In early April Cabs of Chaos was accepted into the Vancouver Game Garden Showcase. A free 2-day video game exhibition here in downtown Vancouver.
Prepping For The Show
At the time, I had about half of the art-pass for the map complete (meaning that it wasn't fully playable yet, and no-steam page!) - so I was working meticulously to get that solved before the end of the month.
For personal reasons, I also wanted to make sure that the game felt fresh after having the same cast of characters available for almost two years!
So, I decide to debut a new character (and game-mode) for game garden. Which resulted in a brand new character for the game "Grandma Jean!". She's a short, sweet Scottish lady who is here to deliver passengers and give out shortbread (and she's all out of shortbread!)
The working title for the new game mode is called "Passenger Tag" and unlike the main battle mode, the goal of Passenger tag is to not have the passenger. So, players must pass the passenger off to each other in order to be able to earn money and score.
(We actually didn't get a lot of opportunity to showcase this mode though as so many folks were enthused by the Battle mode that it tended to get the main share of the spotlight! So, I just want you to know that the game is going to ship with a lot of different game modes that mix up the mechanics - I'm aiming for about 10 right now, but that might scale up as things continue).
Our Set Up
We arrived on the night before the event to set-up for the show and make sure everything worked okay. Here's what it looked like:
I wanted to make sure the split-screen capabilities were shown in their best light, and having four people crowded and squinting around a 21" monitor wouldn't be ideal - so I opted to lug a huge 55" TV across Vancouver for the event. I think it was a solid choice though, because it also meant folks could see the game from across the room (never a bad thing!)
This was the first ever public play-test for the game and the first time anyone outside close friends or family have had their hands on it, and thankfully it mostly held up! We ran into a couple of bugs and out-of-bounds issues in the first day, but I patched those up overnight and day two went much more smoothly for folks.
We ended up with a constant stream of people coming over to play with their friends and repeatedly have folks watching and cheering on players as they chased each other around the downtown map trying to steal the passenger from the other players.
(When it's the first time exposing your game to real players, you never know how they're going to respond and so I was honestly anxious and apprehensive to put it in the hands of people. I really wasn't that sure if anyone would play the game or even enjoy it!)
The reception of the game really helped me confirm that this is something folks want to play and enjoy. So, I'm incredibly excited to keep working on the game and get it in the hands of more players!
I want to say a huge thanks to everyone at Game Garden for putting on such an awesome event, and hello to any new folks who are now keeping an eager eye on the game after the show! Thank you for taking an interest in it, and be sure to wishlist the game if you haven't already as it'll let Steam know people are interested, and show it off to more potential players.
Over the next few months, I'm going to be working on a lot more content for the game and hopefully opening up the playtesting -- which I'll be announcing here.
So, watch this space!
- Matt