So at Full Sail, there’s a student run event that’s been happening once a month now called the Student Game Expo (SGX). Recently in the last week I was one of the presenting teams showing off Trading Company at the expo, and it was a fantastic experience.

The week leading up to the expo was stressful, the game definitely did not feel complete enough in my eyes to be showing to people. All the UI was still big gray boxes, there were bugs I know I hadn’t even been able to find yet, and as the main programmer there was a lot of work to do. We have another programmer with us now, Rise, but he only comes in on certain days, and I still have to take the brunt of the work.

Which I’m fine with, I enjoy working on the game and everything involved with it, only now I had a deadline. So once I knew SGX was coming, I halted work on any new features in production and started polishing, and it really paid off. I started fixing bugs, cleaning up UI, and generally adding some quality of life features. I made some placeholder images and models for the game, and while they we’re professional level it really helped to give the game life.

The actual day of SGX was fantastic. I got there early for setup, made sure the game was still working and had my area all setup. It all went well, people seemed to (for the most part) understand the tutorial and the game in general. I had several people asking me when it would be done and released, because they enjoyed it and would like to continue playing. I had a ton of great feedback on not only the game’s design, but also finding a ton of bugs. Which I’m in the process of now fixing.

Ultimately, SGX was fantastic and I was able to get some great feedback on all aspects of the game. It’s wonderful to see people trying the game, and it gives some great insight into how people actually play the game.