While I spoke briefly with Associate Producer Robyn Theberge after the presentation, I got a sit down interview with the guys from Iron Monkey who were present at the event. I interviewed design director, Jared Trudgen, who worked on previous EA iPhone and iPad titles such as the incredible Dead Space game that were released in the last few years.

QJ: How long has Iron Monkey been doing app development?

Iron Monkey has started iPhone development in 2008.

QJ: You guys worked on the Dead Space iOS game which was amazing and I'm wondering how has it been different working with Mass Effect 3 guys? 

JT: It's actually been really similar and I feel very lucky because it's not always the case when you're working with another studio or franchise, it's their baby, they don't want you to ruin it. Visceral (Dead Space developers) were great, Bioware has been great, been very collaborative, very supportive. We worked really closely with their lead writer, Max and Casey, right from the start of the project to finding what story we were going to tell and how does this fit in with the greater Mass Effect Universe, like who's our protagonist, that kind of thing. They were very interested in making the best game for the platform. I think they'd obviously- they had only so much experience with their last game with syncing it up with Mass Effect 2. So yeah, they worked on that and learnt a lot from that process and had an eye on the space, so they already had interests and expressed them, they're smart guys.

QJ: With working with the writers where does Mass Effect Infiltrator fit into the Mass Effect lore?

JT: So it's a parallel narrative to what's happening in Mass Effect 3, the cool thing is you're a Cerberus operative, so kind of an anti-hero...named Randall Ezno, you're basic mission brief is to go and capture aliens to take them back to this Cerberus facility for them to use them to work on Reaper technology, for biotic and weapon augmentation. I won't say too much.

QJ: What is your dream project?

JT: My dream project to work on is our own IP, with coming up with our own vision. I think we're getting closer to being in a good position to do that and we've got a lot of experience and had the privilege with working on some amazing franchises already like Mirror's Edge, Dead Space, Need for Speed-

QJ: The Sims-

JT: Yeah, we've done a lot of big ones and we've learnt heaps and I think that's any developers dream. Especially when you're working as a service on other games. We don't make ports-

QJ: Of course, these are all original games just based on existing IP's.

JT: And we've had a lot of freedom with bring our own original stories and our own content to these franchises, but it'd be great to do it all on our own.

I cannot thank the Iron Monkey guys enough for doing the interview, it was already late and everyone was ready to go home and they stuck around for a few more questions and I hope you guys check out Infiltrator for iPhone 3GS, 4, 4S and iPad when it comes out in March.  Also, they are currently working on an Android version which will be out later this year. 

And of course, Mass Effect 3 will be released on March 6th in the US and March 8th in Australia and it was so much fun to play and it really is for fans of the series and if you haven't played the games before, this may be your last chance to really get into it. Oh and thanks again for EA, Bioware and Razer for hosting the event.

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