Chapter Clear: Enoch Pratt Indie Game Fest
The Advent booth in all its glory!
Doug here, sharing another event write-up (this was actually supposed to be July’s blog, but I ended up posting it too late)! Towards the end of June, we set up for a public demo at the Enoch Pratt Indie Game Fest in Baltimore, MD! In this post, we'll share our experience from the event!
A few months ago, we were contacted by a fellow local game dev to see if we'd be interested in demoing Advent of the Reaper at a Baltimore library's first "Indie Game Fest"! Public events are one of the absolute best ways for us to get feedback from prospective players, so how could be say no!? After submitting and being accepted into the event, the excitement began!
Preparation Panic!
The dining room table was transformed into the playtest area ahead of the show!
The days leading up to a show are always a little nervewracking. Have we sufficiently tested any of the new code changes? We wouldn't have internet, and none of the programmers would be on-site, so whatever build(s) we brought with us to the event were what people were going to play! Do we have all of the necessary equipment for the booth? Turns out I have left the controllers and audio headsets with Lucas back in Wisconsin from the Midwest Gaming Classic (we got them back just in time)! On top of that, I bought some new storage containers to more easily transport all of our stuff from the car to the venue, made some additional marketing materials, picked out a few trinkets to give us some additional Reaper-y ambiance at the table, et cetera - it feels like you can never overprepare for a public show!
One issue we had to accept and be ready for was a clear bug that there wasn't time to fix before the show. If any units of the Player Party died during the second level, when(/if) they cleared the level, the Visual Novel scene that plays afterwards would break, as the engine tried to find associated player character objects that were no longer present on the map! Under the hood, we were too strongly linking a "highly interactive" game state - the combat map - with a "less interactive" game state - the Visual Novel scenes. Rest assured, we've since safely decoupled these issues and things now work as intended! We approached this at the show with a little description of the issue at the player's seats, as well as warning them in-person when we saw them begin the second chapter! Most players were extremely understanding of our bugs, enjoying our warning that the game was unintentionally on extra-hard mode if they wanted to be able to get the closing cutscene.
Location, Location, Location
The amazing Enoch Pratt Library’s Central Branch (Images from the library website!)
The Indie Game Fest was being held in Baltimore, Maryland, at the Enoch Pratt Public Library's Central Branch. I had never been here before, but this was a gorgeous library! The Indie Devs were set up in a massive entry plaza area just beyond the library's main entrance, with more than enough space for us to move around and behind our table as needed. A huge shout-out to Jake and Emily from the library staff, who were the lead organizers for the event and made us feel welcome and accomodated throughout the experience! We arrived shortly after 10 AM to set up for the event, which was set to officially run from 11 AM to 4 PM! Although it was pure chance, we also had an excellent location, with our table facing the entrance to the library and easily in the line of sight of incoming foot traffic.
Curtains Up!
Look at all those strategists crowding around to check out the game!
As the library and event opened to the public, curious folks started to float through. Ironically, our very first player was a library employee who broke part of the game and caused the map to not load in the first level. We still don't know what happened - we couldn't reproduce the behavior he triggered! After a brief wave of panic, we quickly relaunched the game, and things proceeded smoothly from there (we have our suspicions about what happened, but no one else seemed to encounter the issue that plagued the very first run)! While there were certainly some "normal" library traffic that had no idea the event was going on, there was a fantastic turnout for an event of this size. We were told the library was hoping to draw in about 200 people specifically for this event, and it's my understanding they hit that number before the event was even halfway over! I'd also like to take this time to offer a huge thanks to my good friend Dexter for coming with me to set up and run the booth! My wife Lisa (who is also Advent's awesome character designer) was also able to roll through for a couple hours to chat with players!
We had so many wonderful conversations with players of all backgrounds and interests, from the hardcore Tactics RPG enthusiasts, to aspiring video game development students, to folks who had never tried a game from this genre before. Now that we had more of a demo "experience" prepared for players, I noticed a marked change in the type of feedback we received throughout the day, all of which we appreciated so much! The feedback was overwhelmingly positive, continuing to boost our excitement about continuing our hard work on the game!
Whereas in previous shows we were sort of slinging whatever we could get done onscreen for the player, this show had a more complete demo “product” containing a carefully crafted basic tutorial level, followed by a significantly harder second level, capped off by - for those who succeeded - a “Thanks for Playing!” screen after the second level’s ending cutscene that eventually returned them to the title screen. I believe this led players to take the game a little more seriously than in our previous shows, and as I mentioned, I noticed a shift in the sort of feedback we received. Players had a real taste of what we are aiming for with Advent of the Reaper, and their feedback reflected that. We got a ton of questions about content, mechanics, and quality-of-life aspects players either expect, or are looking forward to, in this genre. I am pleased that we were able to assure players that in many cases we were well aware of their thoughts and suggestions, with many things already on the development checklist.
What's Next?
We are continuing development behind the scenes as we prepare to submit Advent to Super MAGfest 2025 in the coming weeks. Next month's blog is planning to focus on the many updates we've made to the game! As far as events go, the Advent team will be showing off the demo October 11th, 12th, and 13th at RetroGameCon in Syracuse, New York! This show has been growing and expanded from two to three days long for the first time this year! If you're in the greater Syracuse area, please consider putting it on your calendar, saying hello, and giving the latest Advent of the Reaper demo a try yourself!
