MoM - IGN RPG Vault Interview Part 1

I recently did an indepth interview with IGN. Check out part one here:

http://rpgvault.ign.com/articles/694/694375p1.html

(... in part 2, I plug Torque and Garage Games, we'll see if they leave the link in it. Also of note, indies don't often get covered on IGN!!! We were also mentioned in PCGamer magazine this month!!! The times they are a changin')


Check out this quote from IGN:

Quote:IGN - "What we don't get to see nearly as often is anything about releases that might break or at least bend the proverbial mold. Prairie Games' Minions of Mirth is one such endeavor."

Here's a snippet regarding the founding of Prairie Games, Inc:

Quote:
Jonric: What's the story behind the project? Who is Prairie Games, where did your funding come from, and did any other parties participate in development?

Josh Ritter: Prairie Games, Inc. has a development staff of two people, Josh Ritter and Lara Engebretson. I am an industry veteran with over 10 shipped retail titles and a number of engines. Minions of Mirth is Lara's first experience with game development.

Lara and I were self-funded for a portion of Minions of Mirth's development. We took everything we had, including credit cards, and maxed ourselves out. We moved to a remote town in North Dakota to minimize our cost of living. In 2005, we found a partner to assist with the funding. In short, we all took a tremendous risk.

We contracted for some of the game's artwork. Magnus Blikstad of WiT Entertainment single-handedly modeled, textured and animated every character in the game. Minions of Mirth features two hours of original score by Ronald van Deurzen. Christophe Canon of Frogames created clothing and armor textures as well as the world map. Additionally, unlike other games, we roll community modifications into the official version. In fact, Kevin Brown, who was playtesting the OSX version, wrote most of the game's world lore.

In other news, we've successfully launched the Minions of Mirth: Free Edition on both OSX and Windows. We're currently working on optimizing the servers, doing support on 2 platforms, and coming up with new ways to pimp our MoM...

-Josh Ritter
Prairie Games, Inc
http://www.prairiegames.com