Massive GDC Update

As they say in Super Smash Bros: "No Johns".  Johns are considered an excuse for doing something poorly when you don't want to take responsibility for it.  This may look like a John, but bear with me.

This past few weeks has been absolute madness, due to huge assignments all due at the same time, rushed MelterMan builds for GDC, showing at GDC, taking midterms, etc.  Now that I finally have a minute to breathe, I can update my blog which I have sorely neglected.  But, let's be honest, I could have updated it in a few minutes at some other time, I just forgot.  No Johns.

Anyway, as the title and previous complaining eludes to, we showed our game at GDC!

(And before we get too far, here's the latest beta build that we are offering for free, hopefully forever - http://www.melterman.com)

This past few months, all of our work was structured to meet up just in time for our GDC build.  We had some insane deadlines we had to hit, and we just barely hit all of them.  We managed to prioritize just the right things to help us show as effectively as possible, and it was 100% worth it.

You will note that if you had been keeping up on the project, we changed the theme and setting of the game to take place in a toy factory, and this was only a couple weeks before we were leaving for GDC.  Even though I've said it a million times at GDC, here goes our new pitch:

"You play as MelterMan, and you've been sent to a toy factory that's been taken over by evil toys.  You must melt their cute little faces, suck up the melted remnants, and use it to re-build the environment".
A big thing for us was trying to show well for bigger-name companies, partly to kind of audition for any jobs they might have, but also to try to get some breaks for MelterMan and put it in the public's eye in some way or another.  I am honestly not sure how much I can say about either of those, but I'll put it very shortly:

It went VERY well.

I think I can confidently say that we showed the best at our booth, we got the best feedback/responses, and overall the trip was 100% worth it.  We must have said the exact same thing a million times, but talking to people was easy, they seemed to really respect our work, and there are some exciting opportunities starting to grow just because of how well we showed there.

Now that GDC is all done, we are looking forward to getting in touch with consoles and bigger retailers to start selling our game.  Honestly, we had said before that we would be fine if it was just a good portfolio piece, and it will be either way, but now I'm starting to believe that we could really make something out of this if the right companies like the idea.

This weekend we will be showing at Salt Con to a very different audience than who we showed to at GDC.  Not only is the exposure useful, but the feedback from various demographics will assure us that our game is easy to play/understand, and it can appeal to more people than just game designers, or just indie game fans.

Just before Salt Con (as in, in the next 12 hours) we are hoping to clean up a few issues that we saw with people playing at GDC, and roll it out as our final Beta/Demo build.  Almost all of them are already done, but either way, the beta is very solid and gives us a perfectly clear and achievable goal for the final release.

Our final list of tasks has been assembled (and I'm sure will grow by a little bit) before releasing officially.  Again, I don't think I can say too much about what we are doing and we will make the announcements when we get clearance, but suffice to say it should be readily available to pretty much any gamer.

Besides making the game, we are starting to market it as much as possible through social media, looking at other conventions, and entering upcoming festivals/contests such as Indiecade and IGF (when it opens back up).  We have kind of neglected that because there was always so much to do, but now that we are approaching a finished product, it seems like we should get it together and start getting our name out there.

Anyway, I guess that is all.  I know I could have said a lot more about what has happened lately, but I am hoping to update every week from this point forward.  Go play the game!