i recently bought tlj for the second time cos i lent the first copy to a person i don't keep contact with anymore. i got it cheaper but that doesn't detract from the playing of it. i am in awe of the character 'burns flipper'. an ill mannered uncouth cyber puke if ever i've read or met one, i would like to know what inspired you to conjure up this entity. he is the most striking character in the saga for my money. his use of profanity is second to none.

Um, yeah. Burns Flipper is certainly a foul-mouthed little bugger, and although I always intended for him to be a bit over-the-top, blame the actor for the way the character turned out.

Or, let's be fair, give the actor credit for the character.

When we were casting the role, Andrew Donnelly went out of his way to "improvise" the Flipper's already flippant vocabulary, turning my irreverent (to put it nicely) dialogue into something much more, uh, interesting. Andrew was, is, able to really go off on a tangent, and that he did. So the part was cast, and I sat down and rewrote most of Burns Flipper dialogue to fit the actor's voice. In doing so, it got darker. A lot darker. And when we got back into the recording studio, Andrew "turned it up a notch". A big notch. His improvisations became part of the script -- rewritten after the fact -- and it wasn't until much later, when we were putting the voices into the game, that I realised that the dialogue was quite strikingly profane. But fun. And fitting.

Inspirations for the character? I guess the William Gibsonish cyberpunk cowboy type -- the proverbial hacker -- is what was on my mind when we created the Flipper. But a lot of the character just came out of his physical appearance, his underground laboratory, and his relationship with April: he changed, slowly, over time. Like a lot of the other characters.

i also would like to query the april paternal relationship angle. was the abuse just physical? it stuck in my craw as something more sinister was implied, it didn't sit well with me.

Abuse should never sit well with anyone, no matter what kind of abuse we're talking about; physical or psychological. As hinted at in the game, April's father was unable to relate to his daughter on any level. When he wasn't putting her down, he ignored her, made her feel unwanted and unloved. He'd hurt her once, but not on purpose, and yet this haunted him and made him feel guilty -- something he was unable to deal with. There was nothing more sinister going on, no physical abuse, but April's home life was bad enough that she had to leave.  ¶ 10:33