With the District Arcade coming up this weekend (September 28th), we have precious little time to prepare, and a lot of things are likely to fall by the wayside. For many, this is their first time showing publicly, so here’s a quick set of survival tips to make your Show experience a much more pleasant / smooth one!
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1 - Create a Set of Cheats / Macros to Handle Commonly Used Utilities
You should create a quick set of Macros to quickly modify the runtime state of your game. The absolute most important one is: “Reset To Default”. The easiest way to accomplish this in Unity is to simply reload the currently loaded scene.
A list of Macros I always ensure I have in my games are:
Reload Current Level
Reload Game
Skip to Next Area
Return to Previous Area
Save Log File To Desktop.
Superpower / God Mode
You should make sure these cheats / macros are hidden and unlikely to be triggered by the average user. I have a cheat menu that is hidden unless you hit [CTRL]+[SHIFT]+[C], which then guides the user through what cheats do what, and how to trigger them.
The reason you want these is that you should expect to be watching 2+ Computers at once, and when something goes wrong, you need to be able to quickly reset and return the player to where they were. If you have to navigate a menu chain every time you need to reset the game when a player puts it down, you’re going to be miserably busy the entire time.
2 - Have your Elevator Pitch Perfected, Practiced, and Personable!
You’re going to be asked by every single attendant some form of “So what is [Your Game Name]?”. Every single one is going to ask, and if you don’t have a brief elevator pitch, 2 Sentences or so, to describe the game, you’re going to get flustered, and may make mistakes.
When I’m asked about Grumpy Witch, the response I give is:
“It’s a 2.5D Action-Platformer called Grumpy Witch we’re developing for PC and all Major Consoles; it’s about a cartoony tween witch who is out to recover her magical hat, and inadvertently save the world! It has puzzles, voiced dialogue, and is intended for every age!”
What information is contained here?
Its Genre, Its Premise, Its Platforms, Its Audience, and Some of the Gameplay Pillars.
For most people, this will be enough information, it’s short and to the point. Interested users will likely ask follow up questions, but for most people, it is just the right amount of information to answer the most common questions.
Spend some time thinking about this before the event, and practice it with other developers, get feedback on your elevator pitch, and refine it. Then, practice! You don’t need to read it perfectly every time, but you should be able to say it without reading from a notecard.
3 - Make Sure you Have Social Re-Connection Reminders in your Booth!
If you can: Make sure you have multiple things in your booth that will remind the user after the event to connect with you on Social Media, and follow your game! Otherwise, your efforts at the show will bear limited fruit.
Having a Business card with your social media information, logo, and a nice bit of art on the back is useful for folks. Have them liberally stacked all over your booth so people can just grab them on the go. Have a stack in your pocket so you can pass them out when asked.
The most important information you can list is:
Game Title.
Social Media Links (Twitter, Facebook, Insta, YouTube)
Link to Game on Platform (Steam, Epic Games Store, Playstation Store, etc)
Contact Email.
If you can, leave a bit of white space on the card so you can append information on cards for Journalists and influencers. Or have a card for these folks specially made. You can also encourage people to take pictures of your contact information The important thing here is: Make sure folks can find you after they leave the event that evening!
4 - Have a Banner & Tablecloth for your Booth!
You want to stand out from the crowd, and make folks feel welcome at your booth. Several small steps can be taken to increase the visual appeal of your booth, and create a less distracting playspace.
By adding a Banner, preferably a Standing Banner, you can create a visual draw for folks across the room. If you’re using a standing banner, place the logo at the very top, and distinctive art on the rest. Set it up so folks can take selfies with your promotional material!
By adding a simple tablecloth, you can reduce the visual clutter of the table you’re using. It also makes your presentation look more professional. It means you can place your cards on the table and be assured that there is a high contrast between the surface and them, making it less likely for folks to fail to notice them!
5 - Bring Over Ear Headphones!
Bring Over Ear Headphones, no seriously, bring them. One set for each computer you are showing on! Do. Not. Bring. Earbuds. Asking 200 People to share a pair of Earbuds is excessively gross, and I cannot count the number of times I’ve seen it happen. Ew. Ew. Ew.
And no, you can’t blare your music across the entire room for hours on end. There are going to be two dozen games or more all playing at the same time. If you want to do music, instead, quietly play your soundtrack from a CD Player to reduce the amount of repetitiveness.
By the Way: If your game music consists solely of a 5 second loop that you intend on blasting for hours on end, I or another booth shower will personally walk over and yank the power cable from your speakers. There is no faster way to earn the ire and hatred of your fellow attendees. This happened at MAGFest and there was actual murder in the eyes of many of the booth attendants.
6 - Lock all New Features 72 Hours before the Event
We all do this, this is me reminding you: It’s a bad thing and we need to not. Stop development 72 Hours before the event, and focus on stabilizing your build, playtesting, and polishing existing features. No new feature survives implementation without some unintended consequences (See: Bugs), and MANY a game has had their show plans scuttled by an unstable build.
If you can’t get a good night’s sleep before the event, you’re going to have a miserable time. Just focus on the things you can fix, and don’t sweat the rest. It’s better to cut out broken buggy messes, then try and hold them together with Duct Tape.
7 - Gather your Survival Gear & Bring enough to Share!
These Events are Long and you will be interacting with hundreds of Developers, Media Folks, and Attendees. You will blow your voicebox out, you will get Dehydrated, you will be hungry, and you will get super sick afterwards. What you should look at doing is reducing the damage by assembling a kit of event survival gear!
Mine looks like this:
Ibuprofen & Excedren
Hand Sanitizer
Clorox Wipes
Throat Lozenges
Water Bottles (Frozen)
Snacks
Caffeinated Soda (Sealable)
Notepad + Pens
Extra Batteries
Extension Cables (2 or More!)
Power Strips (2 or More!)
USB Chargers (Micro, Mini, USB-C)
If you want to be popular: Make sure you bring enough to share with your neighbours!
8 - Charge your Phone and Peripherals
No, seriously, Charge Your Phone. Make 1000% sure it’s plugged in the night before! Charge your wireless mice and keyboards! Charge your backup batteries and power storage blocks! What can go wrong, will go wrong!
9 - Do a Quality of Life Pass on your Tutorials
Spend some time playing your game, playtesting with folks who have never played before, and write down every single instance where you need to explain a mechanic. Spend some time before the event shoring up the tutorials! If you run out of time, it can help to simply put literal signs in the world. But the less an attendee needs to be explained, a better time both of you will have.
10 - Make sure you have some Analytics running
This is simple and covered elsewhere, but it’s useful to gather the following information:
Number of Sessions
Runtime Per Session
Deaths per Game Area
Sessions “Won”
Sessions “Lost”
Sessions Lost where the Player Played Again (Players who drop off after death may feel frustrated)
Sessions Won where the Player Played Again (Indicates players who want more gameplay)
Sessions Abandoned (Bonus Points if you can isolate where)
Deaths
Bugs
Heat Mapping Where players get stuck or spend the most time.
This kind of information can be mined to create sophisticated profiles of your average user. Who played the most, the least, and where the game caused the most users to quit. This can be used in review to tune your design and level mechanics.
And that’s it! I hope you find this useful, and I’ll see everyone this Saturday!