For this past GDC I was invited to attend as a speaker, giving a postmortem on
Serious Sam Double D (slides forthcoming). That went great, but what really set the show off for me was getting to play and exhibit all of
Shoot 1UP on an absolutely
huge TV setup!
This came about quite unexpectedly and fortuitously as I visited the Expo Hall to see
Xona Games and their exhibit for
Score Rush on the floor. Xona Games had struck a deal with the Nova Scotia government to allow them to show their game in the NS booth space. This looked nice as Xona were showing games on a typical 32" widescreen TV.
Just across the aisle was server company
Phoenix NAP, who had a large TV display showing a simple advertisement for their products. Xona Games started talking to Phoenix NAP, striking up a friendship and eventually suggested that PNAP allow Xona to show their cool games on the big screen!
Both quickly saw the benefit, the server company would get a flashy game to attract people to their booth, and Xona would get to exhibit their games on a large scale!
I happened to be visiting when all this started, and played through
Score Rush with the Xona crew. After we finished it, they mentioned they had
Shoot 1UP already on their harddrive, so they thought it'd be cool to play that together as well!
Lesson learned:
As I suggest in the video, an interesting, sometimes unexplored aspect of expo shows is how dynamic they can be. Make sure to make quick friends of exhibitors nearby, as you never know what benefits you all could reach within a few short days!
