Auto Assault: Mozak – Behind the Music!

Mad Mozak is one of the most memorable encounters in Auto Assault and many questions have appeared asking about his story, origins and, most importantly, Wagner’s The Valkyrie that loops endlessly from his chassis!
WarCry goes the extra mile and asks former lead designer Adam “Snipehunter” Maxwell and he never disappoints:

WarCry: Can you tell us about Mad Mozak, his told (and the untold) story, and who was behind the musical chassis?

Snipehunter: Heh! That was actually Richard Dekkard’s idea, the music and audio guru for the game. I had mentioned to him that Mozak would drive up on you the first time you saw him and he thought the music would make it a more memorable moment. We had to make a few changes to what we’d intended to fix a few bugs, so Mozak ended up posting a roadblock instead of intercepting you, but I think the music still worked well.

Mozak’s one of my favorite enemies in the game. Chris and I worked on him together; he’s one part homage to the Mad Max mythos (after losing everything he cares about in the world [the pikes kicked him out after you beat the snot out of him at Temple Mountain], he sets off into the wasteland to become a legend) and one part us poking fun at the Quantar (one of the factions in Jumpgate, Chris and I play Octs in that world, you see).

When we first dreamed up Mozak, he was meant to be a “noobie’s Big Bad” – that mob that kicks your ass the first time you see it, but you later get to go back to and beat into a smoldering pile of wreckage with your “not a newb no more punk” skills… Like a Right of passage, or “now your a man” sort of thing. 😉 He was a shoe in for me on the mutant side in western front, where I was already writing the Rights of Ascension which were exactly that – a coming of age story. For me, at first, that’s all he was really meant to be, but as Chris and I began to weave him into our worlds, he sort grew into a character I had a genuine fondness for. Mozak makes me grin. He’s exactly the kind of right bastard I’d imagine out in the wastelands and glad our wastes had room for him. 😉

There’s a part of his story that I never got to finish that was suppose to take place in Waylan’s Cave, out in the Borderlands. You were suppose to waltz into the bar and find Mozak, the guy you were sure you’d killed, like 3 times already (it was an in-joke, Mozak always gets away, somehow), but there he was. When you confronted him, he was supposed to be terrified, and in exchange for you sparing him he was going to let you in on a little scheme he’s been brewing up, a heist.

You see, he knows that the OCD is moving a sweet prototype ride in a van through the Borderlands and he knows exactly where to be – and when – to hijack the ride, all you had to do was go along with the plan. It was suppose to be the story of how Mozak got his ride and ended up over in the human land (he was running away from you, the player). You see, when you liberated the prototype he was going to take off with it, leaving you with nothing, but the keys to his old busted up pike ride, while he took off into the sunset in the new hotness. (The original plan was that humans would get the OCD ride for beating Mozak in the human lands, while mutants would get the Pike ride for beating him in Mutantdom, but sadly we never got Mozak’s human ride done as a player-drivable ride)

It was supposed to be the bridge between his appearance as a Thugz boss on the human side, and his Pike roots out on Western Front. His story was a great arc; I wish we’d gotten the chance to complete that last bit of it. Still, I think the parts we did get in speak for themselves. I like ’em anyway. 😉