Epic IndieCade Experience

Thursday Day 1 - Setup Day

Koriel here! I live in the LA area, so on Thursday morning I picked John from the airport and we both scooted over to see the IndieCade village being set up. Unfortunately, James was not able to join us for this weekend IndieCade adventure - next time!

The Festival was being set up in a parking lot with a bunch of canopy tents, and we drove our car into the area closest to the Epic Games booth (so we could unload and practice our setup) Since we had a business meeting at 1pm, we had to set everything up just to tear it all down within about an hour and a half.

We both got awesome badges - Unreal Engine! Aww yea!

Setting up

Booth is set up!

Candy treasure!

Testing out the Rift

After our setup, teardown and meeting, we hung around for a while to talk to other indie Developers. and try out their games. We had a good time meeting people, and then a bit alter decided to head back to my place and relax for the rest of the day...knowing that it would be another long weekend for us.

Friday Day 2 - The Festival opens to Developers, Publishers, Tools makers and Media

On the Second day we picked up Speedo at the airport at 7;30am (thanks Speedo!), and proceeded to search for a good breakfast place. We had almost 2 hours to spare before setup time, so we found a local breakfast place near the IndieCade Village and ate there till 10. After having a nice chat over some delicious hash browns, steak and eggs, we parked in the structure nearest to the festival area and began to unload all the equipment we needed (which would end up taking us 2 trips.)

John testing out the Rift

Table to the Epic Booth!

Grabbing morning muffins. Second Breakfast!

We were all delighted to see that Speedo's badge read Speedo Sanchez, and not his actual name...

The "gates" opened at 12pm, and we were ready to talk to people all about XING. Very quickly, we realized the sun would be a major issue during the day as it moved acorss the sky. At about 2 pm it was melting our candy and directly shining on half of the table, so we removed our PC demo from use. It was actually pretty difficult to see the screen anyway in broad daylight, so it was a fine option for us. This made as very glad to have an Oculus Rift demo, where people escaped from the sun and it didn't affect their viewing.

John talking to people while someone plays on the Rift. 

Sixsense STEM system being used for the lightsaber demo. John tried it out on a break and said it was awesome :)

While we were in the Epic booth, we also helped explain to developers how awesome it is to use the Unreal 4 Engine!

The end of the day

Each day we packed everything up and put it in the car. On Friday, Epic invited us out to dinner (It was delicious Sushi!). It was great getting to know the members from Epic, talking and laughing over food and drinks. Everyone was so friendly! We even had a nice time getting to know our boothmates on the other side of the Epic booth, Shield Break Studios (who are making a super fun arena game called Bierzerkers).

After dinner we headed over the the Sony party about a block or 2 away, and met a couple more developers before deciding to call it a night.

It was a great first day, and we were excited for the next two days when the festival would be open to the public.

Saturday and Sunday (Days 3-4)

Saturday morning, my friend Allan came over to my place as a 4th member to help man the booth. It's great having friends help you out on these kinds of events, because it gives us more time to relax and try out other games. 

View looking out from the booth. Lots of card games in the middle aisle!

We set up Saturday and Sunday without the PC standard monitor demo, and just focused on the Oculus Rift demo.

Looking into the Epic Games booth from our side.

Allan (plaid) talks to Alan (sun glasses) about the Unreal Engine

John and Speedo are happy that Epic covered lunch from In-N-Out on Saturday and Sunday! So generous!

Kids over on the other side of the Epic Games booth playing Bierzerkers and having a good time!

Epic Swag

A few people from the Oculus booth came over and tried out our demo 

Oculus Booth - they had a large chrome streamer trailer with AC for demoing! Now that's the way to do it, because it was HOT! Also, they were demoing Vanguard V inside on the DK2 - which was pretty fun :)

More kids being attracted to the Bierzerkers booth setup. They were having so much fun that they didn't want to leave!

John and I towards the end of the day on Sunday. It was a successful event!

Saturday night we went out with our friends from Epic games again, this time to Korean BBQ in Korea Town. It was delectable...and so filling! Then on Sunday after packing everything up, we said our goodbyes and headed to the airport to drop off Speedo and Allan. Then John and I went out to dinner with an old friend in West LA, capping off a great weekend!