HELLO AGAIN!
It's been a little while, hasn't it? We've been very busy, I promise!
We've been away these last couple of weeks attending to extremely important business. And by that, I mean traipsing off to the distant lands of Germany to give journalists a sneak preview of Leximan!
But it's not all work and no play. Our trip was quite an adventure, and one we thought you might be interested in reading about.
Once again, I'm Max, the programmer behind the magic, and I'm going to tell you a tale of undersea trains, exotic delicacies, and giant robots.
BEFORE THE ADVENTURE
As a team of three buffoons, we are incomplete without everyone here... So we convened the day before for a night of...
...Tabletop! Our studio got its start playing D&D, so it was only right that we played a quick one-shot. This time, Chris printed and painted a bunch of miniatures for a brief adventure in our homebrewed, over-the-top, anime-inspired sci-fi setting, Zenithal! We explored a derelict space station in search of a mysterious, magical artefact - but it turned out that we weren't the only ones after it! (More on that in another post...?)
...And ramen! I couldn't go without mentioning the absolute feast that Jake cooked up from scratch that night. Broiled pork belly and egg noodles in a tangy chicken-soy broth, served with Korean-style fried chicken and a whole array of toppings! It was enough to make CHEF himself proud...
THE TRAINS
Travelling on trains in the UK is always an adventure, for better or worse. Even more so when you take one that travels at 200mph right under the Atlantic Ocean! We crossed three different borders, passing from the UK into France, then into Belgium and finally Germany.
We met with our lovely publishers in London, who thankfully guided us through the enigmatic twists and turns of the travel system.
A brief stop in Brussels lead us to seeking out an authentic Belgian waffle. We were not disappointed! Though, the guy did laugh at me for ordering fries with it... :')
Before we knew it, we had arrived in...!
...Köln, Germany! (We call it Cologne in English, I'm not sure why!) Having never been to Germany before, we were really interested to see what it was like. Having taken it upon myself to try lots of German food before I left, I was more than happy to spot an abundance of places selling currywurst and pretzels right around the station!
GAMESCOM
The next day, up bright and early, we finally found ourselves at the event itself. This was... Gamescom!
Not only was it our first time in Germany, but it was our first time at a convention this big. The scale really blew us away! Thousands upon thousands of people, and so many games it'd take weeks to play them all!
We took some time to explore, checking out as many booths, games, and merch vendors as we could!
I couldn't stop myself from buying a Gunpla set... I'd always wondered what it was like to build one! (I bought one for Jake too so we could build them together when we got home.)
I hope you appreciate my taste in giant robots :>
We met a whole load of awesome devs walking around and talking to people at Gamescom, including one of the Dwarf Fortress brothers, and one of the Lisa: Complete Edition devs! We really hit it off with another Marvelous dev called Shawn from BattleBrew Productions. When we heard he was working on a cooking-based roguelite we knew we had to drop by!
We ended up hanging out with Shawn a whole lot over the course of Gamescom. His game, Cuisineer, really is something special! Give it a shot if you like that sort of thing... As someone that can't get enough of over-the-top delicious-looking food in games, well-... Let's just say, maybe don't check it out if you're hungry late at night.
THE BUSINESS STUFF
All of this might sound like a big ol' holiday so far, but actually we spent most of our time in the super-secret business zone at Gamescom. You needed a special pass to get in, and it's where everyone in the industry goes for meetings and presentations and all that jazz.
The media lounge here was our home camp throughout. It's a good thing that our publisher, Marvelous, sorted this out for us... Because they served free food and drinks all the way through!
We couldn't go without leaving behind a little bit of Leximan ourselves, though...
Back in our own little nook of the business zone, we would give interviews and demos of Leximan to all of the journalists that wanted to come and hear about it. I was pretty intimidated when I heard we had to do all of this! As it turned out, though, it was all very relaxed and everyone was very nice and was just happy to see the game.
Here's Chris with Alex Hopley from GameReactor, giving him the rundown while he plays a new, secret, unreleased portion of the game... 🤫 He ended up having a whole lot of good things to say about Leximan!
THE AFTERMATH
And that's about that! Gamescom was loud, busy, exhausting, amazing, awesome and wholesome all in equal parts. By the end of it I was left with a strange feeling... I was glad I could go home, but at the same time I'm super excited for the next one!
Jake and I built our Gundams when we got home... And it was just as awesome as I'd hoped it was! I sense impending doom for our wallets...
And that wraps up our trip to Gamescom 2023!
I hope you enjoyed reading about the misadventures of the wizards that make Leximan. If you liked it, I'll try and write more! Make sure to drop a comment below (I read all of them!)
Until next time!
- Programancer Max ✨
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2017200/Leximan/