If you have the chance to go to Strategicon over another con, go to the other con. I signed up for 12 hours of demo time. In that time I got 7 people to play it. I called it in early every 4 hour block I was assigned due to non traffic and all the hardcore Ticket to Ride tournament players. God, Ticket to Ride is just Candy Land with objectives and points. I digress. On Sunday, when I cleaned up early, I had enough time in the day to go downstairs to the free gaming area. I had THREE pickup games with almost no wait time. I don't think I'll ever do a scheduled demo with them again.
I DID find a person who works for a game company and does Z brush models on the side. Everyone tells me that the models I'm using right now really add to the game. When I get my kickstarter up for this game, figures are definitely going to be a stretch goal.
My game performed well. Valuable feedback. The rulebook says nothing of where Wounds are put when you receive them (but clarifies on the Health Potion card), Cleric has 2 cards which need more text clarification, I didn't include the Ranger's Shot on the Run card in the print run, Nerf Rogue's Skillful Dodge (only used in 4-5 player games), Buff Rogue's Shower of Steel to hit other squares, and the amount of wounds in the wound deck has been reduced to reduce game time. One major thing people harped on was the single lane in which the adventurers fought. I think they're ultracrepidates, BUT I am looking to playtest a 2x3 map rather than a 1x5. The problem with that, is it gives ranged adventurers less room to move, punishes melee for fighting each other (ranged AoE), and reduces the "value" of a lot of cards. (Man, I hate people who only take value cards.) Well, considering my cards don't have a cost, the only cost would be it's the one attack card you get to play. All the abilities are utility for the most part, that's what I love so much about the game. On a side note, I kept getting compliments on my giant army backpack and my shirt's logo for my company.
Now that I had time to de-stress I'm going back to demoing at stores on the weekend with the tweeks AND variants added! Wish me luck!
Comments
Conventions
I've demo'd my game at the first 2 Strategicons this year, this last Labor Day I went to Celesticon up in Northern California just as a change from what I had been doing thus far.
Like you, I didn't find a huge influx of people playing my game; most people are there wanting to play the games they brought. But there are some things that do stand out and I know it's slowly changing.
1) Visual space. If you didn't buy up the tables outside of the dealer hall, then you probably won't get the attention that you want. I had my game scheduled in the game room (across the way from the dealer hall) in the front where people HAD to see my setup and many people just walked by. On one hand it's discouraging to have a few players play your game, but I see it as convincing people one-by-one.
2) Flashiness. My game is a sci-fi minimalist card game with a really small footprint. I don't need much space, but I think it worked against me. Flashy is a big trend nowadays and seeing that you had miniatures probably helped more than it hindered.
3) There are other conventions...with different results. I showed off my game at many conventions...Game Developers Conference, Gam3rCon, Strategicon, Celesticon, and many others. Some cons only had a few people throughout the whole convention...some events had me demo'ing my game for 12 hours straight at a time. It's a crap shoot on whether or not your game will click at a con, but that's the risk.
Ultimately, you shouldn't discourage Strategicon. It's a solid place, but I believe and know that there are going to be changes...specifically to indie game developers to get more people to play.
Glad to hear you got some great feedback!