The Where Shadows Slumber team has just returned from our biggest event yet. That’s right, this past weekend was PAX East! If you’re just starting to read this blog because you found out about us at PAX, then welcome!

For those who don’t know the details, we were accepted for the PAX East Indie Showcase, which showcases the “best indie [mobile] games you’ve never heard of”. As Frank mentioned when we first found out, we were totally honored to have been chosen, and the showcase really delivered. It was a wild weekend, and I’m here to tell you all about it!

 

What Happened?

We got to the convention center early on Friday morning, and it totally blew away our expectations. Despite knowing the scale of the event, it didn’t really hit us just how big it was, and that was just the main Expo Hall. We set up at our table, and before we knew it, PAX East had begun!

We spent the next eight hours showing off Where Shadows Slumber, talking to hundreds of people about the game, getting a ton of feedback, and completely losing our voices in the process. We’ve done this a lot in the past, but it’s always very refreshing to see new people playing our game. It just feels great meeting people and getting our game in their hands.

Once the main expo floor closed at 6 pm, we took some time to catch our breaths – but before we knew it, we were informed that the members of the Indie Showcase were going to be putting on a panel!

Despite all of the awesome things that happened this weekend, I think the panel was my favorite part. Since I do game development as a side project to my actual job, and I haven’t made any money from it, I never really consider myself to be an ‘expert’ of any sort. It was incredibly validating to have people seeking my advice, and I was surprised to find that I had good answers for (most of) their questions. It’s almost as though I’ve been working on indie games for the past three years or something.

After a passable Boston meal (what’s with all the seafood?) and an almost-full night’s sleep, we were back and ready for more! Saturday is always the busiest day at these conventions, and PAX did not disappoint. From the opening at 10 to the closing at 6, we consistently had a full booth, which was awesome. Fortunately, we didn’t have any obligations on Saturday night, so we hung out with some friends before heading back to the hotel early, in preparation for daylight savings time.

We had been taking Uber to the convention center on Friday and Saturday, but since we were leaving on Sunday, we decided to drive in from the hotel. Apparently, a lot of other people had the same idea, and Frank ended up sitting in traffic for over an hour; I ditched him and walked the last mile, and I was still late.

Despite the inauspicious start, Sunday was a great day too. One of the biggest problems with these shows is that we’re at this awesome event, but we spend the whole time at our own booth. It’s great telling people about Where Shadows Slumber, but it’s nice to see some other stuff. Fortunately, our web developer, Caroline, worked the booth with us for two hours or so, so Frank and I took turns exploring the expo floor. There were a lot of awesome games, and I still wish we had had time to see more of them!

After a great three days, we packed up and headed home! The weekend was incredible, and it felt so good to share it with our fellow indie game developers and show off Where Shadows Slumber.

 

What Did We Learn?

The main thing we learned from this show was that, while people may say less is more, in reality, more is more. This was the biggest PAX East ever, and it was definitely the biggest show we’ve ever been to. To be honest, we really weren’t ready for the scale. We brought five test devices and no power strip, which led to some battery problems toward the end of the day.

The devices and the batteries weren’t the only things we didn’t have enough of. We brought 400 drop cards and 300 Where Shadows Slumber buttons, but we didn’t bring nearly enough. We only had a few business cards left when Sunday started, and we were out of buttons halfway through the day. If we had to do it again, I would make sure we brought a lot more – it’s better to have some left over than to leave anyone empty-handed.

Other than that, the other lessons were things we’ve learned before, but they’re still worth mentioning:

• Bring hundreds of cough drops – continuously talking to people over the ambient sound of a convention for eight hours a day is a real strain on the voice. I went through almost two bags this weekend.

• Don’t expect to get anything done – for some reason, I always assume I’ll be able to do some work after the convention ends for the day. Between finding food, getting back to the hotel, and planning for the next day, there’s never time for anything else.

• Daylight savings time is the worst – yeah, it started this past weekend. Sleep is the most valuable commodity at a convention, and it seems totally unfair that we had to lose an hour of it.

• Plan ahead as much as possible – we had a lot of trouble finding food on Saturday night, because every restaurant in the area was completely booked. Frank has mentioned it before, but I want to mention it again – plan ahead!

 

What’s Next?

I definitely consider PAX East to have been a success, which is a good thing – it’s probably the last big event we’ll be doing for a while. Everyone really seems to enjoy our demo, but they also want the full game, and that means that we have to actually make it! So, the next thing on our schedule is to simply get to work and start putting Where Shadows Slumber together. There are really four big things going on in the immediate future:

• Cutscene – The final step in creating the demo is to give you all a taste of the storyline. Every show we go to, people ask about the game’s story. As of yet, the demo does not contain any discernible storyline, but Frank is working hard to change that. We’re planning on adding a short cutscene to the end of the demo, which will server as a little teaser for the kind of story you can expect to see in the full game.

• Testing – Over the last two months, we have designed all of the levels for the final game. However, we don’t know if the players will like our levels, and the best way to find out is to ask them! So, we’re going to be creating very basic versions of the levels we have planned, and send them out to our dedicated volunteer testers to tell us what they think! If you want to sign up to be a tester, simply let us know – you can email us at contact@gamerevenant.com, or send a private message with your email to the official Game Revenant Facebook Page.

• Art – One of the most important parts of Where Shadows Slumber, I must begrudgingly admit, is the art. As such, we are going to be putting a whole lot of work into the art for the final game! The levels we send out to our testers will not have any art on them, since that’s the part that takes the longest. Once we know that the design of a level is pretty good, we’ll start putting some beauty onto it!

• Refactoring – This is kind of boring to you non-technology folks, but it’s still important. As projects advance, a lot of technical debt and scope changes cause codebases to become a little unwieldy. Right now, Where Shadows Slumber is a house carefully constructed out of sticks; it’ll stay up as long as we don’t blow too hard. So, in the coming months, I’ll be working hard to redesign the code into a strong mansion of stone (or whatever mansions are built out of) that will serve for a full game.

Aside from these main four tasks, we will of course be updating this blog and trying to keep up on social media. We might also swing by a few smaller shows, but we don’t have any plans bigger than that for the next few months.

A few weeks ago, a fan of the game requested that my next blog post touch on the technical side of our process. As much as I wanted to do that this week, we really felt the need to talk about PAX – it was an awesome whirlwind of an experience, and we wanted you to know all about it! But fear not; I’ll be back again next week with a deep dive on one of the most important and most technical parts of Where Shadows Slumber – the shaders.

 

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Were you at PAX East 2017? Tell us about your experience in the comments below! You can find out more about our game at WhereShadowsSlumber.com, find us on Twitter (@GameRevenant), Facebook, itch.io, or Twitch, and feel free to email us directly with any questions or feedback at contact@GameRevenant.com.

Jack Kelly is the head developer and designer for Where Shadows Slumber.