I was incredibly excited for day of the devs after realizing that I could finally participate and check out new games by up-and-coming indie devs. I had first heard about it through a podcast that covered the event a couple years back. I was also interested in playing Harold Halibut. I had first heard about this game through the tech blog, Prosthetic Knowledge which praised its choice of animation and technique which has the look of a stop-motion animation film in the visual style straight from a Wes Anderson film. It was one of the first games I got to demo as it was in the hallway between the main rooms. I got to speak with one of the modelers who worked on sets and characters. I asked him about the process of transferring the clay figures to digital. They use a process of digitizing the figures in many angles to get a full rendering and from there they rig the models. You can appreciate the characters during dialogue scenes where the camera zooms to each of their faces.
I also spoke with one of the designers behind the game Aegis. He, along with one programmer were the main staff behind this cute, but dense pixel rogue-like. I asked him about the parallax effect their game incorporated, a ‘juicy’ element I thought was essential to his game to add depth and character. He gave me pin with their main pixel characters after the conversation. The overall experience at Day of the Devs was satisfying. I had always heard of events like these and being able to play games that I had only heard of through the internet was wonderful and gave me insight on the development pipeline. Many of the other developers I briefly talked to all mentioned that they would be tweaking parts of their games and that their participation in events like these are essential to get player feedback.
Also, my partner picked up this cute monument valley pin at the event. I unfortunately was NOT able to pick up the REZ: Infinite Vinyl >:/
