Hi everyone!
PAX East was a weekend to remember for the Blindspot Games team. It was our first ever gaming convention where we got to showcase The Hexadome!
Before we dive in, we want to take a moment to thank the Blindspot Games team for their hard work in making our first gaming convention a success. From those who were behind the scenes, working away on creating an engaging build to those who were able to attend the convention in person, you guys are a dream team! Thank you, thank you!
And of course, we want to thank all of the amazing people that stopped by our booth to play The Hexadome. From players, to press and influencers, seeing your excitement truly warmed our hearts and made us feel hyped to head back to the office and make our game even greater.
Here’s a recap of our week-long adventures at PAX East!
DAY 1 – The Drive
On your mark, get set, GO! The Blindspot team met at the Montreal office, filled up our two cars with equipment and suitcases, and headed to USA.
We drove 5 hours from Montreal to Boston, admiring the Vermont trees and mountains. To fight sleep and boredom, we decided to play the license plate game and noted down how much different plates we saw from every state. In the second car, they did a game jam, pitching ideas for our next game. Some were…. Interesting.
After a quick stop at Applebee’s, we finally arrived in Boston!
At our Airbnb, we got to see our new key art banner and our vertical banners for the first time. We had no idea what it would look like, as we received them at the very last minute (rookie mistake) but we were so happy with the results!
Right before we left for PAX, we purchased some t-shirts online, but they honestly didn’t meet up to our standards. Luckily, our UI/UX designer, Mary, had a Cricut machine and worked her magic to create an amazing t-shirt for the team.
After a long day, we got some rest for the next day.
DAY 2 – The Set Up
Time to build our booth! After getting lost while looking for parking, we finally arrived at the Boston Convention Center. We picked up our badges and unloaded our cars to Booth 18102.
Before we started, we knew that we wanted to capture this moment for our socials. We set up a go-pro for our timelapse and got to work! We had to DIY so many parts, from creating a clothesline and attaching our big banner with zip-ties, to cutting the rope and covering it.
While mounting the TV setup, we actually broke a PC. The side of it was glass and it just shattered instantly. Luckily, we had a spare laptop that we hid under our booth table.
For décor, we placed our business cards (with beta codes on the back), pins, character sheets, and our contest info.
We noticed that we were missing some cool lighting – so we headed over to Target & Best Buy to get some new lights .
The day ended with creating more The Hexadome t-shirts (thanks to Mary and her Cricut)! After a few hours of peeling the stickers, we made 12 t-shirts for the team!
DAY 3 – First PAX Day
After another morning of experiencing Boston traffic, we arrived at the booth – caffeinated and ready for the crowd!
Our first day started off a bit slow, but we think it’s because people immediately went to demo the big studios and to buy their merch before it sells out. (Which we should have done too. Lesson for future us: don’t wait until the last day to go buy merch!).
After the first couple of hours, our booth was full! This was the moment we’d been waiting for! People were playing our game in front of us and we could see how they’d strategically playthrough our tutorial, master the mechanics, and challenge themselves in our contest. For our contest, if a player finished our set of challenges, one person a day won a free key to the game and became a member of our VIP discord group where they’d get future updates first and play with the devs!
Since our tutorial was on average 20 minutes long, so some people didn’t have time to wait. Luckily, we were distributing business cards with beta codes on the back, so they can play the game from April 4th to 9th.
Outside of the players support, we were very lucky to be near some other incredible indie devs. We even had ‘Just Shapes & Beats’ set up in front of our booth, so the team would dance off our tiredness to some Mortal Kombat music.
After PAX was closed, we took that time to set up our new lights around the tables. And we chose the perfect shade of blue and orange to fit with the Hexadome brand.
During our lunchbreak, we went through the tabletop section and got a social drinking card game called ‘Frenemies’. Definitely a fun game to play with colleagues where you REALLY get to know them. We had many good laughs, bro dot com (if you know, you know)!
We finished the day by contacting our 1st PAX Contest Winner @Gradyth!
DAY 4 – Second PAX Day
Friday’s crowd was busier! As we continued to dance to the Mortal Kombat music, we also got to explore other indie games and purchase some merch.
After our first day, we got into a routine of how we pitched our game to people coming by. Our TV was set up in front of our booth, replaying our latest Stream, so once we noticed someone was interested, we’d approach them, and they were hooked by our hex grid arena and our visuals. As soon as we mentioned that the game has XCOM meets Overwatch vibes, we could see the interest grow!
Even when we got back to the Airbnb, we kept working. From capturing new screenshots for our PR kits, to editing a “Day in the Life” Tik Tok, to tweaking our builds, it was a non-stop work day for the Blindspot team. We prepared for tomorrow – the biggest crowd day!
Our 2nd PAX Contest Winner was @Tehwadesta!
DAY 5 – Third PAX Day
We were preparing all week for Saturday – the tickets had been sold out for weeks, so it was definitely the biggest crowd!
Right before it opened, we headed over to Staples to print big QR codes and stuck them to our vertical banners. We noticed that our QR code was quite small, so this was definitely a useful item for us to draw in people’s interest.
By the time the crowd was let inside, we already had 2 people run over at 10am on the dot. It was such a heartwarming feeling to see that people wanted to play our demo first – on the busiest day!
Throughout the day, our 4 computers were constantly full. We even had a line going, where we kept chatting with the players and showing them our Champion sheets, which highlighted their unique abilities.
After 8 hours of non-stop pitches, we arrived back to our Airbnb for a nice rest!
Our 3rd PAX Contest winner was @King218
DAY 6 – Last PAX Day
All good things must come to an end! Sunday was our last PAX day (big sad)!
On our last day, we kept dancing to Mortal Kombat, giving out beta codes, and would continue to watch our players go through our tutorial and contest. A highlight from that day was definitely seeing a group of friends put their heads together to complete the challenges of the contest. It was awesome to hear them talk out their strategies and figure out how to solve the challenges.
At 6pm, there was a final announcement that PAX East was officially over! The enforcers came and escorted the remaining players out of the convention center.
As we packed up our booth, we filmed a few Tik Toks of “we’re game devs, of course we…”. It was really fun coming up with creative ideas and it ended up being a hilarious video!
With our 2 cars loaded up with computers, TV mounts, banners, and the remainder of our merch, we went back to our Airbnb and celebrated a job well done.
Our final PAX Contest winner was @shadowdragon654
DAY 7 – On the road again
Time to go home! We left Boston with our heads up high and our cars loaded to the brim. Even though our feet were hurting, backs were aching, and we were sleep-deprived, it was an incredible and fulfilling weekend!
We found a sushi restaurant, played the mobile game ‘Wavelength’, and got our last dose of Dunkin Donuts before crossing the US border.
After a 5 hour drive, we’re back in the Montreal office! We unloaded our items, placed a PAX t-shirt to everyone in the studio, and the 6 happy indie devs went home!
Final Thoughts:
Overall, it was a week to remember!! Thank you again to the Blindspot Games team and to the amazing players that came by our booth.
We’ve got lots of exciting news coming up in the next week! Our beta playtest will be taking place from April 4th to the 9th, and we’re participating in Turn Based Thursday Fest at the same time (April 4th to 8th). To register for the closed beta playtest, head to our Steam page, scroll down to “Join The Hexadome: Playtest” and click on “Request Access”. Remember to share the news with friends you’d like to play with: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1498550?utm_source=steam&utm_content=devblog
Want to stay in the loop on the latest developments? Be sure to join our Discord, Wishlist The Hexadome on Steam, and follow us on Twitter, Tik Tok and Facebook for exclusive sneak peeks, playtest updates, and exciting news!