Two weeks ago I attended Indiecade for the first time. There were a few people interested in seeing the prototype and I was told it was a great place to start meeting the Indie community.
It was probably the best playtesting session I could have. I would try to get the game in front of as many people as possible during the day and take notes, fix the issues during the night and then repeat. The first day, people would try the prototype for an average of about 10 minutes before losing interest but by the end of the event I would get a solid 30/45 min of gameplay with some people still asking to continue!
Being surrounded by other game designers, wanting to share their games as well as play mine was very inspiring. I was able to get a good perspective and improve the game in a very short amount of time!
I had planned to enter my game for this year’s IGF but I was never sure if it was solid enough to be worth doing so but after Indiecade I could feel it was worth the shot. You can “finish” the game in about 6 hours if you are comfortable with puzzle games but I would say it will probably take a bit longer.
For the IGF submission we have to provide a video of the game and, since its still in prototype stage and I don’t have that much time, I decided to do something more abstract, kind of a teaser, so for those interested, here it is :