And now for something completely different. On the 23rd of may, we'll be at Indievelopment to show off Powargrid. We rented enough booth space (2x2 meter) to set up two PCs to demo our game. Initially, we planned on simply renting one or two tables, so people could sit sown and play Powargrid.
But (of course) we realized that we'd have a much cooler demo stand if we had two demo cabinets instead. Black ones preferably. So, ignoring the fact that we already have too much to do, we decided to go and build us those cabinets. Michiel drew a couple of designs in Sketchup, and this is the one we decided to (try to) build:
One of the things we've noticed the couple of times we've demoed Powargrid is that the screen really is only visible to a handful of people. Which is a shame, since we want to show our game to as many people as possible :). And, looking at it from the perspective of the conference visitor, you don't want to decide whether or not you think a game is interesting by seeing only a small part of the screen. So we decided to add a second monitor on top of the cabinet. That way, it should be easy enough for everyone to have a look at the game (and decide whether to play it yourself). We're curious to see how well this will work.
Another thing is that we want to make sure the demo cabinets can be taken apart and re-assembled. First because we want to be able to transport them more easily, but also because we want to minimize the space it takes to store the cabinets. This is typically something that works fine in theory, but presents some problems in practice. In this case, the question is whether we can build a cabinet that is sturdy enough to actually game on. We think we've managed to do so, but we won't know for sure until we've had people play on them.
By now, we're busy building the cabinets. Michiel has a workshop together with a couple of friends of ours. So we have a place where we can build, with all the power tools we need. Big tip 'o the hat to Freek, Marnix and Otto :D. Here are some picture of the cabinets-in-the-making:
And of course a picture of the nearly finished cabinets:
We've built and painted both cabinets. We've used cloth for the backs (Michiel's old curtains actually). Along the way, we decided that we needed an extra surface for the monitor, else you'll be looking down at it, which is uncomfortable. Fun thing to notice is how much faster we were able to build the second one. Mainly because we already did most of the thinking that was needed. What we still need to do is decide how we want to secure the monitors to the top of the cabinet and see what the best way is to transport them.
We're quite optimistic that we can build the cabinets in time for Indievelopment. In a future post we'll show you the nitty gritty of building the cabinets. And of course we'll also report our impressions and what we learned at Indievelopment after the 23rd.
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