about Ultima Underworld "for the first several months after ORIGIN and Blue Sky signed the deal", despite his own belief that it was a "change-the-world project". Neurath opined that this was due to the team's status as outsiders, whose company was "some 1,500 miles distant" from their publisher. The team was advanced $30,000 to create the game, but its final cost was $400,000. The game was funded partly by Ned Lerner, and by Neurath's royalties from Space Rogue. Throughout the game's production, the studio was run on a tight budget. Roughly a year into development, the team discovered that their second producer—the first having quit Origin near the beginning of development—had left the project. Neurath later said that "neither [producer] had much involvement" in the game, and that, following the second's departure, the team spent time without any producer at all. Rumors circulated that Origin planned to cancel the project. Following a proposal by the team around this time, Spector, who had previously worked with Neurath on Space Rogue, assumed the role of producer. Church later described this event as "a big win for everyone". Spector began to interact regularly with the team by phone and to visit the studio in person. Neurath later said, "Warren understood immediately what we were trying to accomplish with the game, and became our biggest champion within Origin. Had not Warren stepped in this role at that stage, I'm not sure Ultima Underworld would have ever seen the light of day." Church said that Spector helped the team polish the game and "make it real", and that Spector's past experience in the industry enabled him to keep the team focused on completing the game. He explained that Spector "had that ability to help me and the rest of the guys reset, from the big-picture view of someone who has done it before." The final four months of the game's development constituted "crunch time". During this period, Neurath rented an extremely small basement office space in a Somerville, Massachusetts social services building: he sought to circumvent the long commute that several team members had been making from Massachusetts. Furniture consisted of inexpensive folding tables and "uncomfortable red deck chairs". Development took place during the winter, but the room was drafty and poorly heated. The team hired college friends such as Marc LeBlanc to bug test the game, and Spector stayed at the studio for roughly