yet after a few incredibly intense weekends, he had turned the art style around. You can see why we’re keen to bring him back full-time for Scarlett Episode 2.

Tristan: As for our backgrounds… would you believe we both have degrees in English Literature? Completely related to game development, I know. Actually, our love of stories is what led us to both our degrees and the kinds of games we most want to make, so there’s more overlap than you’d think.

Welcome to the Gap

Fifteen years ago, I was 15 years old, ambitious and filled with dreams. Most of these entailed the creation of those fictitious worlds that sucked me in. Adventure games presented me with both worlds of magic (far, far away), as well as dystopian, grim representations of OUR world. Beneath a Steel Sky (1994) belongs to the latter category.

With references to Nietzsche, Huxley and Orwell, BASS came packed with intelligence, leaving us disconcerted by... hiatuses of thought. Of course back then, in The Netherlands, all we got from our English reading list was Watership Down. Don't get me wrong: I felt sorry for those rabbits. However, I felt even sorrier for those who did not get their hands on a copy of Beneath a Steel Sky.

Your quest

The game takes place in a post-nuclear world, divided in an outside - the Gap - and an inside - a hierarchical city. Or is it the other way around? Robert Foster is a child of both worlds: he finds himself growing up in the Gap, yet feels something from the inside pulling him in.

What or who this is and what happens next, are catalysts in Foster's quest. Find out who you are, where you come from, who put you there and how exactly that fits into the bigger picture. Kind of like ordinary life, wrapped up in a shiny iPhone port of a classic adventure.