delta h con made me depressed as hell

On Sunday, July 7th, 2024, I found myself in a panic. My laptop suddenly experienced a hardware failure. This was a big problem, because I was going to use my laptop to show off no signal at Delta H Con the following weekend. In fact, I was planning to drive out to Houston that Wednesday, so there wasn't any time for a replacement part to be shipped out to me on time.

I was fearful that this meant I would have no way to show the game off, but I was coworking with DemureSoft on Ultraprocessor Ribbon when this happened and Jenn Raye reminded me of the fact that I could just show off the game by putting it on a Steam Deck. It wasn't long until I managed to put together a working setup with a Steam Deck and an external monitor.

This is wonderful, I thought, as I realized I could mirror the external monitor onto the Steam Decks for me to look at. This meant that I'd be able to watch people play the game from behind my table instead of awkwardly hovering about behind the player or twiddling my thumbs like I did at Staple.

All in all, I tried to keep a more positive outlook. The unfortunate situation was surprisingly beneficial, I told myself, because I ended up with a better tabling plan. I decided to go all in and drove around town to borrow hardware from friends and acquaintances so I could have two stations running the game at once, replete with backup power since the event said that they would not provide electricity without a hefty fee. I felt more prepared than ever and ready for the upcoming event.

Unfortunately, I was not prepared for what would happen. I have already written at length about how delta h con was a mess, but this time I want to share how the event had an emotional impact on me. ¹

the problem

There were two gaming rooms at the event: the Electronic Games room and the Offline Games room. The Electronic Games room had arcade cabinets, consoles, and computers set up for people to play. They also planned to hold gaming tournaments in that room. The Offline Games room, on the other hand was little more than a bunch of tables and a checkout counter where you could borrow tabletop games. Of course, as is the obvious choice, the indie video game tables were placed in the offline games room away from the other video games.

Before I continue, I need to take a moment here to explain that I love board games, but I personally found the tabletop gaming selection to be really disappointing. It's not a joke when I say that out of the roughly 20 games they had for checkout, the best tabletop games they had available by my own measure were Chess, Catan, and Scrabble. I don't like these games very much, but I could certainly respect people wanting to play them. They're actually games compared to other things in the library like Battleships, Chutes and Ladders, and Sorry!. These other games are so close to decision-less voids, having little more to them than random chance. Why would anyone want to come here and play Chutes and Ladders?

The floor on Friday was open from 10 AM to 7 PM for a total of nine hours. For nine hours, I sat bored at my table as I watched the occasional group come in to play, more often than not, Sorry! or Battleships. At one point, a group of three fully grown adults played Chutes and Ladders directly in front of my table for at least an hour. Like, not even Chess? I've been beaten by Chutes and Ladders?

There's something very special about this feeling you get when you work so hard for months on making something for people to play that is unique and interesting and personal -- only for people to show up and play Chutes and Ladders without even exhibiting any interest in your table.

To say that I felt utterly defeated is an understatement. I felt like an abject failure. A loser. Why on earth would I spend months trying to craft a meaningful, emotional experience for people... if people would rather play a game where you basically just roll dice.

i fucked up the game

Of course, attendees aren't required to interact with me and I'm not owed their attention. In fact, it's understandable that most people who showed up would be interested in playing the tabletop games instead of doing anything else, because that's what the room was for. The convention made no effort to provide prominent signage and no one really knew indie games were in there.

It was emotionally debilitating nonetheless. For the nine hours I spent on the floor, only three people decided to interact with my table. The first person started to play, before immediately refusing to upon seeing the first scene in the game, saying it has "computer stuff" in it and didn't feel like they were in the target demographic. The other two people played the game for a significant amount of time.

I had been busy trying to improve no signal by adding more puzzles as playtesters had suggested, but in doing so I had accidentally made the game quite difficult. When I did have players, I found myself having to constantly explain how to play the game. It was so frustrating that I couldn't even provide a good experience for the two people that played the game.

And these two people were only there because they had shown up for an event that had been cancelled. The traffic was abysmal. In nine hours, I could get more people to learn about my game just streaming game development on Twitch (I stream as exodrifter_). Without having to borrow hardware! Without leaving my home! Without having to drive from Austin to Houston!

going back home

Spending nine hours on the floor was exhausting for me emotionally. The poor traffic, the unprofessionalism and disorganization of the event, and the fact that people generally didn't seem interested really wore me out.

The trailer for BioGun was playing on loop with the volume on next to me the entire time the floor was open to attendees regardless of if the room was empty or not (and it was often empty). I'm happy for the developer and I don't have any hard feelings -- they did the right thing in my opinion -- but that wore me down even more. It reminded me of a traumatic experience where I was stuck in a psych ward waiting room, where the only thing to do was watch a short fish tank animation on loop for close to eight hours.

The same one minute and a half sound, repeating, for hours, in an empty room. It took me back to some painful memories.

Needless to say, I felt pretty frayed. I had decided that I just wanted to go back home immediately, but I instead found myself getting into an argument with my parents that night, who apparently thought that I hadn't given the decision enough consideration and tried to convince me to return to the convention on Saturday. I drove myself back home alone.

I cried a lot on my way back to Austin via Highway 71, tears blurring the moonlit treeline. The radio turned off because the noise, whatever it was, just made me feel annoyed. I invested so much energy and effort getting ready for the event despite all of the setbacks, but it didn't seem to matter. I started to feel the same kind of feeling I've felt many times throughout my life. I feel unsupported and set up to fail. I spent so much time working on no signal, to make something people enjoy playing, but is also personal to me, emotional, and can connect with people -- but people will still want to play Chutes and Ladders for some reason and I have to be okay with that.

I got over it eventually, but it put me in a pretty bad place emotionally at the time. Later, I went to more conventions, all of which were much much better, like 2D Con and Fantastic Arcade. I got a replacement part and I was able to restore my laptop to working condition. I released no signal on itch.io and Steam to a pretty positive reception. I watched people connect with it and break into tears. Things got better.