Wow! What a week!
Last week we took the opportunity to have a booth at GDC - where we were met with smiles, praise and compliments galore! It was seriously amazing and refreshing to have people who had never heard of our game come up to the booth, try out one of the two demos (or both!) and tell us how much they liked what we were doing. We certainly didn't expect so much warmth to come from having a booth set up at GDC Play, so it was a pleasant surprise!
We ended up documenting some of the experience with photos and even some video for you guys to see and enjoy too :)
Sunday
On Sunday we finished both builds of our demos, cut the GDC trailer, and set up a
mock-booth space inside Koriel's house. We had tested the demos as much as we could, and the mock booth gave us a good idea of what we could bring in the cars (and what would fit in our 6x8 booth!). After all, we wanted to maximize space as much as possible.
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| Mock Booth |
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| Yay buttons! |
Monday
On Monday, we took off with 2 cars packed to the brim (one Compact SUV and one Sedan), holding all our clothes, computer towers, monitors, 2 spinning office chairs, one 6-foot table, 2 mini-tables, table cloths, banners, plants and all other booth decorations. Koriel, James and Koriel's Brother and friend made the drive from LA to San Jose, while John took a flight over.
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| Packing Up |
We all got in Monday night around 10 PM, where we were greeted with dinner at James' parents' house. This was where we spent the next week sleeping, eating and packing and unpacking cars for our hour-long trips to San Francisco and back.
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| Putting John's NVIDIA Video Card in Koriel's Tower to make sure the Rainforest Demo runs extra smooth :) |
Tuesday
On Tuesday we took James' mini-van and packed it with everything we needed to set up, including the 5 of us. It was a tight fit! When we got to the Moscone Center, we elected to park at a nearby parking structure and carry everything in to the expo floor ourselves. There was a service that would do it for you on a lower level for a fee, but come on
- we are indies! It took several many trips by all of us to get everything from the car to the booth.
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| There we are! (at the bottom) |
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| John waiting with our stuff for the rest of us to get our Exhibitor Passes |
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| Setting up the booth |
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| Unpacking the boxes and suitcases |
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| The Monitor on the Dragon Table displayed anyone playing the Rainforest demo |
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| Making sure all the displays are correct |
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| Our excellent volunteers! aka Koriel's Brother (gray) and friend (red): Kruer and Hubbard |
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Once we were happy with the look of the booth, we tore some of it down and brought the towers and Oculus Rift back to the car. We spent the rest of the day in Japan Town while traffic around the city simmered down.
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| Taking the valuables back |
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| Japan Town |
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| White Lotus :) |
That night, we all went to bed, not really knowing what to expect for the next three days. What we did know was that we had to get up at 6 AM every day, which is a big change from our usual late work schedule of 10 AM - 1 AM ><
Wednesday
On Wednesday we drove Koriel's Compact SUV into San Francisco. We got to the booth area around 8:30 AM and set up till the floor opened at 10 AM.
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| We are officially ready! |
The show was amazing.
Within the first few minutes, we already had people playing both demos -while other people were standing around the booth checking out the game, the trailer and other decorations, buttons and cards we had on display.
Note to other Devs looking to set up a booth at a convention: decorations, swag and even candy can really help get people over to your booth. Presentation is so important, so try to find a way to stand out and make your booth as attractive as possible :) We used fountains, lights, a dragon table, a tree table, banners, plants and even a carpet to define our space. Even if you are flying in somewhere and don't have much $ - a trip to the local thrift shop can really make a difference!
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| Video Interview |
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| The Zen garden definitely got some love :) |
Wednesday night we were also able to have dinner with one of our amazing backers! We chatted for several hours about team dynamic and production, working on games and more.
Thursday
By the time Thursday hit us, we had already started to lose our voices and were taking throat lozenges like they were candy. It was another early morning, but we were too excited to really feel tired.
During the show we were standing for 8 hours at a time, answering questions and getting people interested in the game. We tried to be very approachable :)
As far as eating is concerned, we brought a suitcase we deemed "lunchbox". We pulled it out towards the side aisle, where we took turns grabbing snacks. Nobody ever got mad at us for taking up the extra space.
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| You can see "lunchbox" here in the right hand corner... |
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| Psychology: Putting Cards in the Candy box made it so that everyone who was drawn in to the candy grabbed a card. |
Thursday night after packing up the booth the three of us were invited to the Epic party to chat. We got to talk to the people there about future plans for our company, their future plans and more. It was actually a very comfy and relaxing event - more like simply talking with friends.
If anyone out there is even remotely interested in using the Unreal Engine, (especially now since the new pricing model has made it so affordable), we would definitely recommend it to them. The people we have talked to at Epic have all been all helpful, fun and down to earth - so it is an excellent company to work with!
Friday
Friday morning we knew we would have to pack up all of our decorations from our booth, so we remembered to pack our towers in the van and take that instead of Koriel's Compact SUV. When we got to our booth to start setting up, it was already about 9. It was then that one of us said "Hey guys, so where is the Oculus?"
Panic mode. |
| Yes, we had indeed forgotten the Oculus Rift. |
It was about an hour drive back to get it, so we wouldn't have it back at the booth until 11 AM (one hour after the floor had opened to the public). We sent James out to drive the car to go back and get it - but instead he decided to walk over the the Oculus Booth on the other Expo floor just in case they could help us. He explained the situation,
and lo and behold, they had a spare Dev Kit 1! Hooray! The day was saved!
We set up the booth with our borrowed Oculus and the day was smooth sailing after that.
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| Last day setting up |
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| GDC Play floor setting up |
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| By the final day we still had quite a few cards and buttons, so we put them all as up-front as possible! |
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| Decorations |
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| Video interview for VR Focus |
At 3 PM we had to pack up everything and return the Oculus. When we walked over to thank Oculus VR for letting us borrow their DK1, we saw
Palmer Luckey standing in the middle of the floor as people were tearing down the Oculus booth. We decided to thank him personally for letting us use their Rift for our demo, and he said he was glad they could help,
and just told us to keep it! What a nice guy!
When we finished packing everything into the Van it was about 5 PM. We were all so exhausted that we just went back to James' parents' house to relax, eat and check out all the business cards we received.
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| One of the many stacks of cards we procured |
Wrap-Up
The whole experience was well worth the time and money investment. We all had our pitch down, met some really awesome people, spent time with industry friends, and were able to share our game with the public and press.Cheers from John, Koriel and James at White Lotus Interactive!
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