TheGameNarrative

TGN: Where were you born, and where did you grow up?

TH: I was born in Wisconsin, a summer-temperate, winter-chilly state in the US. I grew up in a little suburb of Milwaukee called New Berlin.

TGN: Were you creative as a child? Did you have any creative outlets?

TH: Oh my word yes. I was always looking for a creative way to express. These included: origami (I had a huge box filled with it, a bunch of books on it), domino-toppling (I peaked at 2500 dominoes toppled with towers, trapeze, elevator wooden contraptions, starting my “show” with an Empire Strikes Back snowspeeder going down fishing line to turn on a tape recorder with music and topple the first domino, ending with mousetraps throwing ping-pong balls… I even wrote the world-record holder, Bob Speca, and he wrote a nice note back!), magic (put on shows), fiction and poetry writing, and Super 8 special-effects and animation movie making. I was searching for my medium.

TGN: What were some games you played in your youth?

TH: Well, youth is mostly board games and such from our family’s game closet – Mousetrap, Clue, Life, and 3D puzzles like SOMA cubes, tavern puzzles, marble mazes, and then creative sets like Lincoln logs and Legos.

TGN: When did you first become interested in video games, and later the creation of video games?

TH: The family’s first video game was the Unisonic Tournament 2000 – pong games plus shooting games.  It was magic for the TV to be interactive!  Next was the Atari 2600 – that Big Red Present at Christmas COULDN’T be one – that’s $150!  It was and my brother and I played Combat and Indy 500 all Christmas vacation.

(I did two homages to those games in Pico-8:
WHO STOLE THE COAL? https://thattomhall.itch.io/who-stole-the-coal
WHO TOOK THE BOOKS? https://thattomhall.itch.io/tookbooks )

Then I started going to arcades. I loved Sea Wolf, because you could play with a REAL PERISCOPE!  And we watched plenty of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, so it was like a dream. I got really good at it! Getting to the bonus round, shooting ships before they got on the screen… As I was walking away from the arcade, I realized I couldn’t get any more points. It was just a pattern. I was DONE.  That was shocking, but also made me realize, “someone just made this.” It wasn’t magic. It seemed possible.

Then on June 9th, 1980, my dad got the family an Apple ][+ computer. I LIVED on that all summer.  Then I began to try programming in Applesoft BASIC. I wrote some text adventures, and they were pretty much as good as the ones being published! After writing, films, and so on, here was my medium.

TGN: When and how did you get hired at Softdisk?

TH: I just gave a speech to students about this, heh. I’d made 50 little personal games on the Apple ][+ and Apple //e.

Then I graduated with a degree in Computer Science, and set to interview with IBM and Gould and other tech companies. I interviewed with them and they said, “We like you. We like your resume’.” But they all asked at the end, “Is this what you really want to do?”  And back from plant interviews, I thought for a while, and was all, “No, these are all boring!” 

So I sent out 50 resumes to game companies, and got 50 rejections.  A few months later I sent out 27 more… and got 1 GLOWING reply. I was the perfect person, because I coded on an Apple ][ all day!  It was not exactly all games, and a third the pay, but I jumped for it!  That was Softdisk, a publisher that published a monthly software collection with articles, like a magazine on disk.

TGN: Before working on games, what software or projects did you work on, at Softdisk?

TH: Well, it involved mostly polish programs submitted by subscribers. Here’s a photo of my first game polishing.

But beyond that, there were a lot of utilities and spreadsheets and stuff too. I loved it when I got to make my own games – Softdisk published a lot of my old ones: text adventures, Ultima clones, and such. 

And I got to do a full shmup arcade game, Legend of the Star Axe, on the Apple IIgs.

TGN: What design aspect of Commander Keen did you have the most fun working on?

TH: Well, I was a big fan of Chuck Jones Warner Bros. cartoons in my childhood, read tons of sci-fi too, and love Mario games, so uniting all those loves into a game was really fun. But I do love adding little details, like the tin hat of the robot bouncing off his head as he walks, or figuring out how to do cool shadows with tiles in Keen 2.  Plus hiding secrets well – I love that.

TGN: Are there any interesting backstories behind any of the characters or setting names created for Commander Keen, or did you come up with them on the spot?

TH: Many were from drawings I did just thinking of crazy aliens or robots.  Princess Lindsey and the Berkeloid were from fan letters describing characters they would love to see in Keen.

TGN: While at Apogee, what type of work did you do with the Prey Engine?

TH: William Scarboro was working on the engine as I named the game Prey (I couldn’t believe it wasn’t used yet!) and worked on a Running Man type of design – you were abducted by aliens and were prey for their games for strength, agility, and wits.  The story obviously changed after we all left.  Jim Dosé came up with the Native American character I think just before he left.

I did do a test level for the early engine.

TGN: What would be your favorite memory of working at Ion Storm, as a co-founder?

TH: Moments of getting an epic sci-fi RPG together with characters brought to life so well.  We bonded as a team and had such fun bringing that universe to life. The little moments of fun and humor we snuck in everywhere. For instance, if you talk to the coat-check person with Rho Bowman, he starts to fancy her and give her (very bad) drawings. 

The last 1.3 years, which was all death-crunch (which I deeply don’t recommend) were brutal, but we got out a hilarious AND emotionally touching game. The team still meets up for dinner at the Game Developer Conference. 

TGN: What was your favorite role that you did voice acting for, and what was your favorite part of doing voice work?

TH: Well, the one people like is Walton Simons in Deus Ex. The crazy part is, those were a first-time cold reading because they had limited time to record hundreds of voices.  But people as me to do Walton all the time, heh.  I was kind of doing my version of the lead actor’s voice in a show called Murder One, if I recall correctly.

My favorite is probably PAL-18 from Anachronox.  A cute little robot that winds up part of a crew that tries to save the universe.  He’s snarky and feisty, and was fun to voice. I just did it because no one else “got” PAL.

TGN: You did some programming in your early days, what would you say is your favorite coding language, and favorite computer you have used to program with?

TH: Yeah I got a programming degree at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.  I have fond memories of C, but I must say, probably because of Pico-8, I’ve had the most FUN in Lua. You can just kinda DO stuff, heh.   The most arcane was probably programming microcode on a PDP-11.

Favorite computer was clearly the Apple //e.  The original Apple was so open, you could just do what you want.  I wrote an RWTS (Read-Write Track/Sector) routine to read the Ultima III data disks, to make sure I talked to every NPC in the world. I find that same kind of joy making games for Pico-8 and Picotron.  Cozy, open, fun.

TGN: During his id Software days, John Carmack was known for living on pizza and Diet Coke. Do you have a favorite food or drink you enjoy while being locked into game dev mode?

TH: I was my Diet Pepsi back then, and ate a LOT of Chinese food working at id, from the local place.  

Now, I’m all tea, Zevia cola (sweetened with stevia), and the amazing healthy food my wife makes, like Thai and such.

TGN: What is your favorite book?

TH: Wow. That is hard.  The ones that inspired Anachronox were Frederik Pohl’s Gateway and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.  (Among others.)  My favorite recent book was The Creative Act: A Way of Being by Rick Rubin. It was refreshing to hear someone talk about the creative process from idea to work.  Project Hail Mary was fun, looking forward to the movie. Romero’s DOOM Guy is great.  But sorting out a favorite book of all time is CRAZY.

And I’m reading the Culture series now, starting book 2, The Player of Games. Never read them!

TGN: What are your top favorite films of all time?

TH: I have a theater room and 2700 Blu-rays.  Right now, I would say Amadeus (theatrical cut). 

But Rear Window, The Lighthouse, Amelie, Everything Everywhere All at Once, Raiders of the Lost Ark, The World According to Garp, Deathtrap, Stalker, Sorcerer/The Wages of Fear, The Killer, Hard Boiled.  For comfort movies, Clue, Chef, Airplane!, The Princess Bride.  I will stop there, because this could take hours!

TGN: Thanks for the chat, Tom!

Be sure to visit Tom’s website at: https://www.thattomhall.com/