convention – LD Smith Games

September 1, 2018January 20, 2021

Thoughts on First Game Booth at Knoxville Gaming Convention

One weekend ago, members of Knoxville Game Design (Dylan, Joe, Jacob, and myself) had a booth at the Knoxville Gaming Convention. This was a part of the larger CreepyCon convention at the World’s Fair Exhibition Hall.

I really wasn’t sure what to expect, since we have never done a display at a convention this large. However, we had some experience with setting up game demos at McKay Retro Game Night, Makerpalooza, Open Streets Knoxville, and Emory Place Block Party.

We had a 20′ x 10′ booth, so I wasn’t sure how much could fit in that space. I actually simulated the booth space in Unity with simple Blender models the night before to get an idea of how much space we would have. The biggest estimation error that I made was that we would only have two tables instead of four. We actually had plenty of booth space, but we were limited by table space.

I had a 18″ x 24″ glossy sign made at Staples with the Knoxville Game Design logo. I also bought a portable easel there to hold it. If I had to do it again, I probably wouldn’t have chosen the glossy lamination. It reflects a lot of light which sometimes makes the text on the sign hard to see. Also, I saved money by not getting it mounted on a hard surface. I could always just cut out a piece of cardboard and tape it to the back of the sign next time to keep it from looking droopy while sitting on the easel. Overall, I spent less than $50 total on the sign and easel, which is much less in price and less of a hassle than the rollup signs which go for around $200.

However, I thought the top of the booth was a little plain. We had one small printed black and white sign provided by the convention. I had to duct tape it to the poll since I didn’t have any string. However, next time I would like to get big banner to stretch across the top.

On one table, we had one television, one monitor, and a laptop. The television was connected to a Mac laptop by HDMI, and played games through the Itch client. I made sure to download most of my gamepad playable games at home before arriving, since we did not have reliable Internet access there. The convention did offer (slow) WiFi at a price, but we decided not to sign up for that. The other monitor was also connected to my old Mac laptop by HDMI as well. There really wasn’t any issues with the display, but I did have to remember to mirror the displays on the laptops which were sitting behind the monitors. The biggest hassle was getting the gamepads to work. The XBox controller does not work with a Mac without third party software being downloaded and installed. Fortunately, I already had this setup on the old laptop. On the new laptop, I just used a PS4 controller connected by mini USB. However, the button mappings were wrong, so I had to manually configure the buttons on the Input configuration when the Unity game started. Plus, I had to watch out for some actions that were mapped to multiple buttons, such as Jump and Submit triggering on the same or different buttons. The third display on the table was just a laptop that showed screenshots from games.

On the other table, we had one television connected to an XBox One, one monitor connected to an Intel compute stick, and handouts. Dylan gave me instructions for setting up the Intel compute stick, and I got everything running except for the game, which later he figured out was due to me using the wrong power adapter. Apparently the one that I connected didn’t give the Intel compute stick enough power to run the game. We also setup a tray for another monitor running on Jacob’s laptop. I stacked up some of the storage boxes for a monitor connected to my portable Raspberry Pi arcade box, which ran a simple Honey Bear game that I created in Scratch. I thought it was a good example for how beginners can learn to program. The only problem was that the Raspberry Pi would go to sleep about every 10 minutes, so I had to periodically tap the joystick. The XBox One would also go to standby, but I was eventually able to dig around in the menus to find the settings to keep it from doing that. The obvious monitor idle setting wasn’t enough, and there was another app idle setting that had to be changed.

I tried to come prepared by bringing scotch tape, scissors, sharpie markers, a pen, and other supplies. One of the televisions was new, so one thing I didn’t anticipate was needing a phillips head screwdriver to put the legs on the bottom. Luckily, I asked around and someone let me borrow one. I also let other booths borrow supplies like the scotch tape. I also brought sheets to cover up our displays at the end of the day.

While setting up, the power unexpectedly went out. I contacted the event coordinators and they traced it down to the plugs being loose on the main power switch. The booth had an outlet on a plug with three plugins. I believe we had four power strips and two extension cords, so we had power coverage for the entire booth.

We had many games for people to play in our booth. Kitty’s Adventure seemed to be popular with kids. The biggest problem was that I needed to manually restart the game after someone had finished playing, since the level difficulty increased with bigger mazes as the game progressed. New players should start back at the beginning. I’ve heard others talk about having a “convention mode”, which offers a smaller sampling of the game with the ability to easily reset. Dylan had his Knox Runner game on display, which was our only multiplayer game. He also had three kindle tablets with his Retrofuture, Shifty Shapes, and One Card Hero games. You can read more about his Kindle Fire setup on his site. Joe from DoubleSquare had a laptop showing off screenshots and videos of his games, as well as a playable Khufu’s Delivery Service on a tablet. Jacob had Lost Signal, a game that he created for Ludum Dare, on display and was playable by keyboard. I also had Turn Back the Clocks 4, which people seemed to like once they understood the rules. Amish Brothers was on a monitor on the first day, but I changed it to Easter Egg Hunt on the second day, since I think is a more polished game.

One thing I thought was helpful was putting printed names of the games on top of each of the monitors, because that would have been the first thing that people would have asked. Plus, it lets the other spectators see the name of the games being played, without us having to tell them.

The most popular handout was the brochure. I liked them because it had all of our regular members, links to their websites, and some of their games listed. It was one thing that I could give to somebody that had all of our information. The individual business cards were nice, but may be a little too much when we have four separate developers. My stickers were also somewhat popular, but it seems really hard to get rid of the magnets. I’m not sure if people just don’t understand what they are or if the magnets are just inconvenient to carry. Most people have space on their refrigerators for magnets, so I thought they would be more popular.

The biggest misconception that most people seemed to have was that our booth was for one company or game studio. We had to keep telling people that we were each individual developers, and the booth was for our community group. Most people seemed to be supportive, and I heard “did you make these games yourself” a few times. I think the biggest thing we were going for with our booth was the awareness of our group, and there are game developers in Knoxville. People seem to be supportive of things that are locally created. Another issue that some people had was not knowing that they were allowed to play the games. The controllers seemed to be placed openly, and I don’t know if making a sign that says “feel free to play our games” would help at all.

We met quite a few people at our booth. Zane Everett from the Atlanta IGDA came up from Georgia to see the Knoxville Gaming Convention. He recommended that we check out SeigeCon in Atlanta in a few months, which sounds like a mini GDC in the Southeast. I also believe some of the members of KnoxDevs stopped by since I posted about it on their Slack group.

The overall area for the gaming part of the convention was relatively small, but we were close to the main stage which did bring lots of foot traffic when events started and ended. This was supposed to be a preview for a future gaming convention, so we are definitely looking forward to doing it again. Aside from us, LevelUp games had retro games to play, Token Game Taven had arcades and pinball machines, ExtraLife had a live stream setup, and there was laser tag information. There was also a few cornhole setups to play or purchase, and large jenga blocks that frequently crashed which was unsettling at first, but I seemed to habituate to it after a while.

We were all fans of Wild Bill’s root beer, which gave unlimited root beer refills if you paid for one of the collector mugs. There was about ten different kinds of root beer to choose from, including original, vanilla, grape, orange, and six shooter. I will admit that it was a lot more sugar that I am usually accustomed to consuming for two days.

Shutdown was fairly hectic, since we were ready to get out of there after being there for 15 hours over two days. We were able to get everything boxed up fairly quickly, but carrying everything out was exhausting. They offered to cart everything out for us, but we would have been one of the last ones to leave. Unfortunately, I wasn’t allowed to park next to the entrance, but I did eventually manage to get a spot a little closer with my vendor badge.

May 30, 2015January 20, 2021

Indie Game Booth Analysis

Yesterday, I attended the Momocon anime, comic, and gaming convention at the World Congress Center in Atlanta, Georgia. The convention was well organized and executed for the most part, and I can honestly say that it was a more worthwhile experience than DragonCon (also in Atlanta) for me, coming from a gaming and developer background. While DragonCon focuses on everything Sci-Fi and Fantasy, ranging from Star Wars to Lord of the Rings, Momocon has a leaning towards all things Japanese and Otaku in nature.

I mostly attended the video gaming related sessions. The first one I stepped into was Localization of Games presented by Sam Mullen, the Localization producer for Sega of America. His presentation shed light on many topics relating to translating Japanese games so that they can be brought to American markets. This covered the process of working with hired translators, incorporating translated text in a game, managing the schedule to account for translation times, and analyzing the outcome scenarios when releasing a game. He also addressed questions about whether to remain true to the idiosyncrasies of Japanese culture or Americanize the game so that it is more familiar to the American audience.

Another panel that I attended was “Breaking Into the Game Industry”. I was really disappointed that this was mostly about writing resumes and interviews. I was expecting a session on how to pitch your game to publishers, how to setup a gaming business, how to market your game, and other things like that. Later in the day, I attended the Senran Kagura Panel. While that session was really humorous, it really didn’t go into depth of the game’s development aside from the backstory of the designer Kenichiro Takaki and the design of the characters. I also wanted to attend “One Man’s Journey Through Animation”, which was presented by Ke Jiang who worked on the PS3 game Journey. Unfortunately, I was eating lunch during the start of that session and it was already over by the time that I had arrived.

One of the main reasons why I made the trip to Atlanta was to see the Indie game booths at Momocon. I submitted one of my games for the Indie Game showcase, but unfortunately it was not selected. Disappointingly, there was no visible mention of the Indie game showcase, but maybe they are presenting the winners at another time (I only attended on Friday). There were about ten indie game booths on display which wasn’t bad, but it really paled in comparison to the comic and anime booths. A considerable amount of space was also given to table-top gaming, LAN parties, and other competitive gaming.

Momocon Indie Games — Me entering the Indie Games portion of the Momocon convention floor

The first games that I saw had playable demos on small screens and laptops. I didn’t see anyone playing the laptop games. It just seems sort of weird to sit down and start playing on a laptop that isn’t your own. One laptop with nobody playing isn’t horrible, but when you have four empty computers sitting there it sort of gives the impression that there’s something wrong with your game. I would recommend just having your game on one system, and if you draw a crowd, then you can always setup additional systems as needed later. Having too many systems also makes the booth look cluttered.

One problem I saw with many booths was putting a picture of a controller with the button commands on a poster. That is about as bad as old Playstation 1 games that would display a controller with the commands during a loading screen. If the controls are not intuitive, then control hints should be provided in the game.

This game was very popular and had an impressive display. I could immediately see from one of their posters that the game was a cross between pinball and RPG. I really liked the scroll banners, which were displayed at most of the indie game booths. A quick search on the Staples website shows that you can have these custom banners made for as little as $40 and up to $70 for the larger sized banners.

This game was displayed with a projector onto a screen. Subconsciously, I think our brains try to convince us that things that are displayed on bigger screens are better, just based on the larger display. After all, in these days of HD and 4K television displays, people still go to the movie theater to get that “big screen” experience.

For this game, I liked that they had signs offering Steam codes at a discount for those who wanted them. It gives the player an incentive to buy the game there at the convention. Most players will probably not even remember the name of your game when they get home, just because people are bombarded by so much information on the convention floor. Honestly, I can’t remember the name of a single game that I saw, but I do remember the mechanics and look and feel of each of the games. This team also had other goodies like T-Shirts for sale promoting their game which is another good way to promote your game.

This was another popular indie game booth. One of the team members approached me and gave me a business card with their information. I think a critical part to running a booth is interacting with the onlookers, even if they are just casually passing by your booth. I would definitely recommend greeting everyone, because you never know who could be a potential customer.

This game definitely didn’t get any love while I was there. I played it for about a minute, but couldn’t get past the first set of spikes due to a very tricky jump. A game demo should make the player want to continue playing and not frusterate the player. The other problem was that there wasn’t any team members running the booth. To be fair, the people running the booth may have went to lunch or on a restroom break. However, if I was paying $350 for a booth on the convention floor, I would want someone there at all times.

I liked the booths that had a company logo or game art on the front of their table. It just makes the booth look more interesting than just having a plain cloth over the table. I would keep the swag giveaways simple to just one or two items. Having ten different giveways makes your table look like a kid’s toybox.

This shooter seemed to be popular with players. However, you can barely see the name of the game on the display on top of the screen. It would also be nice if there was some indication of which platforms the game will be released. Is it PC only? Is it coming to Steam? Will it be on the Playstation 4 or XBox One consoles?

I talked to the developer of this game for a few minutes. He was friendly and did a good job of describing his game and answering my questions. The Greenlight display on the banner is a nice touch, so players will know to vote for the game if they want it on Steam. The graphics looked simple, but it had some very unique mechanics of jumping from planet to planet in a Super Mario Galaxy style, but in 2D.

When I came back to this game, activity had picked up quite a bit with multiplayer games in progress. A live multi-player demo definitely sells the party atmosphere aspect of your game. However, the demo should also contain a single player mode just for those gamers on the floor by themselves. From the banner that I saw earlier, I never would have known that this was a puzzle game, which made me think that the banner was for the booth adjacent to it.

This display was definitely unique, with a computer on a small train running on a track. One of the posters advertised this as the fastest computer in the world, moving at something like 0.3 miles per hour. Of course, fastest in their definition is distance over time instead of computations per second. Pretty lights are always a nice touch, but I didn’t understand the point of the bottles. Are they running a concession stand from their game booth? I could also never tell which game this was actually promoting. It really reminded me of 90’s beer commercials, where the entire advertisement would have nothing at all to do with the actual product.

This was another shooter which had nice graphics, but there wasn’t anything that really compelled me to play the game. I’ll give them credit for having a consistent and professional looking theme. I would have had the game’s name displayed on a poster above or next to the screen, because as you can see in the picture bystanders can block the banner art. The people who designed the original arcade cabinets put the name of the game in the front of the cabinet above the player’s head for a reason.

While some may think that business cards are outdated, I think they are essential for a successful booth. I talked with one of the developers, and asked if he had a Twitter account or website so I can find out more about his game. Since he had a business card, I didn’t have to hand him my phone to enter it. Also, please don’t write down your website URL with a pen on a sheet of paper, especially if it is something like www.geocities.com/Neighborhoods/SiliconValley/mycoolgame.html. These are the two cards that I received from developers at the show, which I think are good examples. Keep the amount of information on the card simple, with just your name, email, Twitter handle, and website.

I liked the simplicity of this booth. Just show the name of the game, because that’s what you want people to remember. The colorful floormat and game art on the front of the booth also help it stand out from the others.

I liked this display for what appears to be a gaming movie, but there wasn’t anyone there to tell me more about the movie. Is it an indie movie? Will it be released in theaters or digital only? This display just seemed like an orphaned child sitting in the corner alone.

Two other booths, not pictured here, did not have playable demos. Personally, I think it is almost essential that you have a working demo in order to be taken seriously. One booth had a screen showing people playing their game. Honestly, I did like seeing the recorded player reactions as they were playing the game. However, it was impossible to tell if those emotions were genuine since there was no playable game to try for myself. The other booth just had a pre-rendered animation sequence that was kept on a loop. It really didn’t tell me what the game was about or why I should be interested in it.

In conclusion, I will admit that I’ve never run a booth before aside from helping at the Georgia Tech booth in a high school college drive years ago. I probably can’t appreciate everything that goes into running a booth at this time, but I hope to have a booth at a major convention one day. That’s one of the reasons why I wrote this post, so I can come back at a later date and remember what I thought did and didn’t work at indie game booths from the perspective of a regular attendee on the convention floor.