WellyCon 2024, Demoing LIFESHIP and next steps

WellyCon 2024 is over and my head is spinning. I've spent 18 months on this project and to see it in front of so many amazing people in Wellington...I am honestly a little overwhelmed. On Friday, we got to meet the WellyCon committee members, Ricky, Ceedee, Adrianne, and Scott. They were warm, friendly, and helpful and I honeslty could not have asked for a better first Con experience. Setting up the booth felt surreal. This was my booth. Ikarangi Labs, up until this point, had felt like a nebulous cloud. I could see it but my hand would just pass through if I tried to grab it. Having the character art, the banners, and everything actually brought some non-tear water to my eyes. (Just kidding, they were actual tears.)

Day 1 of the Con was so busy. But a weird thing happened, Bradford and I spent the first hour watching people do laps and check out the whole con. We had several looky-loos but no takers. I began to worry that this would be the way the whole con went. Then 10 am rolled around. We spent the next 11 hours demoing the game non-stop. I lost my voice on Monday. Prior to the con we had so many worries and concerns about what might be wrong with the game but no concrete evidence there was anything wrong. To my utter surprise, not only was there no big flaw in the game, people raved about it. In our design chats, we talk about putting the work onto US as the developers of the game instead of the players. We focus hugely on the player experience and it paid off. Our game is weighty, and big, but each concept in the game can be explained in one sentence. Once you know it, you know it and can move on to the next thing.

We brought 4 missions to play at the con, Mission Zero - The Trainening and Mission One - Rats in the Ranks, were played dozens of times over the weekend. Hundreds of Rats of Usual Size died at the hands of eager Wellington gamers. I watched the my designs be used in completely novel ways and heard people laughing at small flavor text jokes I wrote. It was honestly, humbling and inspiring.

Day 2 passed in almost identical fashion, with the addition of people who had already played Mission One coming back for seconds and playing Mission Two - Warp Drive D.I.C.K. I had so much fun playing Lifeship every day all day. We got a ton of great feedback including a suggestion for tracking enemy actions that makes so much sense, we feel really stupid for not having thought of it already.

Next steps:

We are full speed ahead on Year 2 of our own testing run and are in the process of setting up groups of Beta testers for Year One. We are also planning our in Store Demo trips around the country and getting everything ready for the Kickstarter in February.

If you played with us and gave us your email, we will be in touch soon to send you your Con-Exclusive character and equipment.

Thank you Wellington, the WellyCon committee, and everyone who turned out to play Lifeship with us. We love you all.