GDC 2016 In The Can
Mar 22, 2016
This was an odd GDC for me. I spent most of it in a hotel room giving demos of Thimbleweed Park to the press. Eight to ten each day for four days, with the fifth day being locked in a warehouse giving demos to the press on the Xbox One.
Ah... the glamour of the game business.
Here is a recap of some of the press:
Rock Paper Shotgun
US Gamer
Pocket Gamer
The Verge
XBox News
PC World
So how did all this happen?
Several months ago, we had the idea that we'd put on a party at GDC and invite industry friends and others and have an open house day where anyone could come by and play the game. It seemed like a great idea when GDC was several months away. It's easy to dream when reality is too far to muck it all up.
As GDC got closer, we realized how massive this undertaking would be. Everyone was busy, you know, actually working on the game, and finding space and organizing this was slowly turning into a chore. This was further complicated by looking at the cost of everything.
We knew we wanted to show the game at GDC. It's a great opportunity and a lot of press are there already, so it seemed perfect. What wasn't going to work was a party with all-you-can-eat shrimp and an open bar. I also suck at throwing parties. No one ever shows up. I was losing sleep over this.
So we decided that doing private press demos was probably a more realistic idea, and we could get away with a platter of frozen shrimp from Costco.
We were planning on doing a new trailer and figured it would be the perfect lead up to GDC, so the first step was to get that moving. I'll do a full blog post next week on what it took to get the trailer made, so let's just enjoy some montage music for the next few seconds and assume a trailer got made.
Once the trailer was done and released, we started booking press appointments. I've known Emily Morganti for many years and worked with her on Scurvy Scallywags, and the good news is she's amazingly good at PR. The bad news is she's amazing good at PR. In just a few days, she had filled our five days at GDC with press appointments. It was clear to me I wasn't going to be attending any of the talks at GDC.
We booked a slightly larger hotel room than planned and figured we'd do all the demos there. Demoing on the show floor is noisy and chaotic. If we were going to do this all day long, at least it would be quiet.
We got a room at the Marriott, which is across the street from GDC so press wouldn't have to walk too far. Press are notorious for being late and missing appointments if they are hard to get to. In the end, only one appointment was missed and no one showed up more than 10 minutes late, so I guess the plan worked.
The next step was to figure out if we were going to make anything fun to give away. After batting a bunch of ideas around, we settled on t-shirts and mouse pads. These were also generic and fun enough to be able to give away in a lot of situations. We wanted these t-shirts to be different from the backer t-shirts. It was important the backer t-shirts felt unique and special.
We ordered these great vertical banners of Ray and Reyes to decorate the room. The banners were fairly cheap and a good investment since we can use them at PAX East, not to mention countless other events we'll get sucked into.
But wait, the fun isn't over yet.
The next grueling step is the demo itself. You can't just boot up the game and start playing. We needed a section of the game that shows it off well and hits all the places and points we we want to highlight.
Demoing adventure games is hard. They are generally slow paced and much of the enjoyment comes from exploration and the enjoyment of a nice conversation. These are all things that are death in a demo environment.
When Emily came on, I got her a build of the game and she played it for a while, looking for sections that might show better than others. When you're building something, you often aren't the best person to pick out the good nuggets. We become too close to our creations and are often fixated on unimportant things for unrelated reasons. A neutral eye can be best.
Emily suggested showing the very beginning to get to know the UI and the agents, then skipping ahead and triggering the Ransome flashback. The demoer would play until the flashback, then the demoee would take over (if they wanted). This would provide a nice 30 minute demo, leaving time for questions and awkward shrimp eating.
That all sounded like a great plan, but we'd need to change the code to lock off sections we didn't want prying eyes to peer into. This demo was going to be shown at the Microsoft event using only a controller, so we also needed a way to restart and end the demo without a keyboard. None of this is rocket science, but it all takes time to code and test. The demos in the hotel room were going to be done from my Mac, but the ones at the Microsoft event were going to be done from Windows and we needed to make sure the Windows build was solid.
There was a bunch of art tasks that had previously been moved to the polish phase and all that needed to be done sooner than expected, so Gary and the art team hurriedly polished that into shape. There was more than we could do, so we left some of it unfinished and we'd just talk around it.
Now imagine there is more montage music as we fly to San Francisco for GDC.
We got there on Saturday, which gave us a few days to set up and visit Smuggler's Cove, the most amazing pirate bar in the world. I'm pretty sure pirates drank rum through long tiki straws.
Although we had a nice demo planned, we had never actually given it to anyone that didn't already know the game inside and out. We found a couple of ex-press friends and got them to show up on Sunday for trial-demos and shrimp tasting. We got some good feedback from both of them and felt ready to go.
One of the challenges of promoting Thimbleweed Park is going to be keeping it from being seen as just a "retro 8-bit point and click adventure." It's a lot more than that. We're doing everything we promised on the Kickstarter, but also thinking about the design and how we tell stories using 30 years of learned experience. Not just within ourselves, but how much we all have learned about game design and storytelling. We're doing a lot in the game to help players who might not have grown up with traditional adventure games, at the same time remaining true to the roots and never dumbing down the game or puzzles. It's a tight rope to walk, but it's a key message to get out. We really want Thimbleweed Park to not only quench the thirst of fans of the genre, but introduce new people to the charm of the point and click adventure. We were hoping to use these demos to help get that message out.
Monday morning arrives and we're ready to start. Team Thimbleweed members Gary, David, Jenn and Mark were also going to be there, but we decided to rotate them through so only two team members are there at a time. When demoing it's important not to overwhelm the person you're demoing to. I've seen demos where six teams members and one press person are crammed around the screen. We wanted to keep one-on-one demos as small and intimate as possible, while still giving the press an opportunity to chat with different people.
My primary responsibility was going to be doing the demos with the other person doing color commentary and backup humor if things started to go south.
The demos would start out with a quick recap of the Kickstarter and the project. We'd then give an overview of the story of Ray and Reyes. The game would then start at the dead body by the bridge. We'd walk them through solving a simple puzzle involving taking a picture of the body. This involved some character switching, which provided a good place to talk about multiple playable characters.
With the body photographed, we head into town. At this point the screen went black and the words "Hours of hilarious and riveting gameplay later..." came on screen. We got some good chuckles and a few seconds later, we were in front of the Diner. We'd talk about the UI and some some of the lighting effects as Ray walked in and out of the streetlights.
We'd then headed into the Diner and have a conversation with Sandy, asking about the body. This would be the first time we'd see the dialog system and was a good point to talk about that.
During the conversation with Sandy, she would start talking about the crazy clown who lives out at the abandoned circus and never takes his makeup off. "He's got serial killer written all over him." The screen starts to go wavy as the harp music swells and we enter Ransome the Clown's flashback. I briefly talk about flashbacks and how we use them to introduce the playable characters. I chat about Delores and Franklin and offer to let them play or watch while I play. Almost everyone opted to play.
It took around 15 or 20 minutes to make it through the Ransome flashback with varying degrees of hints along the way. One press person was quite clear they wanted no hints, and it took them longer.
When the flashback was over, the second Thimbleweed Park team member would take over the mouse and just walk around the town and up to the vista while all chatted about the game and answered questions. When the demo was over, they would leave and we'd enjoy 5 minutes of silence before there was another knock at the door.
It was five days of this. It was grueling and it's easy to complain, but we really had nothing to complain about. We were blessed to have that much interest in Thimbleweed Park.
We also learned a lot. It was like watching 30 playtests. Every little crack in the Ransome flashback was now painful and obvious. We ended those five days with a list of small changes to make. A word of dialog here and there to make something clearer. Changing an object's description. Removing the odd few pixels that made something look like something it wasn't.
And now we do it all again for PAX East...
The PAX demo will be slightly different as we get to enjoy the added complexity of it being completely playable by the public. We need to harden the edges and polish the art since we won't always be there to make excuses.
I always forget about how much time is spent when a game gets to this stage. Never underestimate the time you spend getting press or public demos ready to be shown.
I just want to work on the game.
- Ron
Is it possible to buy it somewhere ?
Congrats!
I read all the reviews, Rock Paper Shotgun is my fav. Also XBox news is nice as well. Reading the reviews makes me more excited about that game, if that's even possible!
Any chance we could buy those t-shirts?
I'm curious: is this the *new* way of promoting games, or did you do these press junkets back in the days for LF as well? Ron, you said in an earlier comment/post that "building it and they will come" would be naive at best - but back then it felt so. LF was "just releasing games" and everyone magically noticed, magazines picket it up, etc... So, did you or anyone from the team do press (like at GDC) for MM, MI, Indy and such?
BTW: when the guy in the video said: ".. so that describes your audience, old guys.." I thought: WTF!! I'm not (that) old!! Mh, played Monkey 1 when I was eleven or so... Thanks guys for making the game, and for taking such deep hits during press without batting an eyelid.
Irony doesn't seem to work, on TV and in comments. :) But really, I didn't meant my comment as an offense. I know that situation: you meet one of your idols, and the first thing you do is an awkwardly phrased joke, saying something, that's, well, mh.., ambiguous, on second look.. Painful on both ends... Arg!
And really: thanks Jörg for actually sharing this video!
By the way, I never would have thought I'd ever defend Jörg Langer. Though I'm a paying member of his website (for the tests and the nice community), I'm not a huge fan of him on a personal level. He really CAN be a pain in the a... when you don't share his opinion, but in this case it was definitely not intended. :-)
Just see how great it looks on her: https://twitter.com/JennSandercock/status/712317848274612224
"...offer to let them play or watch while I play..."
"Gary and the art team hurriedly polished that into shape..."
"We wanted to keep one-on-one demos as small and intimate as possible..."
"...awkward shrimp eating..."
Reading between the lines, I'm starting to see how this whole press thing works now.
But seriously, amazing job guys, great to see it getting some awesome press coverage!
@GDC, I saw the interview with Jörg Langer. A weird special mood in the room but it seemed to support the vibe of the game with the music playing in the background. It sounded somewhat disappointing being more interested in a 'new' audience though (oh no, not again).
Great blog.
Just sayin'...
-dZ.
"Shut up, Dave" -> "Shut up (slight pause) Dave"
I realize it's not "right", but I don't care. And yes, it will probably get fixed at some point. (sad face)
Here's a good list with how famous writers used incorrect punctuation - http://qwiklit.com/2014/03/05/top-10-authors-who-ignored-the-basic-rules-of-punctuation/
So you're in good company by ignoring the "rules"!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rothenburg_ob_der_Tauber#/media/File:Rothenburg_BW_4.JPG
Which is a city in Germany called "Rothenburg ob der Tauber", is that what you guys used as a reference?
Someone also made this which is pretty funny (During the Day / At Night):
http://ldm.r1-it.storage.cloud.it/img/15/11/10/206_5641c6a5d3d035.40697963.jpg
I'm not sure where that information was obtained however.
I would really appreciate, if could show new screens in a video.
That T-shirt looks really, really good. And I noticed myself laugh a little when I saw the corpse on the bottom.
1. How about calling a coroner so the body hasnt to stay in the water the whole game? Coroner card could be found and agent could call them at the telephone.. Offers new joke abilities.
2. The parallaxing looks awesome.
3. The beeping is funny, most of us gamers know it. BUT not everyone would understand e.g. germans dont beep out. We just say it, as a matter of fact.
But you're right; Germany has Mario Götze, Mario Gomez, etc. Seems to be the name of choice for football (soccer) and video game fame!
For our C64 adventure to be in a presentable state for the GDC 2015 in germany all the “I will figure that out later“ collapsed into a Singularity that lasted three nights straight with latest gfx and sfx coming in in real time...
I see something similar happening this year. Will you be around again Ron so I can undo what I did not do?
I kind of like the lettering on the sign above the monitor in the warehouse. It's similar to the text on the t-shirt. Are you going to use this style for the opening credits of the game, too?
:)=(
I love the atmosphere (fireflies, woods,...)
Does the Finnish Bowling Institute have a ® Trademark? Because this would avoid any problem with the other big FBI - the French Bowling Institute...
Soon as possible. :)
a.
Impossible Mission, Winter Games (and Summer Games!), IK+ and, of course, Maniac Mansion, were unforgettables C64 games!
I think EPYX was one of the most valuable software house at that time!
(because thats easier said than done)
No offense meant! I like to eat shrimps, too. ;)
It was my first GDC ever, flew from Kuwait, and I was thinking "Damn, that's perfect chance to finally meet the designer of my most favorite game..." Shame!
But glad it went well for you.
Best of luck
I have a question about additional Options in case the game's budget extends due to sales beyond the kickstarter ?
There is one thing I would personally really love and this would be a german audio track. I am very happy Boris is doing the translation (yeah!!) - especially therefore I would always play the game in the german localization - but turn off the english audio since this is confusing.
So: Do you think there may be a chance voice recordings for other languages may become a real option?
(If so: it would open up possibilities like casting the german voices for Mulder (Benjamin Völz) and Scully (Franziska Pigulla) as a nice twist ;-))
I am looking forward to the game - thanks y'all for the great work!
Thanks for your answer and have a great day.
Maybe I enjoy the development of this game too much.
Is it available in any way? :)
Those T-Shirts are great!
happy Easter!
A new game?
A difficult-to-build-with-adult-fingers game?
I read with interest (and some concern) the reviews of your developing game. I started with a bit of distaste at the constant allusions to "attracting new audiences" and "a modern take at old school games," etc.
However, as I read on more reviews, a more complex and nuanced picture of your views and motivations arose; one which I had not considered before: that your goal is to make a game the way that we remember them being, not the way they actually were.
I must admit this took me by surprise. As a long-time player of adventure games (and lover of Sierra games as well, sorry!), I tend to re-play my favourite games every few years. When I do, I am invariably aware -- perhaps at some subconscious level -- that the reality of the game is not as subtle, clever, interesting, beautiful, nuanced, etc., as I age and time have built it in my memory. The more I play the games, the more I am reminded how crude they were. I am quick to dismiss or rationalise these notions, as I do not let them ruin my experience of reliving my youth; yet they remain in the back of my head. Those were great games, but they are purely a product of a more innocent time.
To hear you state this notion openly helps me recognise that it is indeed quite true, and shared by others. To hear that your goal is to embrace this and provide an experience that attempts to meet such grandiose expectations built up by old memories, is inspiring.
I've had mixed feelings throughout this entire project: First I was excited at the prospect of a new "old-school" game, then I was disappointed at the distortions to fit some modern sensibility. I can now say I have found new respect for your vision, and I am once again excited about the potential of this project.
Thank you, Mr. Gilbert, for your wonderful effort, your candor, and for staying true to your vision. I very much look forward to playing the final game.
-dZ.