How do you solve a problem like a touch screen?

PAX Prime was a wonderful learning experience. Before Uncle Slam, the only "gaming" experience we had was the slight gamification in GAME.minder so in many ways, we were flying blind. And the lessons we learned at PAX were several fold:

The Game Itself

The feedback on the game itself was fairly evenly split between:

  • The concept and look - Pretty universally positive. It seems lots of people like the idea of punching a president.
  • The gameplay - Totally un-universal. Some people loved it, others hated it, and everywhere in between.

Some of the best feedback is constructive criticism and one thing we did throughout the show was to analyze the feedback daily. We then incorporated it, and headed to the show floor with a whole new build the following day. If you were one of our big fans who stopped by everyday, you probably noticed that Uncle Slam played a bit differently Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

One big issue we observed on Friday was that the stamina mechanic was causing problems. The way it worked on Friday was that your stamina would get lower the more you moved or punched. If it got low enough, your punches would essentially become useless until you allowed your stamina to build back up. However, the way most people were playing the game meant that stamina wouldn't ever build back up. Most players were just punching and punching and punching which would stretch out the end game as punches became less and less powerful and stayed there.

For Saturday, we significantly changed how much stamina would deplete as you punched and moved which had two effects:

  1. there were far fewer knockdowns and TKOs (as being knocked over is directly tied to stamina)
  2. people seemed to be enjoying the game a lot more

This was really helpful to see in the hands of actual gamers. You never know how people will play a game until you just put it in front of them and watch. And our watching on Friday told us that we needed stamina to work differently. Once we made that tweak, the game worked a little better but more importantly, it became more fun for the players. We did it again on Saturday night and had a similar experience on Sunday. We even had someone stay in the booth for a good 45 minutes and declare Uncle Slam his "Favorite game of the show". That felt really good.

Audience

So who is the ideal gamer for a touchscreen boxing game with a cartoon/painterly art style? One thing we discovered is that, despite games like Angry Birds selling approximately 17 copies to every single human on the planet, touchscreen gaming is still a moving target. At Handelabra, we tend towards the idea that buttons should be few and far between. If you have the option of direct manipulation, you'll probably do better to embrace that option. So with Uncle Slam, we went with as much gestural control as was technically possible.

We settled on swiping to punch, swipe and hold to block, and really big tap areas to move.

The most interesting thing about watching people learn this control scheme was who took to it and how quickly. Many PAX attendees are people who have spent years (maybe even decades) using controllers with buttons. So it probably shouldn't come as a surprise that our two biggest fans (one who made a point to come back at least once a day and the other, previously mentioned, who hung out for 45 minutes) were both under the age 12. Now I'm not going to get into a debate about whether touch screens or buttons are more effective game controls. But one position I will take is that buttons on a touch screen are often worse than either one.

Without years of muscle memory, the younger gamers took to the gestural controls naturally. A lot of "core gamers" either didn't like the game, didn't like the controls or were just plain frustrated.

The important point is that fighting games tend to be very twitchy. Gamers have learned to expect complete and utter control down to the frame from their fighting games. Gestural controls and a physics based fighting system turn several of these expectations on their heads. When faced with this, many experienced gamers simply started moving more quickly and punching more often while younger gamers tended to work with the engine a bit more.

There's clearly still work to do tightening up the engine but the lessons we learned about how people play and more importantly, who is likely to play, have already proven invaluable.

Marketing

Handelabra as a company strives to sit right in between two worlds. On the one hand, we are an indie developer. The majority of indies wouldn't have taken the time (or the money) to build the booth we did. But on the other side, you have the Firefalls and Skyrims of the show- The companies who spent more on their PAX presence than our entire team makes in a year. Our goal with the Oval Office was to create an eye-catching, compelling, but most of all, fun experience for the PAX crowd. We wanted as many people as possible to play the game so that we could see what was working, and what wasn't.

On this front, PAX Prime was a resounding success. At least 2000 people (but probably closer to 2500) got their hands on the game, put it through its paces, and gave us a wealth of information with which to refine it before release.

Just a couple things that surprised us:

  • Another exhibitor was a preschool teacher and asked us about using Uncle Slam as a bona fide teaching tool!
  • Nearly 400 people signed up to be notified about Uncle Slam, and more than half did so after the iPad had already been given away. In other words, it wasn't just cause we were bribing them. :-)
  • People really enjoyed watching the Get Slammed! tournament on Saturday. There was cheering and everything!
  • Abraham Lincoln clearly needs to be nerfed.

In Conclusion

More so than anything, the biggest takeaway from PAX Prime is this - Gamers are a fun bunch of folks to hang out with. We met so many great people over the weekend. And whether they liked it or not, almost every one of them had good things to say. If they liked it, they gave us words of encouragement. If they didn't like it, they almost universally offered us ideas and directions that might make our game better. And the reason for that is clear. As gamers, we are ALL interested in fun games and PAX is a really great place to meet up and pursue that goal.

Thanks for everything, and we can't wait to get Uncle Slam into your hands, hopefully by Thanksgiving.

#PAX by the numbers

Just the stats ma'am, just the stats:

  • 10 - team Members working the booth
    • 3 - number of ThunderTechies who donned Handelabra gear and helped out
  • 750 - Uncle Slam tshirts given away
  • 2000 - Uncle Slam buttons given away
  • more than 3500 - presidential stickers given away
  • 993 - total Uncle Slam matches played in the oval office
    • (doesn't include probably another 500 played in and around the booth)
  • 56% - percentage of matches played on the "PAX booth" stage
    • 562 total
  • 253 - man hours spent building, manning and tearing down the booth
    • 39 - man hours spent by the most active Handelabrat (Jeremy)
  • 3.5 - man hours spent doing absolutely anything at PAX other than the booth
  • 26 - costumed cosplayers who visited the booth
    • 7 - cosplayers dressed as fighting game characters
  • 10 - Monorail beverages consumed
  • 4.3 - liters of NOS consumed
  • 1.7 - inappropriate comments per hour by Aaron (includes hours unconscious)
  • 13 - maximum number of stickers donned by a single Handelabrat at one time. (Matt, day 3 near close)
  • 4 - meetings with celebrities of any stripe
  • 50% - percentage of Gabe and Tycho who visited the booth and played Uncle Slam
  • 36 - media interviews given
  • 1 - television interviews given
  • 969 - questionnaires filled out
    • 5 - number of people who requested we add kicking
    • 13 - number of people requesting Teddy Roosevelt by name
      • 4 - number of those people who clearly meant FDR (e.g. - "where's teddy roosevelt's wheelchair?!?")
    • 17.6% - percentage of players who own an iPad
    • 51.5% - percentage of players who own an iPhone or iPod Touch
    • 83.2% - percentage of players who would recommend Uncle Slam to a friend
    • at least 10 - People who chose Taft because he got stuck in the presidential bathtub
  • 38,718 - Miles traveled (as the crow flies)
  • ~70,000 - Total PAX attendees (Largest show so far!)

As far as the presidents go:

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Stay tuned for more PAX wrap up and even more pictures!

Building The #PAX booth for Uncle Slam

Well PAX is over and done and what a great weekend!  We took tons of pictures and will be posting them over the next few days. For everyone who stopped by to play Uncle Slam: THANK YOU! We gathered so much great feedback that will be invaluable in polishing Uncle Slam for release. But you couldn't have played it without a cool place to sit, so here's a look at the construction of the Oval Office at booth #6014.[gallery link="file" columns="2"]

You gotta play Uncle Slam to win (an iPad or iPod)!

PAX Prime is just a few days away! Can you feel the excitement in the air? If you haven't heard already, here's what you need to know-

  • We are showing off Uncle Slam at Booth #6014 on the 6th floor (click here for a map)
  • We are giving away all sorts of stuff from t-shirts and buttons, all the way up to an iPad 2!
  • If you can't make it to PAX, you can keep up with all the action by visiting UncleSlam.com (We'll be live streaming all the action in the booth during show hours).

So how can you win the iPod Touch or the iPad? As it says up top, you gotta play to win!

  1. Visit booth #6014 sometime on Friday, August 26th
  2. Play Uncle Slam and win!
  3. Tell us what you think of the game and sign up for our mailing list
  4. Check your email on saturday morning to get the secret code phrase
  5. Follow the instructions in the email and return to booth #6014 at the designated time
  6. Tournament participation will be first come, first served
  7. Participate in the "Get Slammed!" Tournament

All tournament participants will get a free copy of Uncle Slam when it launches in the fall (and maybe something else to take home) but second place will get a brand new iPod Touch (Perfect for GAME.minder) and the Grand Prize winner will get a brand new iPad 2!

To make sure you don't miss a thing, be sure to follow @handelabra or like us on Facebook.

See you at PAX!

UncleSlam.com and the countdown to #PAX

Uncle Slamidential SealWell folks, it's Friday, August 19th. That puts us 1 week away from Uncle Slam's coming out party.We know you have questions-

  • Who is Uncle Slam?
  • Why should I care?
  • Where can I play?
  • When can I play?
  • Is it true you are giving away an iPad and an iPod Touch?

To answer these questions in reverse order -

YES - To celebrate the first public display of Uncle Slam we will be giving away an iPod Touch and an iPad at PAX Prime. How can you win? Stay tuned for more info this coming week.

August 26th-28th in Seattle - Those are the dates of the Penny Arcade Expo in Seattle. Whether you are there for just one day, or the whole weekend, come find us!

Booth #6014 on the 6th floor (you can see it here) - Head up to the tippy top floor and look for the oval office in a boxing ring. No, seriously. That's what you're looking for.

Because you, like us, have always wanted to box a President - Uncle Slam is a boxing game for iPad (and also for iPod and iPhone but at PAX we're just showing off the iPad version). And c'mon, who hasn't wanted to punch a politician in the face?

So who is Uncle Slam? That is a question that is going to take a little extra effort. To get a feel for who Uncle Slam really is, you can start by following him on twitter. Maybe like his Facebook page too. And if that's still not enough, just visit UncleSlam.com to get the full backstory. And don't forget to follow Uncle Slam in GAME.minder so you're notified when it's coming out.

Just 7 days left!

We'll see you all in Seattle.

Uncle Slam: the road to PAX

It's been quite a while since I last posted about Uncle Slam -- the game has a new name and everything now!After we got a good response to our impromptu demos at PAX East, we decided to go full bore on the game. So this summer we've been working hard to get the game built and ready for a real showing at PAX Prime. We're setting up an awesome booth where people can try out Uncle Slam, compete in tournaments, and talk to the developers and artists who put the game together.

Here's what you can look forward to at PAX, by the numbers:

  • 9 Presidents of the United States, including but not limited to: George Washington, Richard Nixon, Bill Clinton, and Abraham Lincoln
  • 5 stages, including the White House, Mount Rushmore, and some other surprises..
  • 7 Handelabra representatives, including developers and artists, to chat with about Uncle Slam and our other projects
  • 3 big screens showing all the action and keeping track of the Presidential Standings

Now this is still a Developer's Corner post, so I'll mention some of the technical bits.. we've come a long way since our prototype we had at PAX East. This is our first game at Handelabra, so it's been a learning experience setting up a pipeline for art process, scripting and packaging game assets, integrating with game engines and other technologies, and so on. I'm hoping to get some posts up after PAX Prime talking in more detail about how the project has been going. Uncle Slam has benefited hugely from open source libraries like cocos2d, Box2D, and RestKit, as well as useful tools like PhysicsEditor, TexturePacker, and Particle Designer.

How about some screen shots?

Uncle Slam is due out later this year, so keep an eye on this space. Better yet, set a RE.minder in GAME.minder! Even better yet, visit us at PAX Prime from August 26-28 -- we'll be in booth #6014.