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Only
a couple of weeks
before the conference, our team of Stardust Galaxy Warriors received a letter from the organizers.
We were invited to represent and showcase our game (in its current
state) during the Casual Connect 2015 conference in the "Indie
Prize Europe 2015" section. The offer extended to all seminars,
networking events, meals and programs for two people from our team.
The three-day event took place in the center of Amsterdam at the
iconic building of Beurs Van Berlage between the 3rd and 6th of
February 2015.
Petteri
and me made a quick decision, booked the flights and eventually
started to prepare for
the event. Thanks to the big effort from everyone in our team, we had
quite some cool stuff with us as we arrived in Amsterdam. We had our
"CC special" t-shirts, some badass stickers and flyers to
hand out and even our first character-reveal trailer got rendered in
the last minute. Most importantly though we had a playable build with
four controllers ready for some play testing.
The
table spots were not all random, we were naturally proudly part of
the "Finnish cluster" and as such we made good friends with
the cool guys and fellow devs behind the games like: Pako, Ancestory
and the Masterplan,
just to mention a few.
We
had three
long days of introducing ourselves, explaining our visions to various
visitors at our stand and making folks play our game all the time.
Countless people were passing by at our stand, from game enthusiasts,
through publishers and investors, to fellow developers. We never knew
who is going to come by next. At times, judges would show up to test
the game and get to know our concepts and the team. In this huge
whirl of crowd we have received everything from harsh critique,
loving and nostalgic support to valuable and potential contacts from
all around the world.
The
days were
also packed with programs, speeches and seminars. These sessions were
held by experienced professionals or even young and successful
Start-ups who had something to share with us. The presentations were
categorized into couple of interesting main themes like: Next-Gen
Design & Research, Development & Production, Advertising,
Monetization & Retention, Industry Insights and many more. We
were obviously more or less pinned to our spot but even like that, we
managed to get into some of the more interesting presentations.
The
organizers were extremely
generous, not only providing us with this opportunity to attend but
also taking care of us indies, very well. Throughout the whole three
days. We were constantly catered with meals and drinks in the daytime
and in the evenings we were invited to some all-inclusive first class
clubbing. These evenings are very much part of the networking
process, so we made sure not to miss any of these parties.
The
Casual Connect naturally ended with the price ceremony where games
were nominated and winning in many
different categories like, audio, narrative, graphics, game feel,
etc. Despite of seriously drawing the attention of some of the judges
and so many others, who have got to play our game, we were not
nominated. Seeing all those ready-made and polished, awesome games, I
was not that surprised that our game, which was at around 30 % in the
development, was not able to compete just yet. We were very happy to
show what we currently had, gain and receive all those new
experiences and advices, make great contacts and we are already
excited to return next year, with our perfected and complete game to
kick some serious casual ass!
Our
team is currently developing at
Protomo and we like to welcome anyone who is interested in us, in the
development or just would like to talk with us for a cup of coffee.
Our game, Stardust Galaxy Warriors is on Steam Greenlight at the
moment, waiting for some more votes and comments. We need all the
support and personal feedback from you, so please, vote for us and
come, see us!
Szabolcs
Sarosi 09.02.2015
