Spoiler
What exactly is the call of the swamp?
It's more or less a homing instinct. Except it's one that drives you towards a swamp that you've probably never seen before.
You have one of the rare adventures that seems to adhere almost completely to what the readers suggest. Have there been any specific moments where you tried to avoid suggestions (like the original flamethrower suggestions and the mallows)?
I use suggestions if they help me think of something, and I skip them or subvert them if they don't.
One interesting case was
this update, where I didn't actually follow any of the suggestions. But, thinking through them and why I didn't think they'd work led me to the plan I actually used. So even though I didn't directly use the suggestions, I consider them an important part of how that update came together.
I don't know how that came across to the suggesters at the time, but that was my thought process.
Where do you find most of your inspiration from?
This is a complicated question.
I think the big influences on me overall were Terry Pratchett's Discworld series, and the Suikoden RPG series. The latter, in particular, is all about large-scale military conflicts with a focus on characters; each game has 108 major recruitable characters, and the stronger games in the series work on developing them all, even the ones who aren't that important in the overall plot.
Suikoden 5, in particular, really goes in-depth on its characters. The actual plot of the game is a bit weak, but the characterization is amazing. It's definitely been an influence on how Swamped has shaped up.
I think the Discworld books that focus on the City Watch have also been a strong influence. In particular, I feel like there's more a few touches of Sam Vimes in Corvus once he starts being a main viewpoint - both characters swore off alcohol, both tend to downplay their own achievements, both value the people who work for them.
Is Lisa Black the best cards player in your universe?
Pretty much. She does have incredibly good luck, but she's also got skill. Her lucky moments haven't just happened - they've been more along the lines of, she carefully considers her options, picks the one she thinks is best at the moment, and the luck of the draw made her plan work out.
Lisa definitely doesn't slack off. She figures her luck could turn bad at any moment, and plays with that in mind.
Does having different Toms and Johns confuse you often?
The only mixup I've had so far was blending Tom Fifth and Tom Eighth together. I think this is because Fifth was introduced in a suggestion and not actually seen at the time, and I was thinking of the rude guy on the barge as Tom Eighth before naming him in the adventure, so I didn't have a concrete idea of either of them. Then the rude guy blended together with the inventor and I didn't realize I had mixed up the numbers.
There are a few other continuity errors I've noticed on rereads. None of them are very major, and I could probably come up with reasonable explanations for them if pressed. For instance, I initially referred to the giant underground lizards as "burrowers" and later "tunnelers", but this is easily explained as two different terms for the same species.
