QJ: You've talked about how you won the gaming competition but how long have you been making games and how did you get started in the games industry?

ML: I actually started programming games in 78/79 on an Apple II (the best personal computer for at least four years in a row - those were the days!). I'd like to take the chance to make a *big* tribute to Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniack at Apple for the enormous impact on my career. When the iPhone was new we did some very successful 3D action racing games with over 12 million downloads in AppStore. That success was comparable to Angry Birds at the time. That's what's exciting about the industry, some games like that can really take off big time!

I entered the game industry for real in 1997 as lead programmer at Daydream, the first stock noted game company in the nordic countries with great games like Safecracker, Traitor's Gate, Clusterball, and Ski-Doo X-Team Racing. My first job was completing a project simulating all local traffic in Stockholm; boats, busses, trains and the subway. It was like a Sim Stockholm with the possibility to bulldoze all buildings if you'd like, even the castle, all for the best of the traffic.

QJ: So you've had a big past in Europe but who would you like to work with in the future?

ML: We've started to collaborate with the film and TV industry in some projects, and I think we will do more of that. Right now I have my own studio, but as it grows we'll need partners to make bigger games.

For creativity, I'm studying the Japaneese game designers and Hollywood writers for inspiration. But the real inventive minds are not always found in the settled industries. For example, there is a big live role playing community in Sweden with some extreme story-telling talent that I'd like to use more in our games.

QJ: Japan for design and Hollywood for writing could really help a lot of game designers in the present. As we've seen with Valet Parking 1989, what is Zordix obsession with setting things in the past? Is it about style, design or simply just enjoying the aesthetic?

ML: [It's a combination of] Interesting times together with new game mechanics makes for interesting games. There's lots of reasons to chose a special setting for a game; For example, recognition from real life helps to add humor, a special graphical profile (i.e. Specific GUI systems), having harsh limits, like a fix setting, actually helps creativity.

For Lawn Mower Kids the 50s was chosen because it's a time and a world to long back to. Lots of things in life were invented and defined in the 50s, like middle class suburbia. Households got a car, refrigerator, and businesses were booming. Anything was possible! At the same time we could create some interesting characters like Mr. Mowman that works on a secret government facility (with UFO:s, tech tools, etc) and our heroes, the entrepreneurial kids going for it, looking for fun in everything they do!

We'll be able to reuse the worlds and the characters we've created in our future games. That makes it even more interesting in the long run.

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