Post-E3 Post

I was very unsure about whether I should go to E3. Even the day before I left for LA, I was afraid it was a big waste of money.

A few months ago I applied to the MIX (Media Indie Exchange) Showcase at E3. So far I’ve only been going to indie or small conferences, so I wanted to see how the game would hold up in a more mainstream/consumer facing event like E3 or PAX.

About two weeks before E3, we finally received confirmation that we would be in the MIX. I should have registered for E3 tickets a long time ago, but I didn’t realize that they are free for industry people before 4/28 – afterwards they were about $995. I decided to go without an actual E3 pass.

About a few days after that, the MIX team mentioned that there was an opportunity for another event – having a demo kiosk at the PC Gaming Show. There was a $100 registration fee and I had to change my plane tickets, but I definitely wasn’t going to pass on the opportunity.

I originally was going to stay at a friend’s place, but I realized that commute would be about an hour. I decided to go with a cheap Airbnb.

Here are the total costs in the end:

MIX Booth: $250

PC Gaming Booth: $100

Plane Tickets: $314 + $124 (Fee for changing tickets)

AirBnb: $135 for 4 nights

Total: $923

Later in the week, the MIX people also forwarded me news about another event. On Thursday, Gamespot was doing interviews and gameplay capture with some indie games from the MIX. Apparently Gamespot received a list of all the games in the MIX and chose a few that seemed interesting. I’ve got to give props to the MIX who absolutely amazing at linking up indie games with media.

I also contacted some publishers that I’ve been talking with to see if they could still meet up in the short 2 weeks notice.

PC Gaming Show (Monday):

The PC Gaming Show is basically this an hour and half presentation hosted by Day 9 that features a lot of new upcoming trailers and games (there was a lot of “World Premiere” signs before the trailers). Right outside the actual theater, there was a reception hall with games set up. Quite a bit of people played the game before the show (for about an hour and half), but afterwards most people quickly left for other events. There was a sizable group for an hour or so just hanging around talking.

To their credit, the PC Gaming Show put the two indie MIX games closest to the entrance. That was good because it was easy to be overlooked among the demo kiosks running instances of Hitman. The equipment (monitors, computers, headphones, keyboards) were also amazing and I didn’t have to setup anything at all.

 

 

The MIX Showcase (Wednesday):

The MIX showcase was amazing because I got to talk to a lot of the other developers. All the time during E3, I was surprised that I hardly recognized any people. During the MIX, there were a lot of familiar faces – it almost seemed like a mini IndieCade meeting.

There were about 49 games in the MIX, and MoST was really lucky to be put next to the elevator. There was a really good crowd outside on the terrace, but it was also pretty cold later on in the night. A few press people from Europe and Japan came over to record footage, and there were some good response from people playing the game. However, I could tell that a lot of people stopped at the end of level 2, which gave people a bit of puzzle fatigue.

 

 

Thursday:

Thursday was the last day at E3 and the most memorable. I got a lot of shit done this day!

I was able to meet up with 3 different publishers at different times of the day (morning, noon, afternoon), did the Gamespot interview, checked out the E3 Expo for the first time by borrowing someone else’s badge, met up with friends and went to the GameDevDrinkUp party/gathering, had dinner with friends, and went to Glitch City where there were just a lot of people hanging out.

Was it all worth it?

In the end, definitely yes.

For one, I could have done it a lot cheaper. Without booth costs and getting tickets earlier (and not changing them), the total cost would have been about $300.

But by far the best (and most rewarding) time I had at E3 was hanging out at Glitch City, where they had an informal gathering of people in Culver City far away from LA downtown. I got some amazing advice from people far smarter and experienced than I was, and I probably won’t understand most of the advice for a while but I’m sure it’ll help me down the line. The reason I came to E3 in the first place was because I was quite uncertain and unsure about my future wanted to get some validation through people’s reaction to the game, and in the end I found solace by chatting with people I didn’t even see at E3.

That’s game development.

 

Things I should remember

Huh, just realized I never got around to that GDC post, and now it’s past E3.

I think it makes more sense to post about things that have been going on that I should remember, rather than things I think people should know.

So to summarize GDC…I met up with a few friends, talked with publishers for the first time, talked with platform holders for the first time

Weirdly, a lot of meetings are held in rather public or casual places. Just in a hallway in Moscone somewhere or in the Marriott mezzanine area. The most formal meetings I had (Nintendo and Microsoft) happened in those weird giant blocks they put up in Moscone, and they were the less interesting meetings.

Turns out publishers are regular people too.

Best surprise meeting is with some Paradox folks who introduced me to Raw Fury, and I had a meeting with Jonas a few hours later.

As usual, enjoyed meeting up with old friends.

1up

A blog post is long overdue…which is good! That means I’ve been busy.

Besides staying a month in Taiwan while my sister gave birth to a baby the size of a large burrito, I also went to Seattle for a week.

A few months ago, a game designer called Logan Fieth contacted me through a mutual friend to chat about the game. He came with a bunch of puzzle ideas, and we talked about the possibility of working together.

Logan was pretty good at making puzzle games. He was working on his own indie puzzle game, Four-Sided Fantasy. Previously, he was also the level designer on the game Perspective. That’s pretty cool.

However, that wasn’t enough for me to just take the plunge right there. It’s pretty difficult to know if two people work well together without actually working together.

Therefore, I proposed to try working together for a week in person, which involved flying to Seattle and worked with him at the indie co-working space Indies Workshop. To make sure it was a reasonable deal (that I wouldn’t just take his work and leave if it didn’t work out), I proposed paying him a fixed amount for his time.

Fortunately, it worked out!

Breakdown on Indies Workshop week to come!

GDC 2016 blog post to come!

Indies Workshop

Game Development Feedback – from Reddit

 

One good thing with having a post with a lot of comments on Reddit is that you get a lot of honest feedback. People often comment on what they’re impressions are without including a lot of context – this can be pretty useful in getting people’s unfiltered feelings that you might not be able to get in-person. You can even kind of tell how many people think a certain way based on the number of upvotes.

I definitely think there’s a LOT of good points, and many of them coincide or help reinforce thoughts of my own.

 

Reminds me of The Stanley Parable with a little bit of Antichamber.

– AngryMob55

 

A lot of people seem to think this at the moment, and this is both a good and bad thing. A lot of people are probably upvoting because they like both those games and want more games like them. Other people are probably thinking it’s too similar, since Antichamber and Stanley Parable are both unique and wonderful games on their own.

I really look up to Antichamber as a game, and certain parts (especially in the first level) certainly reflect Antichamber. Hopefully as I build more puzzles they will remind people less of Antichamber. The Stanley Parable comparisons come mainly from the art (and a bit from the weird humor, I suppose), so I that should hopefully go away as get actual non-programmer art. A good thing is that less people are comparing the game to Portal.

Ideally, people shouldn’t be having “it reminds me of some game” as a first impression, but instead be saying “That’s amazing, I’ve never seen anything like that.” This is something I still need to work on.

 

It won’t be the next Portal unless it has an intriguing story or at least amusing and clever writing in addition to puzzles.

– BornIn1142

 

This is definitely true, and I enjoyed Portal more for its narrative than its puzzles. I was always kind of debating how much of a story I should have in the game (because making and implementing a good story in a game is actually rather hard), but I think this makes it clear that a lot of people are expecting some sort of story, and the bar is set pretty high. I think a lot of people were disappointed by Quantum Conundrum’s narrative, even though it’s not bad at all – it’s just not as spectacular as Portal’s. The bar is set pretty high, especially for disembodied narrators.

I think one way to go is to have a story slowly creep in, and the way Portal does this is actually pretty good. I also have the option of not publicly showing too much of the “story” and keeping it as something players will discover later.

 

Interesting technology, but I don’t see how this mechanic really lends itself to good puzzle design. The puzzles in the demo were all just busywork (manipulating blocks to form stairs) or completely arbitrary (making an object that looks identical to several non-interactable objects in the game interactable.)

I don’t see a good game coming from this.

– Droolinglguana

 

I think this comment actually touches on two points I’m rather worried about. I’ve always been wondering if the mechanic is that good of a puzzle mechanic, because not a lot of deep gameplay comes naturally. However, it’s hard to imagine that there are gameplay rules that you can’t tweak in some way to make deep/interesting gameplay…

I’m not entirely unhappy with this, because it means the game will not feel as systematic as Portal. Antichamber also doesn’t really have that much systematic gameplay, and when it does it actually becomes less interesting.

However, it also seems that some players will be searching for deeper gameplay. This is something I will try to pull off without making the game feel too systematic and predictable.

 

Fun looking game, kind of off topic but can someone tell me what kind of “genre” of music that is from the video or what I can look up to find more of that? Sounds like great study music

– Deano1924

 

There was actually quite a few comments about the music. I guess this means people appreciate my taste in music!

Honestly, I was always wondering if people would like the music because Bill Evans-ish cool jazz is not really that typical in video games. This means it could work though.

 

Cool the first two times you see the effect/feature, then it’s just repetitive.

– RankFoundry

 

I think this comment speaks more about framing than anything else. The gameplay video made by Polygon wasn’t supposed to be interesting or viral – it was just what was in the build during IndieCade. It wasn’t really supposed to capture interesting for a viewing audience. However, people viewing the video online (especially coming from a post on Reddit with a lot of upvotes) won’t know that at all, and probably expect a very entertaining video.

 

Love the concept, love the music, definitely want to try it. Just one minor gripe, the sounds of the footsteps were a little irritating. A little loud and choppy, kinda distracting. Hopefully will be taken care of before final release.

– ceemunee

 

Yeah…I need to fix those footsteps.

Post IndieCade Media/Press Summary

I actually didn’t plan on any media or press picking up on Museum of Simulation Technology for IndieCade. During festival, there were a few small, impromptu interviews. Other than that, there was only a Polygon recording of the IndieCade build that I knew about.

IndieCade ended on October 25, so this is a bit of an analysis of the week the game received the following week.

October 26~28

There were only 3 articles about the game from IndieCade that I knew about: Kotaku, Famitsu, and Polygon.

Only Polygon’s video on youtube had about 20,000 views. I’m not sure how many views their embedded player had, but I’m guessing it’s in the same ballpark.

The other sites linked to my newest update video I put on the Pillow Castle site. It gained about 18,000 views.

The Pillow Castle website received about 2000 unique visitors.

The Pillow Castle twitter account gained about 100 followers.

I also set up a mailing list on Monday. The mailing list gained about 100 subscribers.

The numbers are not bad for a video game. In comparison, my newest Pillow Castle video had about 7000 views before. That’s with a video that I just merely uploaded to Youtube, without trying to promote it or link it anywhere besides linking them on the IndieCade and the Pillow Castle sites. I’m guessing most of the views are from the youtube channel subscribers (of which there are 9000).

October 29~31

And this is where shit goes cray. On October 29, there was a reddit post made in /r/gaming. About 12 hours after the post is made, Jason Rohrer replies to a previous email of mine and informs me in caps that this post has hit the reddit frontpage.

The post was of the Polygon video on Youtube, which now has about 500,000 views.

The Pillow Castle website received about 20000 new unique visitors.

The Pillow Castle twitter account gained about 150 followers.

The mailing list gains about 700 subscribers.

500,000 views is actually a crap ton of views. There are plenty of more interesting, more deserving video game videos that don’t have that many views. The Pillow Castle website, twitter, and mailing list doesn’t gain that many views or subscribers, but this isn’t very surprising since the video and reddit post doesn’t link to them. I’m actually a bit thankful for this because this means only super interested people look for more information – and I don’t have to spend all my time replying emails.

Final Summary

In total, I got about 50 emails, including people asking for more information or what the music was. There were two or three interview requests and about the same amount of journalists asking for the build. It’s definitely not as big a burst of attention as the video more than a year ago, but that makes sense. This build wasn’t about showing weird and wacky stuff, just that somewhat of a game could be created.

I think people who watched the video were less interested in it too. Not only is it possibly the second time they are exposed to the concept, you can kind of tell through the comments and the ratio of likes-to-views on youtube. The previous video had about 3 times more views but more than 6 times more likes.

That’s totally fine though, because for a game this early in development just having anyone see it – and having repeated exposure is a good thing. It’s actually pretty difficult to maintain a lot of interest because you’re trying to provide real content to people – without hopefully spoiling the game. My view is that having exposure this early is useful, but it won’t be a very high priority for me until the game gets closer to release.

IndieCade Part 2

The Museum of Simulation Technology was a Digital Select game last year (so it was in a tent in the village), but this year it got to be a Nominee and was shown in the firehouse.

The game is being shown on the first booth to the right of the tent

What was cool:

• Not being super tired! I was so busy before that the actual festival felt like a break. The adrenaline of showing your stuff on the show floor also helped a bit.
• Not super stressed! I was too busy to become really stressed. I also realized that my game was so early in development that even if things went terribly at IndieCade, it wouldn’t be terrible. I already got really lucky in getting in IndieCade, so I felt anything that went well would be a bonus.
• Being in the firehouse helped because it was very spacious. I could go behind the booth and fix my build at times.
• Fixing the build on the fly. There were lots of times where puzzles didn’t work well enough, and had extraneous elements or required too exact jump heights. I was able to change and test different things and able to test right after.
• People still recognized the game – “Oh look, it’s the game with forced perspective!” Even though someone explaining the game doesn’t necessarily means they like it (you’re going to explain how any game works at IndieCade because they’re all so different any way), it at least means people know about the game!

People liked these forced perspective business cards!

• Got more press than last year! I was surprised that I got as much press as I did (I was expecting nothing), since there was barely any for the game last year. I guess being in the more spacious firehouse helped. People could watch the game or form a queue without feeling overwhelmed.
• More people asking me to send them a build. There were a few small publishers or platform holders who wanted me to send them a build.
• Having the “super pre-alpha build” note on my main menu helped adjust people to the right mindset. I think.
• Got to talk more awesome game developers! Last year I kept mostly with myself or the team. This year though I got to talk to more people. More often than not, even some really awesome developers I talked to knew about the game!
• I knew enough people (a lot of ETC people) to hang out with after the festival each day. That was pretty fun.

Also, I thought on average players played for a longer period of time. Last time, there were many more players who were confused or were not used to FPS controls.

• The build was about 15~20 minutes long for most players, which is just perfect for IndieCade. Any longer and people might need to wait too long when there was a queue.
• There was actually a queue sometimes! Last year in the firehouse, it was such a closed in space that it was hard to stand around. Having a queue means that there will always be someone playing, which is good for getting more people to look on.

What could have gone better:

•  Didn’t get to check out other cool games! I only got to play 4 or 5 games total, and then only briefly.
• The day before I left for IndieCade, I made a sign and a list so people could sign up to the mailing list. Even though lots of people played the game, a total of 6 people actually noticed and signed up to the mailing list.
• Even with 6 people, I should have brought a tablet to get people’s names and emails for the mailing list! It was hard to decipher people’s handwriting three days later.
• Interviews. I did some interviews mostly for experience of doing interviews, but that’s something I really needed more practice on. It’s hard to be interesting, casual, and funny during an interview. One of these days, I should go back and listen to some interviews and think of what I could’ve said better. I hate hearing my own voice though.
• I wish I was also brave enough to just start talking to random developers I knew and tried hanging out with random people. Even if I just do a short introduction and say hi, it makes meeting them the second time a lot easier.

Final Thoughts

I think things actually went pretty well – a lot better than what I expected. I didn’t have any good game design discussions that led to me making big breakthroughs, but the process of forcing myself to make things before IndieCade (and having them tested to make sure they’re not terrible) was more uplifting and encouraging than anything else.

When you are stuck, sometimes you need to step back and analyze the situation. Other times you just need to keep on going, and having the naivete to believe things will work out will actually make things work out.

IndieCade Part 1

Preparing for IndieCade

To me, IndieCade was supposed to be an internal deadline to deciding whether or not I should continue on this project – or go find a job. However, my number one concern was still showing up with a bad game and disappointing people. I wanted to show that the game was not just about making things big and small, that it could have actual depth to its mechanics.

 

Moved ramp puzzle to beginning of level 2 for faster learning curve

This lead me to crunch the week and a half before IndieCade. Of course I started preparing a lot earlier, but I could not make enough progress on what I thought was “interesting content” or “new mechanics” into the game. My original plan was to create different mechanics and playtest every one or two days for an entire week and a half. I ended up missing all the deadlines I set for myself.

I also had a few other things on my plate. My part-time job (which was supposed to be on hold this week and the week before) suddenly had something come up which required at least a dozen hours of work. Until it was finished, I wasn’t sure how much time it required (Android porting is finicky) so it helped provide some extra stress that I needed. There were also some issues with the both type of business cards I ordered and I wasn’t sure if they would arrive on time.

In this one you can’t take items through the door, so you have to drop them from the top.

In the end, I ended up creating most of my content 2 days before IndieCade. It wasn’t playtested at all, and there was just barely enough for 15 minutes. I was working up to the point I needed to get on the plane. Then I kept on working after I got off the plane until I couldn’t stay awake anymore.

The result? It was alright, actually.

IndieXchange 

IndieXchange is the short developer conference that happens the day before IndieCade. I ended up going to the Nintendo Speed Meeting, working on my game, doing a single playtest (someone was just curiously looking over my shoulder and I invited him to play. This turned out super helpful), and meeting old friends and making new ones. In the evening there was the Red Carpet Awards, and during afterparty I got to talk to some amazing developers. I was pretty tired by the end, and took a Lyft back some drunk Gamenesters.

Then I worked a bit more to finish up on my build.

 

In a Jiffy

For some reason, I feel like this gif encompasses a general mood or atmosphere of this game.

It’s really hard to nail down the general feeling you want a game to have, so when this happened and I giggled at the large exit sign I thought I should note this down.

Thoughts Pre-IndieCade

To be honest, I’m pretty apprehensive about IndieCade. When I found out I got in as a finalist, I had very mixed feelings. I was 100% sure I wasn’t going to get into IndieCade even as a Digital Selection game. I did some IndieCade jurying as well, and there were already a few games in my batch that I thought were more deserving of the honor than my game.

I also feel a bit bad for submitting because I thought I would make a lot more progress by now (the IndieCade submission deadline was back in June). Museum of Simulation Technology was selected as a Digital Selection last year, and even though the game is completely different, there doesn’t feel like there’s enough progress to account to be selected again.

The thing is, I think the mechanic of the game is very attractive and a lot of people probably thought there was more awesome gameplay that I hadn’t shown yet. The truth is there’s not that much interesting material yet.

So in the coming less than 20 days before IndieCade, it’s a rush for me to create amazing content…somehow.

Youtube

Just uploaded a short new video for IndieCade. I needed a new video because all the previous ones were a bit old. The purpose of the video was to be a bit esoteric and confusing but still be kind of interesting. In other words, it wasn’t a well-thought out video and I only had an afternoon to work on it.

About 3 minutes after I uploaded the video it had 79 views and 11 likes and 4 comments.

That doesn’t sound like much, but that was literally minutes after I pushed the “publish” button.

Youtube is scary…I didn’t realize people would actually pay attention.

Also, the first Youtube comment was:

 I was thinking about unsubscribing the other day

…Thank god I didn’t.