Digo, Gian, Raf, and Kris in front of the Word Fighter booth

Hello, one and all! It has been two weeks since PAX Prime 2011, and I think we've finally recovered from the madness of it all. It was an amazing experience for all of us, and we could not have asked for a better response to our little game.

Four people from the Word Fighter team represented at PAX -- Raf, Digo, Kris, and myself. Our trusty composer Whitaker Blackall was there in spirit, especially since his soundtrack was looping the whole time we were manning the booth! And speaking of booths, it was quite exhausting to man our Word Fighter booth for three solid days, even though we were 4 men strong! We were demoing the game nonstop the whole weekend, which is really nothing to complain about. Having lots of people wanting to play your game is a great problem to have.

Unfortunately, manning our Word Fighter booth meant that we barely had any time to do much else during the show. We wish we could have seen more of the floor and attended more panels, but alas, showing our game was top priority. We hardly had any time to play the other games in the PAX 10, which is a damn shame! We had an absolute blast playing the few that we could, like The Splatters and Jamestown. But regardless, it was such an honor to share the stage with those wonderful games. My biggest regret was not playing FEZ, despite their table being right next to ours. I think I was just too intimidated to approach the almighty Phil Fish during the show. Next time, I hope.

With the guys from The Splatters, Atom Zombie Smasher, and Vanessa Saint-Pierre Delacroix 

Even though the PAX 10 booths were located on a separate floor from the main exhibit hall (some dubbed it as the "Indie Floor"), we still got a lot of foot traffic coming through the area. I'm pretty sure it helped that we were right next to the Minecraft booth, though! We were also quite thankful a number of podcast panels recommended that people seek out Word Fighter at the show, including the Giant Bombcast and Weekend Confirmed. Attendees would approach our booth the next day saying that "Giant Bomb" or "Weekend Confirmed" told them to do so. Sincerest thanks to those panels for their kind words about our game!

My favorite thing to take away from the show was finding people that I was already a fan of approaching our booth and becoming fans of Word Fighter themselves! Fellow developers from PopCap, Bungie, and Supergiant Games showed us some love, and I could not have more respect for them. Jerry "Tycho" Holkins, writer of Penny Arcade, immediately became a fan after playing a VS match with a fan (interestingly enough, he never got to see the game during the judging for the PAX 10). A number of media personalities also came by to play the game, including the awesome guys from The Totally Rad Show and the crew from Hey Ash, Whatcha Playin. Even the illustrious Felicia Day stopped by with her pals, and she could not wait to get her hands on it. Can a fanboy-turned-developer really ask for more?

Gian with Jeff, Dan, and Alex from The Totally Rad Show

It was an incredibly fulfilling weekend for us, and it made the months upon months of allnighters worthwhile. It took a while for us to recover from it (with sprinklings of PAX flu permeating the team), but we are now recharged with more drive and creative fuel to push towards our launch this fall. Thank you to everyone for coming by and showing their support, and we can't wait to show you the final product in a few months!

Your friendly neighborhood game designer,
Gian