tokyo game dungeon event report!

i showed a demo of my new game famires date (plus an old demo of a pet shop after dark) at tokyo game dungeon this weekend! here's my event report.

i was actually very unprepared unfortunately since i was still finishing the gb game demo right up to the day before with some last minute fixes on the morning of... but i managed to get everything set up ok for noon, the start of the event.

there were more people than i expected (according to the organiser there were 1200 people including exhibitors) & i had a lot of people playing my games, which was nice! i didn't have any time to take a break though, so i only ended up playing literally one game at the event & i wish i'd had a bit more time to just walk around. it looked like there were so many cool games there but i was always at my table.

also, for the first time ever, i brought merch to sell at an event. i made download cards for a pet shop after dark (the game & the soundtrack). it was actually very easy - i just got business cards printed, bought some label paper, printed download codes, & stuck them on myself. since i wanted to be a little fancy, i bought heat-sealable bags too & sealed each card. 

i was nervous about if anybody would actually buy any, but a fair amount of people bought the game & the soundtrack so i'm really happy! i think i'd like to try doing this again, maybe for other games. it's a lot easier than like... making cds or dvds of games & takes up a lot space (plus i think most people would rather play on steam tbh...) so i recommend this for anybody who might be thinking about making event merch for their game (: 

some things that i noted in particular:

• a lot of people had never seen a gb printer before, which is fair! this was helpful in catching people's interest
• people really liked getting a printed paper receipt after the event with a lot of people taking photos
• i feel like in general people seem to enjoy 'event-exclusive' experiences & i think i want to do more of these in the future!
• some people would stand around kind of idling until i asked if they wanted to play, at which point they would sit down - i think if i didn't call out to them, they wouldn't have played, so i should be more proactive in encouraging people passing by to play if they look interested 

some things i need to fix:

• i should make it clear what genre the game is on the poster - i had one person playing a bit of my gb game & then ask if it was the kind of game where you have a lot of dialogue (i told them yes & they left - which is fair! they knew what they liked)
• i made a mistake in putting my paid merch (game/soundtrack dl cards) right next to my freebies (flyers, game cards) & i think some people might have picked up my game/soundtrack dl cards thinking they were free, since the final stock count didn't match the money i had! so whoever has the missing cards, i hope you enjoy the game/soundtrack...! next time i do this i'll make sure to make it clear which stuff is free & which isn't
• in my gb game, a lot of people tried to interact with some things that i didn't have events for (like the cash register) - so i plan on adding extra events for this
• some people had trouble figuring out where to find the water... i'm going to see if i can make it more obvious
• i didn't have a monitor to see how far people had played for the pet shop demo, while i had one for the gb game, & i really regretted it because i didn't get to see how people were playing the pet shop demo! it was very cool watching people play the gb demo to see what they did/where they got stuck/&c. & having that info for pet shop too would have been nice... 

one thing i really liked about this event is that the chairs were on the exhibitors' side of the table. for a lot of more 'corporate' events, either the chairs are only for the attendees (for playing  the games) or nobody gets chairs at all, but  honestly this is EXHAUSTING. the event was six hours and if i didn't have chairs i think i might have just fell down. (i did this at bitsummit actually last year... my legs gave way on the second day and i kind of just collapsed on the floor for a bit! they refused to stand! standing on a show floor for two days was too much for me & i don't really want to do it again, which is why i'm kind of hmmm about applying for bitsummit this year, which will be THREE days instead of two now...)

having the chairs on the exhibitor side made the event feel so much more like comiket or comitia where it's like... you have people come up to you and you aren't really trying to 'sell' your content as much. i don't really know how to explain it, but the atmosphere just feels a lot better? even though i am still obviously selling a product, being able to sit down & have people walk up to me just feels so much nicer. 

the next tokyo game dungeon is in july & i think i will apply for it if i can just... make sure i have a game to show for it at that time! i'll have to see.

i'm going to work on fixing up the famires date demo to address the points i saw people had issues with before sharing it with you all - the plan is to have it ready for you by the end of the month (: