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The Joystiq Indie Pitch: Mana Bomb
Being a giant, beloved video game blog has its downsides. For example, we sometimes neglect to give independent developers our coverage love (or loverage, if you will) as we get caught up in AAA, AAAA or the rare quintuple-A titles. To remedy that, we're giving indies the chance to create their own loverage and sell you, the fans, on their studios and products. This week we talk with Mana Bomb, two guys who didn't let their location keep them from pursuing their dream of being extravagantly rich game developers. How did you or your company get started? Dan Weatherman - Programmer: A group of friends were eating lunch one fateful day and between the fajitas and enchiladas we started brainstorming about a game we would like to play. By the time we were done, we had a good starting point for what turned out to be Colony Defense. I thought, "Hey, I can do that I bet" and Jason Boren (designer) said, "Well let's do this then!" Boom, Mana Bomb was born. Wow, we had NO clue how much work it would eventually take to get our game to the point it is today. It's probably a good thing too, as I don't think any of us just love a ton of extra work. But here we are and we're very proud of what we've been able to accomplish. Jason Boren - Janitor: I just wanted to do it, create something ourselves that we've enjoyed from everyone else for so long. I literally told Dan I would do anything to make it work, including being the janitor for our company. Nothing against janitors, but they really have nothing to offer a game company starting out who doesn't even have an office.
Breakfast Topic: Most evil quest in the game
Here's an interesting question: what's the most morally evil quest in the game? There was a quick discussion about the Stanley the Dog quest in Hillsbrad (where you poison and then kill a neutral dog), and it got me thinking: are there any quests in game where you really had a problem with what your character was doing? What's the most evil thing your character has done?Of course, the definition of evil in this case isn't quite written in stone -- what your character thinks is OK to do may not be what you think is OK to do. My undead Rogue took a lot of pleasure in killing Stanley, even if I would be horrified to hear about someone doing the same thing in real life. But in the same vein, while I was fully convinced in character that setting off that Mana Bomb in Outland was the right thing for my character to do, personally, I thought the kill count was a little shocking. At what point does my hero become a mass murderer?A few other WoW Insider writers mentioned the Cenarius' Legacy and the other Undead Plague quests to be a little too evil for their tastes. Are there any other quests in the game where your character is asked to do something morally questionable?
