Hey all! Last week I said that this week’s blog would be “completely different”. So it is written, so it shall be! A bit of quick housekeeping, though. As of late we’ve picked Collapsus back up hard and heavy. The plan is after the studio remodel is done, we should then film the Kickstarter video and have the weekly builds start up around that time as well. Speaking of the remodel, if (and I mean if) our current plans really do come to pass, then the studio remodel should be finished (yeah, both Phase 2 & 3! Hot dang!) some time next month. As for Radarkanoid, it’s ~90% done, but there is an unusual bug (or possibly our terrible math) preventing its completion. Either way, the solution should hit us soon and after that’s done, we’ll get it out the door as soon as we can. It’s all pretty cool, right?
Well, with that being said, on to the topic at hand: Conventions!
No, we’re not planning another convention trip (well, kinda, but I’ll elaborate on that near the end. Prepare to be disappointed). No, I wanted to talk about the conventions of the past, who we met, and some of what we learned. Okay? Okay.
The first convention we went to as a team was A&G Ohio in 2009 (several of us were part of the convention scene beforehand, but just as fans). We weren’t yet “Guests” as of 2009, but instead had a booth in the Artists’ Alley. It was pretty awesome! Our booth was located next to the awesome fantasy artist Jason “Bandit” Adams. This was right after production on the prototype of Physix started and just before GamePro Labs picked us up. We had a live demo of the game playable on the floor and everyone loved it! Sadly, we didn’t take any pictures of this one.
The next year we were invited back to A&G 2010, this time as “Guests”. Guests get to sign autographs, hang out in the green room, get free tickets, all that jazz. It’s a way for the convention to be able to market you as an attraction and for fans of your work to be able to meet you. The only thing is that A&G, while being about animation and gaming, rarely hosts developers. It was pretty unusual that we even had our demo in artist’s alley the year prior, since AA is usually for hand crafted merchandise and/or illustrations/paintings. We weren’t even selling anything. It was just an opportunity for us to get the game into the hands of some potential fans and maybe get some valuable feedback… and boy did it work! We had made such an impression that time around, that that was the key reason they brought us on as Guests.
We brought another demo, this time getting to show off the gravity mechanics that had been absent in the previous demo. We got to meet tons of awesome people, including fellow guests DC Douglas, Troy Baker, and the ever hilarious Chris Patton. For nerds like us, this was pretty humbling, to say the least. We also made long-time friends with Erik Ferris and Glenn Dubois (AKA chiptune artist Glenntai) of Nerdfit Network!
After that, we didn’t hit up any more Cons until 2013’s steampunk convention, Pandoracon, where I (sadly not the rest of the team) was invited as a Guest to give a panel all about being a game developer. 2013 was pretty slow for us in general, to be honest. You may have noticed that there was only one blog post made then, and it was about Pandoracon. Heck, it was originally just a Facebook post that was added to the blog later on. Despite not being an eventful year, it was one heck of a con, though! Panel turnout was nice and people asked tons of questions. The panel ran over its alloted time because we were all just having a great time talking about game development. Afterward, several people joined me in the lobby to talk even more. I really feel that they learned a lot. I think I did, too! Unfortunately, there weren’t any pictures taken there either.
The next time we made an event appearance was OGDE 2015! You all know how that went! We met so many awesome developers, journalists and some of the awesome people behind the AbleGamer’s charity. Not only did so many people play (and apparently love) our Collapsus demo, but we got to play so many amazing games! It was so awesome and we plan on attending again this year as well, if they’ll have us!
Other than OGDE, this year may or may not see many events for us, though we really hope so! This year we hope to submit Collapsus to IGF and IndieCade. Hopefully we also get to attend IndieMEGABOOTH at Pax East in 2017, if Collapsus sales do well.
We love going to events and getting to hang out with all of you. Heck, if you want to see us at a particular event (or you are someone who helps organize one), drop us a line and we can see if we can make it happen! Next week: Collapsus probably?