Copy and pasted from my dev blog. To see the pictures, read it there
http://www.closuregame.com/blog/2009/1 0/indiecade_08.html

Prepare for a looooong blog post, filled with interesting pictures and stories from my week in Culver City.

Closure and Aether were both finalists in the festival. Because Edmund McMillen was listed first on Aether and I was listed first on Closure, there was a mix up and the two games were placed in separate galleries. The event was split up amongst 3 buildings, which I didn't realize at first or else I would have let them know. Not a problem, I thought, they'll supply the computers so I can leave my booth to walk around, and Edmund would arrive on day 2 so he could watch the Aether booth if necessary and I'd only have to cover both day 1. I'm foreshadowing disaster here. You'll see.

Anyway on Wednesday, I arrived in LA and spent the day with my uncle (who's also doing the music for the game). We talked about the atmosphere and mood and he worked on the music a bit, and we got something really great coming soon music-wise. On Thursday, he drove me into Culver City where I met up with Mike and Greg and Daniel Benmergui. We were splitting a room a few blocks away from the event so we wouldn't have to spend much money for a hotel.

Day 1 begins. I wanted to show off the new version of the game, despite submitting the flash version to the festival. They had mac towers to show off with (cause I didn't get the controller working with windows yet), but unfortunately they were older PowerPC macs, so I had to set up my laptop as the demo station. This was my station:

So, the room was kinda cool. I was right underneath a whole ton of original Disney and Simpsons animation frames. But unfortunately, since my laptop was now my demo machine, I couldn't leave it alone to go watch other booths or other people's stuff unless someone was there. Not a huge deal, really. Enough people were around that I could talk to and show the game to, but not too many, so I could take breaks.

The judges and press came around that day and I told them about the game. Then the opening party was that night. It was at a gallery a ways away, where art was hanging on the walls, music was playing, and the waitresses, dressed up as french maids, served us free food and drinks (delicious food too). The art in the gallery was pretty cool

But some of it was pretty questionable

I gave my "mini-microtalk" for Closure, which consisted of 12 slides at 16 seconds each. It was fun struggling to keep up with the slides but it went very well.

Day 2 was a normal day. It turned out Edmund was sick and might not make it to the festival, so Aether went unwatched that day. I tried to check up on it. The awards ceremony was that night. If Aether won an award, I was to call Edmund and he'd say some words through the phone, through the microphone. Jon showed up that day too, with Luis and Nick. Jon and Luis had a lot of fun at the award ceremony. Perhaps, too much fun?

Lots of free food at the ceremony too. Free food is always good. The Sony Pictures Building was massively huge, my camera couldn't take a good distance picture in it. Oh ya and Closure won for Gameplay Innovation. The trophy looks like a bong. And weighs like 20 pounds. And there's no way I was gonna get it on to the airplane.

My uncle was nice enough to ship it out for me. It's crazy how much family I have all over the country and how willing they are to drive me around and ship stuff for me.

Day 3 came. There wasn't much to say about that day, other than the fact that Tim Langdell showed up. He's infamous for suing the hell out of people that "infringe" on his "famous" trademark "EDGE", and fairly universally hated by the independent gaming community right now, so it struck everyone as a wtf moment when he showed up to INDIEcade. Maybe he's looking for more trademarks, considering EA is ripping him a new hole and using the courts to strip him of his precious trademarked words. I should register Closure sometime soon come to think of it. I have protection by default at least, and I can use the "tm" symbol whenever I want, so you may see that start popping up soon for my own good.

Day 4 was interesting. It was a short day, followed by a second awards party. I found out Edmund went into the ER in the morning. I had no idea what was going on. At the awards ceremony, Aether won an honorable mention, so I called Edmund to see if he was good enough to say something. His wife Danielle picked up, and said he was "unconscious", and everyone was a little worried. Later in the evening I got the call from Edmund, he had gallstones and his gallbladder needed to be removed. Not life threatening at all, but extremely painful. Also he doesn't have insurance, so if you want you can donate some money to help him foot the bill.

This was our prize. Not as cool as a 20 pound cast iron sculpture of death, but interesting nonetheless. I had to assemble it myself.

The game developers life is fun. Unfortunately these types of events can't last forever, or else we'd all be having too much fun to actually make games. So, back to work for me. Next major festival is GDC in march, so I have quite a bit of time to *yawn* actually do some work instead of goofing around with fun people.

Go team Closure GO!