We were asked to demo Mama Hawk as a “favorites of PlayNYC” evening. We took the audience through the many (MANY) versions of the controls, graphics, and modes Mama Hawk has gone through in order to become today’s game. People mentioned they liked seeing the trials and errors of the development process, rather than just the final product, and I cannot wait to see other games’ evolution in the future as well. A fun night with a great turnout! Below is a video of part of our tour:
Terminal 5 is the site of many wonderful concerts I’ve seen over the years, so it was a thrill to enter the venue from the back entrance, and see the venue bathed in the dappled light of the venue’s signature disco ball, and later, to roam the backstage area.
Computerlunch had a corner spot for the inaugural PlayNYC, a gaming event for our wonderful home town. We transformed our corner booth into Mama’s signature woodland forest diorama, and met many wonderful people.
Kati sat down with Logan Schultz from Indie Insider podcast to talk about being an art nerd, making a living as a creative in New York, creating art for games, being married to your business partner, and, of course, Mama Hawk. Her interview starts at 1:10.
We somehow ended up as part of a VR super team that included Moshe Ben-Zacharia, Jonathan Oglevie, Rachél Bazelais, Scott Tongue, and neuroscientist Wick Perry for the 2017 Games for Change “VR Brain Jam”. As the creator of the impressive “Body VR”, Mo quickly emerged as the tech lead for the team. After a weekend of brain chemistry crash courses, too much Mexican food and candy, and lots of new friendships, the “Neuromancers” were chosen by their piers and the judges as the winners of the competition.
Level up with Mama Hawk this summer
We’ve been working hard on Mama Hawk tweaking the game play and polishing the levels. Right now we are looking at an end of the summer release for Mama Hawk. If you want to join the BETA please email info@computerlunch.com with the title MAMA HAWK BETA TESTER.
A big thank you to everyone who came by the MAMA HAWK booth at Five Points festival. We love watching people playing, and trying to beat each other’s scores. A shoutout to Kurt, who set the bar high with a score of 99 on the new arcade version and 127 on the classic version.
SwingStar VR was selected as a finalist for the 2016 Global VR Challenge, and we were invited to attend the awards ceremony at China Joy Expo in Shanghai, China. Our game beat out 144 global competitors to win honorable mention, and as a bonus we got to explore the strangely familiar streets of Shanghai in unbearably hot and humid weather, and making friends with local VR enthusiasts and the other finalists. Amazing!
If you live in the New York area and would like to check out SwingStarVR (and get some of the swag that survived PAX East), come out to IndieCadeEast on Saturday, and say hi. Press inquiries: hello [at] computerlunch [dot] com
At the small but very popular booth 11203 the ComputerLunchers spent three straight days demoing the game on five devices simultaneously, handing out pins, temporary tattoos and business cards from 10 to 6 straight, over 600 visitors in all. Day 1 crowds around our booth got so large that the PAX enforcers had to add guidelines to the floor for days 2 and 3, and we struggled to keep wait times short for players despite capping the game play at 8 minutes. Feedback for SwingStarVR (and the virtual reality experience in general) was overwhelmingly positive, with many players coming back (alone or with their friends), to play again and share the fun.PAX was as epic as hoped, and a really, really well run event. The center was enormous, and filled with a deafening mix of tournaments, meet and greets, cosplay, tech demos and not entirely terrible food. The people were phenomenally friendly and interesting. Also, Genaro ran into Markiplier on the streets of Boston, and asked him for directions to the convention center.
We were extremely fortunate that we got to be a part of this wonderful event, and hope to see you there next year!