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Exclusive Interview: Tom Astle Talks Animal Inspector

Few games have been as emotionally taxing as 2013's Papers, Please. Lucas Pope's PC title was a fascinating look into the stress of working as an immigration officer and was one of the most memorable games to come out in the past decade. So, what happens when you take the same basic setup, but replace immigrants with adorable animals?

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WGTC: Players have to actually write why they chose the animals they picked in Animal Inspector. Do you feel like this made the decisions more personal, and impactful. Why did you include that mechanic?

TA: I wanted to invite people to roleplay. I think it’s easy to feel embarrassed about getting in-character. Making people comment on things and then actually having the game recognize and react to those comments was my way of trying to ease people into that. My system reads your comments and looks for certain things, but there’s only so much I can do and ultimately it’s not that hard to trick if you really try.

That being said, I haven’t seen anyone really try. Once the game calls someone out on their garbage comments the first time, they tend to assume the system’s more complex than it actually is. I don’t look for proper grammar or punctuation, for example, but I’ve seen a ton of people start typing extremely formally after getting busted for swearing or misspelling words. I think it adds a lot of depth and I love seeing people get into their role, and seriously try to explain their reasoning for each animal they process.

WGTC: What is next for you as a developer, do you think you’ll continue to create shorter games, or do you want to make something larger?

TA: I don’t have a specific new project yet, I’m still prototyping stuff, but I want to work on something really big next. I’d also really love to collaborate with an artist on whatever I end up working on. My art’s passable, but especially for a commercial project I don’t think it’s really good enough. Ultimately, I feel like it’s a huge advantage if a game can sell itself with a single GIF. I feel confident in my solo projects, but my art has very low GIFability. Also, I’m super slow at it and there are some things I just can’t do very well at all.

WGTC: What made you want to develop games, and what are your goals as a creator?

TA: I’m not 100% sure why game development specifically drew me in. I loved video games when I was a kid, but I loved a lot of things. I feel like what kept me interested in making games is that there was a seemingly higher barrier to entry to it than with other art. Like, it takes a ton of work to be great at anything, but as a kid that’s not always apparent, so it can be discouraging when you aren’t immediately great at something. Drawing was discouraging to me because there were other kids my age who were fantastic at it and I wasn’t. It felt like since I wasn’t great already I never would be. I didn’t know anyone who was great at making video games though, so it wasn’t discouraging to also be bad at making them. It felt okay to be a beginner.

I feel like my goals as a creator haven’t been consistent year to year, though I think I’ll always like the idea of making people laugh. Ultimately I just want to connect with people and share ideas that I think are funny or sad or important or whatever else. I want to make things worth talking about.

WGTC: Consoles are more indie-friendly now more than ever. Do any of the console markets appeal to you, and do you want to create a game for consoles in the future?

TA: Maybe I should be, but I’m not really that interested in console development right now. I’m definitely not opposed to making something for a console, but it’s not anything I’m thinking a lot about. At the moment it just seems like more hoops to jump through.

WGTC: Since it’s free there really isn’t any reason to not check out Animal Inspector, but tell our readers why it’s worth spending the 30 minutes or so it takes to play!

TA: It’s kinda strange and I think it does some things you probably haven’t seen before. It might make you a little sad, but ultimately it’s pretty goofy and I think it’ll make you smile too.

That concludes our interview, but we’d like to give a big thank you to Tom Astle for taking the time to speak with us. Tom can be found on Twitter at @thomasastle, and more information on Animal Inspector can be found on Tom’s official website.