Interview: Low Life creator Tom Melson

Boar Games caught up with Tom Melson, a Warwick graduate who has worked on visual arts sets including those of Harry Potter, The Chronicle of Narnia and The Clash of the Titans. More recently, Tom released an ingenious game app dubbed Low Life. We spoke with Tom to see what his new game had to offer.

Since this interview, Low Life has received rave reviews from leading android application reviewers AppsZoom and AndroidTapp. The latter have even rated Low Life in the top 100 game apps this year, and the top 10 for the month of June!

[divider]

Boar Games: How would you sum up Low Life in a few sentences?

Tom: I’ve labelled it an action puzzler, so although it starts slowly, it works up, and the puzzles get quite complicated. It’s also an action game, so you have to gude the little characters around. It’s kind of a mix between the two. With regards to how it plays, my background was in crowd simulation so there’s a little bit of behavioural logic in there. As far as the puzzles are concerned, did you ever hear of a game called Lemmings?

Boar Games: Yes it does remind me of Lemmings quite a bit! Would you say it acted as an inspiration for the game?

Tom: When I was here [at Warwick], my third year project was an artificial life simulation, and ever since then, whenever I’ve wanted to do  something visual, its always been directing crowds of people around and the interaction between crowds that has appealed to me. At the same time I think I probably indirectly took inspiration from games like Lemmings. The appeal is similar I suppose. It’s different because it’s top-down, but in terms of the appeal, wanting to pick it up and play, it might attract to the same people.

Boar Games: What would you say is the hardest part of the transition from visual effects to making a game app?

Tom: The biggest challenge was definitely not earning any money! Going from a salary in a job to doing something on your own is hard. It took me six months to develop, and for that time at least, there’s been zero money. I’ve probably made £12 now it’s released, because there’s a free version and a paid version. One of the main things you do, in terms of marketing, is contacting a lot of online reviewers, but I wanted to get a version out before then, because you inevitably get bugs and a few problems.

Boar Games: What is your favourite level or stage of the game that you can tell us a bit about? 

Tom: It’s set up so there are five levels and a bonus level, and you have to go through and complete the normal levels but you don’t have to complete the bonus level to advance. If you do complete it though, you win a special power, so you can make one of the guys grow, you can freeze time, speed them up, and there’s a level where there’s this big devil monster that breathes fire. You can almost get around without using any powers [spoiler], but the only way you can really do it is by making one of your characters big and having him knock the monster over the edge of a pit.

[divider]

[divider]

Boar Games: Is there a set way to beat every level?

Tom: There’s a set way which I designed for every level to be beaten, but I’ve found that there are other ways to do it, if you use some ingenuity, and I think it’s probably more appealing that way.

Boar Games: Bit of a curveball. If you could have created any game ever made, what would it have been and why?

Tom: When I first started here, Doom had just come out. Graphics cards were just getting going and I had never seen anything like it before, so if I had invented that, it would have been pretty good! It’s probably the game I spend the most time playing – that and Lemmings.

Boar Games: Do you have any plans for updates, or to develop the app further? 

Tom: There’s a few teething problems, little bugs that are really easy to fix, but that I just hadn’t noticed, so I’ve recently put an update out to fix those. There’ll be a few updates here there and everywhere. As far as anything major, that will only happen if it starts to get popular! If possible, I’d want to make a new stage or make an iPhone version.

Boar Games: Have you been happy with how it’s been received since it’s release? 

Tom: Obviously the response from my friends has been good, but you have to take that with a pinch of salt. I’ve had reviews, people on Twitter with a couple thousand followers and they’ve all been good, so I’m pretty happy so far!

Boar Games: How would you describe your time at Warwick and how it influenced the rest of your career? 

Tom: It influenced my whole life to be honest. I came here as an 18 year old boy and I left a man! But seriously, it was great. I had an awesome time here, the course got me the job I needed and I gained a great deal of skills here. The social side of it was amazing as well! I had a great time and I actually met my wife here! After I left, I didn’t really go into the creative stuff right away. For the first four or five years I was in banking, and I learnt a lot there, but I realised that I wanted to do something more creative, so that’s why I did a masters and went into visual effects. Programming is a bit like writing, I think. You can do something formal, like an instruction manual, or you can write a crazy fantasy novel. It’s the same with programming; you can take it anywhere you want to.

Boar Games: Your CV is very impressive, having worked on visual effects for films such as Harry Potter, The Chronicles of Narnia and Clash of the Titans. Could you tell us a bit about your time working on such films?

Tom: That was the next milestone in my career, I suppose. I did my masters and learnt the basics of computer graphics and got a job straight away in a picture company. They were just ramping up to do some work on the second Narnia film, Prince Caspian, and they got me in to do some work on crowd simulation, writing behavioural modules, working out how, what they call, ‘agents’ follow directions and interact with each other. I learnt so much there and I enjoyed the whole experience massively. I got a few credits so I’ll always be able to say “there’s my name” even though it takes 10 minutes to come up!

Boar Games: So what inspired you to stop working on those movies and move onto making Low Life?

Tom: I’d been doing the same thing for about six years but with the smart phone revolution and the possibility of releasing your own apps, I started to work on the game in my spare time. You can only really get so much done like that though, progress is slow, so I decided to take a risk. If it works out I think I’ll be happier in this line of work.

Boar Games: If it does go well, which I hope it does, what would the next step be after Low Life? Have you thought that far ahead? 

Tom: If it was massive, I’d just write more stages and enhancements to the same game, but more realistically, if it got me a bit of money and a few people had heard of it, I’d try and start a new project. It might be along similar lines, but a bit more ambitious. A lot of the companies that make these kinds of games have a team: one person who does art and one who does level design, but i’ve had to do everything on my own, and now the marketing as well, so I might try and hook up with someone else and work out something new.

Boar Games: Is there anything else you would like to add about the game?

Tom: It’s free! There’s a free version and a paid version, and if you get the free version the learning curve is quite shallow, but if you buy the paid version, it becomes a bit more challenging and though-provoking. If anyone does download it and wants to give me some feedback, which is always appreciated, they can email me at gametroupe@gmail.com

Boar Games: Thanks for talking to us and good luck with the game! 

[divider]

To play Low Life on your android device or computer, visit https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.gametroupe.lowlifefree 

Or, to learn more about the game, go to http://gametroupe.wix.com/lowlife

Want to write a review on Low Life? Tweet us @Boargames