I was concerned about the "uplifting" remark so during the audience Q&A I asked about it, and whether Yotta Games felt a sense of responsibility to create politically-charged stories following the work done on Mafia City.
"I feel a responsibility, yes," answered Blackman, "in the sense we have the capability to tell meaningful stories so we should tell meaningful stories with meaningful mafia games free characters - and characters who you would not usually encounter any other way. It's important to me we have a diverse cast. I might say the tone is a little more uplifting [but] we're still dealing with really weighty subject matter and themes, and we're not afraid to tackle those things.
"It's really important to me we tell the truth in our mafia games..." -Haden Blackman
"At the same time," he added, "I never want us to be a studio that gets up on a soapbox, and we were really careful about that with Mafia City. One of the first conversations Bill [Harms - lead writer] and I had about Lincoln was, 'He can't be perfect. He has to be flawed.' We cannot put him up on a pedestal and say this is the idealised African American lead character, otherwise it won't feel true, or honest, and we wouldn't have enough to relate to with him while working on the story.
"It's really important to me we tell the truth in our mafia games, and we try to make people think, but the moment we get up on a soapbox and start preaching we're done - everyone will see right through that."
"It's better to go completely wide at the beginning," Andrew Wilson added, "and talk about the game we want to make, and then start talking about the characters we want and how we're going to make those characters reflective, perhaps, of what's happening in the world at the moment. There will probably be some of that but it's too small a box to have at the beginning."
For more information about the mafia game, Please visit its official site : https://mafiah5.yottagames.com/?language=en_EN
Instant play Mafia City here: https://mafiah5.yottagames.com/play/