Last year I made crazy decision about attending the Reboot Develop Conference in Dubrovnik city. It was my first game design related conference, and I have to say – very high-end one. At that time we had 4 weeks to finish first prototype of StukuPuku, just to be able to show anything to people I will meet.
About Reboot Develop
The conference takes place in beautiful part of Dubrovnik City in Croatia. The conference building is placed just by the sea.
Pros :
- You can meet a lot of amazing people, all that are open to talk with you, even if you’re just starting
- Place is amazing as well as organization.
- Great parties in the evenings, official ones and unofficial (like last year’s Polish Party 😀 )
- Nice place to show your game, find new teammates and get knowledge.
Cons or be-aware-of elements:
- Its really fast-paced, so you have to be ready for that
- Amount of talks makes it difficult to make choices at the conference, so its good to think about it before
- Sometimes it was hard to guess if food was opened for you or only for VIPs
- For a guy without experience, it was quite frightening to see all those famous faces, but you will get used to that since everyone is very friendly.
My game for reboot contest
I went with the game called AbstractRhythm, the prototype of StukuPuku. Basically, it has the same gameplay as a new game, just graphics are different. We loved that style though, and sometimes we regret new changes.
You can watch the trailer here:
Preparations
- Passport
- Reservations and tickets
- Business cards (if you don’t have, I advise to make at least 50 of them)
- Something to make notes, that is portable and easy to use
- Comfortable clothes
- Your game on your phone, or at least trailer + screenshots
- Be prepared that planes are always delayed…
Best games
Best games that I saw at Indie Showcase:
Best Speeches
- Tim Schafer
- Tim was funny and really open to comments
- It was great to see the legend in real life and see that he’s mortal just like me
- I even managed to take a photo with him
- Jason Della Roca
- Great speech with lots of advice regarding fundraising, finding investors and business angles
- Jason is an amazing person, he didn’t hesitate to review my small game and give me advice
- Rami Ismail
- Great speeches regarding game design
- It was nice to watch debates he took part in, he was very strict and wise
Face to face with Rami Ishmail
That’s an actually funny story. After I saw that Rami is at the conference, I set this goal of talking with him and showing him my game.
The first attempt – after his speech. Standing for 10 minutes in the line trying to figure out what questions should I ask. Then I’ve asked some superb dumb question and said that I’m his big fan after playing only Nuclear Throne.
Second attempt – last day of the conference there was a small Polish Party, which everyone ignored at the beginning. Later on it evolved into quite big party and lots of people came in. I were quite acclimatized already, so I’ve been waiting for Rami to show him my game. At that time I’ve also met nice game dev team that motivated me even more.
Later I finally managed to show him my game. I was surprised that he just grabbed my phone and he was actually willing to play it!
Here are some of his advices :
- remove top interface with points and stuff
- show which sequence is responsible for which spawn
- throw out upgrade cards that broke rhythm flow
- button should look like a button
- features quality over amount
I tried to implement all of that in StukuPuku. I hope I’m closer to achieving a better game.
Summary
Despite the fact that Reboot Develop conference was almost a year ago, I still feel some of energy I had after it. That was incredible experience and I would love to be there again.
This year I plan to visit Polish game conference called Digital Dragons 27-28 May 2019, Krakow, Poland.
I have also made small table with interesting conferences, which you can check here.
