Interview with Josh about Mafia Omerta

November 23, 2021 | 8 Comments

Dive into the story of Josh about the start and running of Mafia Omerta.

Who is Josh?

Hello my name is Josh, I am married and have two sons. I took a couple basic programming courses in college but nothing game related. I started ten years ago and has been a side project of mine that I have been pushing to become a full time thing. I grew up playing a couple different Mafia themed games that died out. So that is the basic reason for creating Mafia Omerta. Inspiration can come from any game, I have played games all my life. I always try to take elements of video/mobile/browser that I found fun and find a way to incorporate that concept into MO. Right now I don't play too many games anymore due to full time job, family and then working on Mafia Omerta. I mostly play mine but if I am taking the night off and playing a game to decompress its CoD Warzone.

Mafia Omerta

For Mafia Omerta I am a one man band. I do everything myself. I am still expanding on my skills to get better in all the aspects. I do the design, game play, and graphic design. Nothing is outsourced.

The biggest issue with that is that I'm self-taught and have a lot to learn and do but no time to do it all. Not easy to work on this after the kids are in bed for a couple hours before I go to bed to get up for work the next day. I work on it as much as I can, majority of my free time is spent on the game. The game needs to grow in several avenues but I can only work on one thing at a time.

I would love to be able to expand, but far from being able to hire anyone. A goal of mine is to be able to have a team to work on this game and future games. My skills are mostly self-taught and beginner level. I still have a lot to learn and improve on. When I can eventually expand my goal is to have it be a place of employment that people are proud to say they work for. Create a culture that allows for creative flow, zero stress, and overall a place that is enjoyable.

How did Mafia Omerta start for you?

Mafia Omerta is my first game I have ever made.

I was working in a small Paintball office for sales and customer service. I was a customer service rep for the Midwest of the USA. A game I was playing at the time was about to come to an end. A fellow customer service rep was going to school for website development and had several sites he had created already. I showed him the game one day and asked how would I start to make a game like that. He gave me a book, showed me a helpful website and showed me the basics on how to create a website. The rest has all been learned through searching online for questions. The site when I first started ran off of one of his servers he had and he named the game MafiaBox.

Mafia Omerta

How would you describe Mafia Omerta?

Mafia Omerta is a Mafia themed text base browser game. Where you create a character and try and move up the ranks in a Mafia family. Competing against other families for power and position in the cities of the game. It is a simple but addicting game to play. It does not require a lot of time to play to enjoy, can get the basics done in 5-10mins each day. So when life gets hectic can still accomplish the basic needs in a small window of time and if you miss some time it's not crippling.

The game currently has 20 players. Communication is done through game mail, private family board, or a message board for all players. Currently developing an instant messaging system to help make communication even easier and fluid.

Mafia OmertaThe most unique thing about my game is that the most important thing to me is a well balanced fun game. It is not about money first like every other game out there. All the things a player can purchase in the game are cosmetic features or quality of life improvements. Can't buy your way to be richer, or stronger. I think I am pretty unique myself, I thoroughly enjoy creating this game and constantly working on improvements. I don't think there is many admin out there that do what I do. I try and get to know everyone that plays the game and am approachable in many ways. I create tutorial videos on youtube, and before the summer did weekly update videos going over what was released, what's being worked on and what is to come. Also operate a discord server for the game to have another avenue of communication and fun. Mafia Omerta is like a baby to me. I have a specific RP feature on the message boards where myself or a moderator engage with a player(s) and tell a story back and forth with results determined by the players stats. It creates another avenue to live up to that characters persona in a fun way.

Any funny stories to share?

There was a war between two families. The consigliere for the one family was extremely active and deadly. He was a major threat for the other family and for them to win needed him whacked. The one family sent over their Consigliere to take the risk and try and take him out before he knew what was happening. It was a success they whacked him and were bale to get back to their turf safely. It was later revealed that he stepped away from his computer to go make a sandwich unknown to the attacking family that he wasn't at his computer when they were going to attack him. This kill has been dubbed the Sandwich kill and gets brought up from time to time.

Any plans?

So much is planned. I have released a big update on October 1st. It is a fun feature that focuses on bootlegging taking place during the prohibition era. It released some fun activity to give players more to do, spend their stock piles of cash on and create a competitive feature for the families to try and fight over the number one spot. Then finishing the instant messenger feature are the next two updates coming to the game. So much more is planned. Getting back to having fun side events each month starting back in December with a Capture the Boss Ring (flag) themed event. Basically whatever is deemed the highest priority is where I focus my time. Always looking for things to improve upon or add to the game.

Did Josh get you interested in Mafia Omerta?

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