MAGFest went really well. Despite the fact that we got there the morning of and brought everything except the stands for our banners. So that meant no 10x8ft backdrop and no popup banner that we had at Dreamhack. After some last minute calls however, we managed to find a place with a slightly janky 10x8ft banner frame. We were able to drive over there right before MAGFest opened! But it cost me $240.

At the booth, we gave out button pins, and rewards for playing/beating the demo.

Rewards:

• Reach last boss: Selicy enamel pin
• Beat last boss: OSFE t-shirt
• Back Kickstarter: Saffron enamel pin

Looking back, we probably should have given out the t-shirt for backing the Kickstarter, but it was really exciting when people saw the t-shirt and tried their best to get it!

I brought 5 friends a long to help with the booth, and it made setup possible within 2 hours. If I was alone, setup would have taken at least 5. So I’m really thankful to them. Some of them even took a few days of PTO in order to attend MAGFest. They all said they had a ton of fun though, not just at the booth but playing other indie games and at the arcade.

This is the second booth I’ve ever run and it went even better than the first time. The crowds at MAGFest were huge, and at one point we had at least 25+ people forming a crowd around our 10x10 booth. This is despite the fact we had a pretty bad spot (hidden behind these two giant projector screens. Luckily that stuck out behind the screens seemed to draw people in!

People really seemed to enjoy the silly obscure references and memes. The more obscure they are, the funnier it is when they happen to get it! Luckily with all the cards, I can throw a ton at em!

The boss fights were really exciting to watch, even after seeing people fight her for the hundredth time, it was still fun!

Running the booth 24/7 with the three setups was amazing. I would walk around the expo in the middle of the night at 3 or 4am and there would still be people watching and playing the game. Everyone was so nice there too, we didn’t have to worry about anything getting stolen even though we just had the laptops and ps4 controllers lying around.

I want to thank everyone at MAGFest for being a really awesome crowd!

Now for all the people I met! There seemed to be less industry/publishers/press in the crowd. It was mostly other devs, or people who came just to have fun. Since we launched the Kickstarter on the same day, this audience was perfect!

-The crowded OSFE booth & expo hall

-Yan from AetherAfter another mmbn inspired game

-Scott from Splitty Robot a clever puzzle game (who I was next to at Dreamhack)

-Also got to meet Nightmargin from OneShot and Freddie Wong!

There were a lot of other cool devs from the games Unbeatable and The Last Hex. Both of which were pretty fun!

Oh and I can’t forget Risch and TTerra from the TeamBN Discord! (Join if you’re a MMBN fan!) It was so much fun to meet them in real life, they are really nice awesome people.

One huge surprise was seeing @taxiderby there. A few years ago I played an Undertale fan game called Undertale Red, which had a fanmade boss fight and it was inspiring to say the least. The quality of the dialogue, character, art, and especially the game mechanics surprised me, especially for a fan game. It was so cool to see an existing game that was already amazing and see something that honestly blows it out of the water. As you can see it led to some boss attack ideas! While we were chatting he had a lot of fun ideas and suggestions, and I’m really glad I was able to meet and talk with him.

Next week I will probably have a retro about the launch of the Kickstarter!

Thank you for reading! And thanks to all the backers so far, it’s been insane.
 I can’t believe we already hit 200%!
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/tmkang/one-step-from-eden

P.S. Launching a Kickstarter and running a 10x10 booth at MAGFest at the same time was Hell.