Now that PAX East is over and we’ve fully recovered, I thought I’d share with you guys what an amazing time we had and give a shout out to all the cool people who came by our booth.

A great reception for Boot Hill Heroes. It’s easy to say a game looks fun, but how does it play? Up until PAX we could only speculate on how players would enjoy the combat – which isn’t quite like any other RPG and takes some risks. I’m happy to say these fears have been completely alleviated. I created a custom area for PAX where players could jump in with all the characters and start battling critters right away. Seemed like most people had a blast just fighting random battles, especially with other people.

The single player (starting the game from the beginning) went over very well too. I was surprised by the amount of people who finished the 30 minute demo despite all the distracting spectacle of PAX and the inherent slowness in the beginning of RPGs like this.

Thanks to our backers, John, Matt, and Justin, who helped us manage our booth. Helping groups of people get into the multiplayer, answering questions, and distributing swag was required the at least three people and Ben and I couldn’t have done it without your help. It also made the experience a lot more fun, which is very needed because of how stressful and exhausting exhibiting can be.

A huge thanks to our PAX Enforcer, Mobius, who went to great lengths to make sure us first-time exhibitors had everything we needed. Absolutely outstanding service!

Special thanks to the Video Games Awesome crew. It was great meeting you guys and seeing your support for the game. We had a lot of fun at the after parties too, which was definitely needed after a long day of exhibiting. Hope to see you guys at the next convention.

Thanks to the rest of our backers who stopped by to make an appearance. Nice to meet you guys face to face after spending so much time transforming your faces into pixels. I consider our backers something like the godfathers of Boot Hill Heroes and your support is ultimately what made this game possible.

Thanks to everyone else who stopped by our booth. Congratulations to those who won free copies of the game and free characters in the game.

I also want to thank all the developers who stopped to chat with us – Yacht Club Games (Shovel Knight), Ragtag Studios (Ray’s the Dead), The Men Who Wear Many Hats (Organ Trail), Zeboyd (Rainslick 4), Sinister Design (Telepath Tactics), the guys behind Fire vs Fire (unfortunately never did catch up with Muteki [Dragon Fantasy 2]) . It was great to meet you guys and share war stories about the perils of game dev. Makes us feel good knowing we’re part of a community of people who really just want nothing more than to make games for people to enjoy.

Finally, I really, really want to thank all the media that took the time to look past the huge distractions of the million dollar triple A studio booths and stop by our humble booth. We didn’t seem to get noticed by the major media outlets, but the smaller ones were there in full force to show their support for indie gaming. Everyone was terrific and very professional – asking excellent questions and giving us a chance to talk about our game.

Splitkick 

Theology Gaming

Mash Those Buttons

TotalHalibut – Watch a 25 minute video of me playing Boot Hill Heroes with Total Halibut.

Snackbar Games

The Game Effect

The Examiner

First Comics News – Who even considered Boot Hill Heroes one of their Top 5 Games from PAX East

Dunham Gaming

One of the things we appreciate about living in Chicago is the robust gaming and development community here.  We had the opportunity to attend the Indiecity Games meeting this weekend and had a great time.  In addition to seeing some of our friends like Craig Stern of Tellepath RPG we enjoyed meeting the special guests for the day.

Heinz Schuller, former art director at Day One Studios and now of Digital DNA Games, talked about developing Avatar Laser Wars II.  Heinz had some insight about XBLIG which we really appreciated hearing.   While we’re still a few months away from release we’re always thinking about how to help people find out about Boot Hill Heroes.

After the presentation we stayed to show everyone the latest gameplay for Boot Hill Heroes.  We were encouraged by the positive responses.  Thanks to everyone who stopped by to try out multiplayer combat and see the new areas of the game.

We want to put a shout out to one of our new friends Zero from Negative World.  In addition to killing the hardest boss in the game so far he runs a Nintendo fan site which we are now crazy about.  Anyone who loves vintage style gaming should definitely check it out!

While Dave and I often find ourselves interviewing others we were surprised to find ourselves in an informal interview with our own local celebrities from Rushdown Radio.  We’re looking forward to many long-winded-semi-appropriate-rants in the future.  Rushdown Radio is a show about all things related to video games, including my favorite category - miscellaneous.

There were so many talented developers at the event it was hard to get time with everyone.  We did want to give special thanks to two development teams.  First, Sean Hogan was showing Anodyne Game which is nearly complete.  I love the look and game play and can’t wait to get the full version of this classic style RPG.

We also think you’ll love the side scrolling novelty fun of Fat Ninja. This new title from Hipster Owl Studios has a fun twist that you’ll have to experience for yourselves.

In closing news, all our backers who are going to be NPC’s in the game will be hearing from us this week to complete the design of their characters, so stay tuned!