Halloween is almost here! The timing is awkward this year because it actually falls on a Thursday, but most people want to celebrate on the weekend instead of a weeknight. (We were so close to getting a Halloween Friday… will that happen next year? Is that how calendars work?) So that means a lot of events are happening the weekend prior, including this weekend!
I’ll be celebrating in style at Playcrafting’s Trick or Play event this Saturday, October 26th. Of course, Where Shadows Slumber will be on display along with a ton of other great indie games from NYC developers. Here’s their description of the event:
Video games are taking over the Microsoft office in Times Square for an all-out Expo celebrating local developers! Join us for a day of games and fun. All ages are welcome. We hope you can join us for our annual Halloween expo!
Game developers will be showing off their latest games. For developers, this is a great opportunity to show off their games (finished or unfinished) and get direct feedback from players. For everyone else, it’s a unique opportunity to try out the biggest collection of games made in and around NYC all in one place. There will be a costume contest! We encourage everyone to dress (appropriately, no real or fake weapons!) and get into the Halloween spirit.
Lamely, they don’t allow you to bring real or fake weapons as part of your costume. Don’t expect me to dress up as Rocket Launcher McSwordagger like I did last year. (Sailor suit it is, I suppose!) Maybe one of these years I’ll get my act together and dress as Obe. Does anyone have a giant white ball I can fit my head inside and paint eyes on?
Here’s the details:
Date and Time
Sat, October 26, 2019
12:00 PM – 5:00 PM EDT
Location
Microsoft
11 Times Square
New York, NY 10036
United States
Want to join the fun? Get your tickets here while there’s still some left!
Indie devs can submit their games here, but you’d better hurry up…
Feast your eyes upon it and cower in fear, plebians!
“Feast, I said!”
In all seriousness, the entire Where Shadows Slumber team would like to extend warm thanks toward the CT FIG team for this wonderful prize. Thank you for selecting us to show off at CT FIG, and thanks to the judges for recognizing our work!
Where Shadows Slumber, available now on iOS and Android, is certainly innovative. It may be similar to other games in style and tone, but it’s impossible to find another game that uses shadows the way we do. (We dare you to try! Helsing’s Fire doesn’t count.) If you know of another game that uses our mechanics and was published to the market prior to our 2016 demo, let me know in the comments!
Below you’ll find my scattered thoughts on the show, and some photos of the event. Thanks for reading! [^_^ ]
Shots and Thoughts
This show was less busy than last month’s TooManyGames. I suspect it’s because the Hartford Convention Center was divided into two Halls, A and B: A was for Connecticon, and B was for CT FIG. The divide is a bit strange, and I kept wishing more people would come over from that side during the weekend. But I understand CT FIG is still growing – the last time I went to this show, it was held in a board game shop in Newington!
I conducted 100 demos with people during the weekend, which led to 11 confirmed downloads, mainly on Android. I also think I’m going to switch from giving cards away free to giving pins away for free. People REALLY love those cards (obviously, because they have screenshots from the game on them!).
The setup, above. This is the first time I’ve shown off Where Shadows Slumber using a round table. (CT FIG began as a tabletop show and I was only 1 of 8 digital titles at the show!) I actually really liked that. It made way more sense than having an awkward rectangle table. Keep note, showrunners!
Everyone loved the game! That one guy on the right was at the table for nearly four hours on Saturday [o_o ] He beat EVERY puzzle! (And found a few issues… they’ll be fixed once the big July patch launches later this month.)
An intimate award ceremony, held after the show ended on Sunday.
Last but not least, shout-out to my boothmate Promote Pluto who has an adorable card game / webcomic about restoring Pluto to it’s former glory as a planet. So cute!
We can’t wait to see how CT FIG grows over the next year!
A few weeks ago I mentioned that Where Shadows Slumber was accepted into the Connecticut Festival of Indie Games, taking place at ConnectiCon XVII this year. (For a refresher, read this blog post) The time has come! I’m heading to Hartford this weekend, so if you’re a fan of Where Shadows Slumber and you want to say hi, this post has all the details.
Our game will be available at the SHOW 009 spot on the floor. I’ll have more beautiful drop cards to hand out, and plenty of mobile devices available so you can play as much of the game as you want. There are pins, too – more on that below.
The core show hours are as follows:
Friday, July 12th: 12 pm – 8 pm
Saturday, July 13th: 11 am – 7 pm
Sunday, July 14th: 10 am – 4 pm
Special Convention Deals
I’ll be running the same shameless scam promotion that I did back at TooManyGames – pins are NOT for sale, but you can take one for free if you’ve purchased Where Shadows Slumber. (You don’t have to have purchased it during the event, this applies to previous sales too!) Bonus pins are available for anyone who gives our game a 5-star rating on their phone’s app marketplace [^‿^ ]!
The last time I did this, we were up around the top 100 puzzle games in the U.S. on the App Store, so I expect great things from you CT Fig-fans… [ ¬‿¬]
This week, I couldn’t resist talking about my favorite games from E3, so here goes nothing! I should really be working on the upcoming Where Shadows Slumber patch, but I took a break to watch 37 consecutive hours of press conferences. (Not really.) In the interest of time, I cut the list down to just eight. Here’s my top 8 anticipated games from this year’s conference!
SPOILERS AHEAD: If you haven’t watched the major conferences yet and you don’t want to hear this cool news from me, close this blog post and run away! You’ve been warned!
Spiritfarer
I saw this game during Microsoft’s press conference. It looks beautiful! The game mechanics seem to be a mix of boat-building and gathering, but I’m more interested in the premise. Your character’s job is to ferry the living to the land of the dead. It’s a subject that’s obviously near to my heart, as you can see echoes of that theme in our game Where Shadows Slumber. I can’t wait to try it!
Well just what the heck is this? I love the Clue aesthetic going on here in 12 Minutes, coming soon from Annapurna Interactive. It’s not clear how much gameplay there really is – you might be mostly watching the story unfold and making decisions – but that’s fine, because this game looks really well done. Its top-down Groundhog Day as a game, where you can be tied up and beaten by a bald man. Sounds like my kind of game!
I have been waiting one million years for this stupid, terrible game to come out in the West. I loved the copy of PSO Episode 1 & 2 we had for GameCube back in the day, so when I heard about the sequel I knew I would have to try it. Unfortunately, the game has been marooned in Japan for like seven years or something ridiculous. It’s finally getting an English translation and support for U.S. servers! We think. Honestly, they might pull the rug out from under us again, who am I kidding.
A while back, Paul and I came up with a game idea that involved multiplayer Animal Crossing on a big island with survival elements. You would each set up your own town, there would be wilderness in between, and players could clash violently or live peacefully. The new Animal Crossing title seems to be 1/3 of that idea, since the multiplayer is shared screen co-op like always and there’s no real danger to the player. But you can craft stuff in this game and decorate your town! I’m loving this design. AC is my guilty pleasure… there’s nothing like building up a ton of relationships and then vanishing suddenly, leaving everyone to wonder where you went and why you won’t leave your house. Just like real life.
As a long-time Smash player who wanted Banjo back in the Smash 64 days, I can’t believe they finally did it! I also can’t believe it took this long, so I’ve been bouncing back and forth between exasperation and elation. Also, DragonQuest or whatever. But Banjo-Kazooie is finally in a Smash Bros. game! My new main arrives in the Fall, and the Season Pass purchase has been vindicated.
I have never played any of the games in the Watch Dogs series, so when I heard about the third entry I wasn’t too excited. But the premise sounds interesting! I’m mostly watching this game to see if it’s filled with lies, or if it’s as awesome as Ubisoft promises it will be. Apparently your team of freedom fighters is whoever you want it to be – you can pick your team from any of London’s virtual citizens.
That’s crazy though, right? What if I picked a team of 16 old ladies? How could they all possibly have their own origin story mission, their own voice acting, and character interactions that make sense? Maybe the game’s main story is really short, and they recommend playing it a few times with a diversity of team compositions… we’ll see!
Last but not least, CD Projekt Red showed off an awesome cutscene of their game Cyberpunk 2077 that revealed Keanu Reeves as a story character. Sold! Give me the game now! There’s no new gameplay that I’m aware of, so if you already saw this clip from last year, keep waiting until August.
Personally, I don’t want to see too much of the game because it’s probably very narrative driven and I don’t want to get it ruined for me. It’s disappointing to see that some of Cyberpunk 2020’s wackier character classes won’t make an appearance (RIP Rockerboys) but so far this title looks like a must-buy. They even got it to launch in the actual year 2020! I don’t even want to know what it took to pull that off…
Game Revenant 