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Okay, okay -- for some of you, 2PM GMT isn't exactly "bright and early," but for us, it's 9AM, so bear with us for a moment here. As announced by Alan Wake's community manager on the game's forum, next Wednesday at 2PM GMT fans will get a chance to ask questions to their heart's desire of the team behind the game at Remedy Entertainment.

As the Q&A will be taking place via IRC (no, we're not kidding), the announcement suggests heading to the web-based client for those of you not familiar with the no-we-can't-believe-people-are-still-using-it chat program. Between now and then, we suggest working on your question list, as the community man also notes the chat will be moderated and only "relevant questions (i.e. questions that haven't been answered already)" will be answered. Get crackin', gumshoes!

Matias Myllyrinne is a member of the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences and will speak at the D.I.C.E. Summit in 2010. He works for Remedy, and told Joystiq that the developer's latest game, Alan Wake, is "done" and is just being "polished" before its "Spring 2010" release.

AIAS: What's your favorite part of game development?
Matias Myllyrinne: Shipping. We are so close with Alan Wake and it has taken a while. I would really like to share what we have done with the world. No other feeling can match the exhilaration of seeing years of work come to closure.

How do you measure success?
As for, success in games. it's easy – units sold and Metacritic. In any form of entertainment, if the audience likes what you create and it sells – that's what counts in the end.

Professionally, success is defined by the success of those around me. Are my partners aligned with me and taking part in good business, is my team creative, empowered and financially secure and are my shareholders seeing good long term strategic direction. Personally, I am successful if I am doing new things, enjoying a balanced life with the job I love and all the other interesting things the world has to offer.

According to a Remedy managing director Matias Myllyrinne, the studio wants to discuss the possibility of leaving the ending of its upcoming thriller Alan Wake off discs sent to press with its publisher, Microsoft. "I think we're going to be insanely careful about how much of the story we reveal," Myllyrinne told G4TV. "I'd like to hold it back, [I] don't want anybody to spoil it for the audience. That's just my personal feeling."

Using the twist ending of The Sixth Sense as an analogy, Myllrinne says he'd prefer players be able to piece together the secrets of Bright Falls on their own before having them spoiled by others. Although admirable, his analogy can only mean one of two things: Alan Wake is dead or he's Haley Joel Osment. Either way, we're already terrified.

Previously on Alan Wake... in search of lost manuscript pages for a novel he doesn't recall writing, Alan Wake is searching the Pacific Northwest town of Bright Falls for his missing wife. The pages aren't only a clue as to where Alan must search next, but seem to be the basis of a dark force taking over the small town.

In the latest demo of Alan Wake, the title character is without a weapon or the protection of a light source -- the only thing that can slow down the darkness taking over the small town. During this section of the game, Alan must retreat into the darkened forests, pursued by an FBI agent named Nightingale who is sure Wake is to blame for all of the terrible things happening in the town. Sadly, Nightingale may not be wrong.

During his speech at GDC Europe – exhaustively titled "From Max Payne to Alan Wake: Creating Intellectual Properties the Remedy Way" (air!) – Remedy Managing Director Matias Myllyrinne laid out the seven pillars the company uses for its games:

1. Strong Lead Character -- Main character is iconic and easy to get on the surface. Things went wrong when Myllyrinne wanted the Max Payne sequel to simply be called The Fall of Max Payne. The compromised title admittedly didn't work out in the sales department. He didn't mention anything about Rockstar's reimagined Max Payne in the latest sequel.

2. Mainstream approachability -- Avoiding niche and cliché settings (for video games that would mean no WWII setting, dragons, sci-fi, etc.). Having gameplay mechanics that are approachable (low barrier of entry to start playing the game).

3. Cinematic -- Taking lessons learned from movies. The presentation of Max Payne makes this pretty obvious. With Alan Wake the company is focusing on the trinity of the flashlight, Alan himself (see: pillar one), and the gun. This also lead Myllyrinne to an anecdote about presentation, saying "It's not what things are, it's what the audience thinks things are." He mentioned the Ingram gun was made bigger in Max Payne because people expect that gun to be larger than it actually is in real life.

Remedy writer Sam Lake narrated a video presentation of Alan Wake at gamesCOM, providing the most detailed look we've seen yet at the psychological thriller. We see Wake realize that his wife is missing, and begin the undertaking of piecing together the manuscript that he doesn't remember writing, and whose events are coming true. Lake discusses the role of the game's light sources, which act as shelter and weapons against the shadowy, possessed townspeople.

We're delighted to see this much of Alan Wake. By revealing this much footage, Remedy seems to be treating it like a real game that, in fact, "is done."

Following our extended look of the Alan Wake demo showcased at Microsoft's E3 2009 keynote, Remedy lead writer Sam Lake took a moment to answer our questions regarding the evolution of the title, since it was first announced in 2005.

"We have been in the fortunate position where we've had time to do research and do prototypes ... keep the quality bar high and explore, until we find the right combination of different elements," Lake said. "Things have evolved along the way. This is an action game, but there is a lot of variety." Lake also explained that Alan Wake will feature segments of gameplay during daytime sequences, which will allow players to explore and interact with the "quirky locals" of Bright Falls. According to Lake, the day and night cycle is governed by the game's linear storyline.

Lake also made it clear his team is no stranger to the perception that Remedy Entertainment had been taking their time bringing Alan Wake's debut adventure to players. "Remedy is not a factory," Lake said. "We take our time and try out different things until we feel have found the right combination and a good balance for the game." Alan Wake is scheduled to release in Spring 2010.

We're not quite sure how, considering the media blackout approach that Alan Wake developer Remedy Entertainment has taken, but Norwegian gaming site Gamer.no sat down for dinner with head of franchise development for Remedy, Oskari Häkkinen, this past week. New details were (unsurprisingly) scant, though we were able to glean a handful of facts from the interview. For instance, the game has, "a lot less action than Max Payne," the studio's last franchise which recently had a current-gen update announced.

Aside from an emphasis on story, Mr. Häkkinen says that weather effects will play a role in gameplay, specifically noting (by way of a strange sounding Google translation from Norwegian), "Everything in the game can be influenced by the weather. If you are running the car, run conditions will be worse by heavy rain, than if the weather was good ... the weather is dynamic, since it will influence how you play the game."

Furthermore, Mr. Häkkinen tells Gamer.no that, "Lighting is very important in the game, and this is a unique item that really has not been used in the game before on the way we do it." The obvious comparison here would be to last year's conceptually strong Alone in the Dark -- here's hoping Remedy can deliver on the lighting concept where Alone in the Dark more or less failed.

So, we officially still know little-to-nothing! We'll keep an eye out for information at E3 2009 in June, but, ya know, we're not holding our breath or anything.

[Via IGN]

Fresh Alan Wake information text has made its way online, with a cryptic message appearing on the official Alan Wake forums. The paragraph, penned by Alan Wake himself, was posted by the forums' community manager and supposedly comes from developer Remedy Entertainment. It reads:

"The amount of pages keeps growing each night. There are also new edits on the old pages. They keep getting more aggressive. The story is rewriting itself. The protagonist is now my namesake, and his wife is called Alice. The most worrying aspect: the genre seems to be shifting. It's turning into a horror story. I can no longer be certain whether the hero can succeed or even survive. Apart for jumbled fragments of bad dreams and an oppressive feeling, I can remember nothing of the process when I wake up. But this morning, a breakthrough! When I came to my senses, I could smell her perfume on my shirt. I am close. I know it. I must push on.

- Alan Wake"

So, some pages are being re-written, a horrible horror story is starting and there's perfume that smells like shirts ... or something. Honestly, we have no idea what this all means, but feel free to share your thoughts. Who knows, maybe there's a new trailer or a release date hidden in there somewhere.

[Via IGN]