PAX was awesome.

It hap­pened about a week ago, but I have to admit that going into it, I was pret­ty appre­hen­sive. Not nec­es­sar­i­ly neg­a­tive but def­i­nite­ly very ner­vous. This was to be my first time at PAX, my first time at a video game con­ven­tion, and my first time pre­sent­ing some­thing I’d worked on to the public.

We had a pret­ty awe­some demo to show off, espe­cial­ly since it was a super ear­ly build. That said, we were work­ing on the game every moment we had dur­ing the month pri­or to PAX. This includ­ed any time we could find on the plane on the way to Seat­tle, on the day before PAX while we were sup­posed to be set­ting up the booth, and lit­er­al­ly all the way up to the moment that the PAX floor opened up to the public.

Thank­ful­ly, all that work paid off and the game itself was received much bet­ter than any of us would have ever expect­ed. Maybe it’s because we’re all per­fec­tion­ists who are ded­i­cat­ed to our craft, or maybe it’s because we were all just so very exhaust­ed and couldn’t see the awe­some in what we were cre­at­ing. But the peo­ple that came to our booth def­i­nite­ly did — so many peo­ple came to us and want­ed to play the game! Every­one was excit­ed about what we were show­ing and they were ask­ing so many amaz­ing ques­tions. They want­ed to know who made all the pret­ty art­work, and how the intri­cate physics sys­tem worked, and how a game like this is designed, and what our process was to go from raw ideas to a ful­ly func­tion­al game. And — most impor­tant­ly — they want­ed to know long we’d been work­ing on it and when they could get their hands on it.

It was a much bet­ter response than we were expect­ing, and hon­est­ly, I think that’s the sort of response we as a team need­ed. All the PAX-goers that played our game val­i­dat­ed to our exhaust­ed and crit­i­cal eyes that the game we are work­ing on is both awe­some and worth mak­ing because there were at least a thou­sand peo­ple we talked to who are antic­i­pat­ing the game as much as we are.

Look­ing back on it, it all feels like it was some drug induced, sleep deprived haze. Every­thing hap­pened so fast, and it was all so much more excit­ing and so much more fun than I could have ever expected.

I can’t wait for the next one!