Tag Archives: indie show

Comic Con For Kids This Weekend!

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This weekend I have the pleasure of returning to tranquil Oaks, PA for Comic Con For Kids! The show is being held at the Greater Philadelphia Expo Center at 100 Station Ave, Oaks, PA 19456 from October 12th – 13th. Show hours are from 9 am – 5 pm both days.

Hopefully I have better success driving to Oaks than I did last time when I attended Too Many Games. For those of you who don’t remember, a gang of roving cannibals (The Pennsylvania Turnpike People-Eaters) laid a spike trap down on the road in an effort to snare as many innocent travelers as possible. Once I succumbed to their trap, I had to fight my way out of there with only dental floss and Where Shadows Slumber commemorative pins. It went about as well as you’d expect, but the important thing is that I got out of there alive. Big shout out to the fellow travelers on the road who gave their lives in the Great Battle of Mile Marker 176. (Remember the fallen, etc)

On a more serious note, I want to thank the organizers for giving Where Shadows Slumber indie access at absolutely no cost to us at all! They’re not charging me anything for this show, all I had to do was email the organizers and sign on board. Given the fact that Oaks is only a 2 hour drive away, and AirBnB’s nearby are dirt cheap, doing this show is a no-brainer.

Kids! What About The Violence?

I’m well aware that Where Shadows Slumber isn’t exactly a kids game, due to the complexity of its puzzles and an extremely violent story. I made this clear to the organizers as early in the process as possible. Two points on this topic:

  1. When I warned them about the violent cutscenes, they still said the game was a fit for Comic Con for Kids! They know their audience better than I do, I suppose.
  2. I always warn parents at these shows about the cutscenes, and they’re disabled by default at conventions anyway.

For shows like this, I’m really selling the game more to parents than youngsters. (It’s impossible to get teens to spend money on mobile games anyway) So I’m not too worried about parents getting tricked into downloading the game and then having a horrifying experience when their four-year old watches an old man drown a leopard.

Maybe I’ll just make the booth look as spooky as possible to scare people away? Speaking of which…

Flickering Lanterns!

I’m trying to spice up the booth since it’s October-ween, so I bought these cool flickering lanterns on Amazon. I’ll give them a try this weekend and see how they do! (See video above to witness the glory) These are so perfect for nailing that Where Shadows Slumber effect.

It probably won’t be dark enough in the hall for these to show up, so I’m considering bringing a pop-up 10×10 tent and setting it up over my table. I only bring that to outdoor shows, and I haven’t done one of those in years, so it’s just collecting dust in my apartment. It’s white though, so I’d probably cover it with a big black tarp or something. Maybe I can bribe them to turn the lights off? If only this was MAGFest…

I’m rambling, so that’s all for now! I’m driving there Friday to set up. See you in Oaks this weekend?

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Where Shadows Slumber is now available for purchase on the App Store, Google Play, and the Amazon App Store!

Find out more about our game at WhereShadowsSlumber.com, ask us on Twitter (@GameRevenant), Facebook, itch.io, and feel free to email us directly at contact@GameRevenant.com.

Frank DiCola is the founder of Game Revenant and the artist for Where Shadows Slumber.

Heading to RetroWorld Expo

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Where Shadows Slumber will be returning to the Connecticut Convention Center in Hartford, CT this September for the RetroWorld Expo!

Here’s their description of the event:

RetroWorld Expo (RWX) is an annual convention that encompasses all things video games, music and tabletop gaming. The event will be held on September 28 & 29 at the Connecticut Convention Center in Hartford, CT.

Returning for it’s 5th year, RWX is known for its massive marketplace, expansive gaming tournaments, free play arcade and gaming area, live video game music and Youtube and industry guests and panels. Our marketplace has over 80 vendors selling video games, crafts, artwork and much more!

Children ages 10 and under free with a paid ticket purchase

(Paid parking available at the garage attached to the Connecticut Convention Center)

All tickets are non-refundable. If you have any questions please email questions@retroworldexpo.com

www.retroworldexpo.com

You can purchase tickets here and RSVP on Facebook here.

I had a blast at ConnectiCon last weekend, so I’m excited to return to Hartford with Where Shadows Slumber! If you live in the area or you’re attending RetroWorld Expo, let me know ahead of time. Spaces haven’t been assigned just yet, but I’m sure we’ll be in some kind of indie games section.

See you in Hartford!

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Where Shadows Slumber is now available for purchase on the App Store, Google Play, and the Amazon App Store!

Find out more about our game at WhereShadowsSlumber.com, ask us on Twitter (@GameRevenant), Facebook, itch.io, and feel free to email us directly at contact@GameRevenant.com.

Frank DiCola is the founder of Game Revenant and the artist for Where Shadows Slumber.

An Awesome Arcade

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I just returned from a trip to AwesomeCon in Washington D.C.! It’s my second time at the convention – the previous trip was in 2017. Since our game was still in development then, the theme for this past week’s marketing has been “blasts from the past.” I had a lot of fun with that and plan to do quite a bit more. It’s always shocking to see what the game looked like before it was ready for primetime…

I discovered the Pixel 3’s Portrait Mode at this con and I’m never going back…

AwesomeCon is a D.C. based comic convention held in the Walter E. Washinton Convention Center. As for the show itself, I’m very glad I went – mostly because the crew that invited us runs MAGFest’s Indie Videogame Showcase, and they footed the bill for space. It was very generous of them to invite us, and I always take the opportunity to do shows like that. It cuts down on the cost of showcasing tremendously. For this one, I only had to pay the cost of an AirBnB, gasoline, and tolls to D.C. from Hoboken.

Our setup, next to Crescendo.

The audience wasn’t there exclusively for games – in fact, many people playing the game had to suddenly leave in order to make it to some signing or another scheduled event. But for those that stayed and really toured the arcade area, I felt a real sense of admiration for the indies and their games. It was a good group of people! Many of them even purchased the game right in front of me. On Saturday morning, one woman literally bought it because I said there were no micro transactions in the game, and she said she wanted to support our team [^_^ ]!

The album of images from the Awesome Arcade can be found on Facebook right here. Enjoy them!

This kid wanted to play on the iPhone and the MacBook at the same time, LOL!

Costs vs. Rewards

It’s so hard to quantify whether or not these shows are “worth it,” but that’s what everybody always asks. Was it worth it? How many sales did you get? How much money did you make? Does that make sense given the 3 or 4 business days it took to do the show? Does that make sense given the money spent to get there?

I won’t try to quantify things like (1) meeting other indies (2) getting the game in front of people who don’t yet buy it, but still might (3) having a banner up that people see out of the corner of their eye, subconsciously reinforcing the product in their mind (4) doing the MIVS crew a solid by adding another game to their arcade (5) giving attendees a fun thing to do for a few minutes, etc. But what can you quantify?

Well I did something different this time, and actually counted the number of “plays” I witnessed while I was running the booth. I defined a play as “they sat down, played past the first 3 Levels, and I gave them the convention spiel.” Here’s the numbers:

Total plays by dayUnique plays
Friday (11 am – 7 pm)31 plays
Saturday (10 am – 6 pm)52 plays
Sunday (10 am – 4 pm)40 plays
TOTAL: 123
Total plays by deviceDevice plays
Fire HD 810 plays
iPad38 plays
iPhone X35 plays
iPhone 6S16 plays
MacBook Pro24 plays

So, over the course of 3 days at a cost of around $300.00, I personally introduced Where Shadows Slumber to 123 people. Even if all of those people purchased the game, the trip wouldn’t really pay for itself.

This isn’t an indictment of AwesomeCon, just something I’m going to start doing now to sate my own curiosity. I love going to shows, and I would return to AwesomeCon in a heartbeat. But they always tend to feel more impactful than they probably are. At the end of the day, my duty to the developers who built this game (as well as my duty to the studio itself) is to get the biggest bottom line we can each quarter. So this gives me a new goal for internet advertising and social media use: beat that time/cost return on investment!

Check Out Crescendo!

One of my favorite games at the Awesome Arcade happened to be on the next table over, Crescendo. I had never heard of it before, and without something like the Awesome Arcade it’s unlikely I ever would have. But the developer, Nate Largo, is very talented and he’s created something really polished and impressive. It’s a rhythm-based stealth platformer where you have to march in tune with the beat so that sound-sensitive laser robots don’t shoot your character’s face off. Check out his free demo here!

What’s That Strange iPad With a Keyboard?

This con was also special as it marks the first public test of a computer version of Where Shadows Slumber. Though we haven’t really announced it publicly yet or decided on a date, if you’ve spoken with us in the past few months we’ve probably discussed it.

Stay tuned for more news about that, and thanks again to Lexi and the MIVS crew for inviting us to D.C. for a great time!

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Where Shadows Slumber is now available for purchase on the App Store, Google Play, and the Amazon App Store!

Find out more about our game at WhereShadowsSlumber.com, ask us on Twitter (@GameRevenant), Facebook, itch.io, and feel free to email us directly at contact@GameRevenant.com.

Frank DiCola is the founder of Game Revenant and the artist for Where Shadows Slumber.