Daku Con - Day 3

Hello again. We are coming again to the end of the convention. I hope everyone has had a good time at this new convention. Due to short opening hours today, I only had time to get to two panels, but I think they were both highly informative. And, we finally spent some time looking at the other artists' booths. Let's talk about some panels first.

Balancing Your Internet Self

This panel as also hosted by Karl "Uncle Yo" Custer, and he talked about his experience building a consistent online presence, finding an audience, and marketing yourself. We talked about pitching and how to build a succinct summary of your project. First impressions are important; and you have to treat each installment of your project as a first impression, because it is likely to be someone's introduction. Build up a backlog: nothing will kill your inertia more than missing your update schedule. On a similar note, build yourself a regular production schedule and stick to it. This includes scheduling your weekly time in order to produce things. Custer also recommended to pick a single social media platform and concentrate your efforts there. Spend time building a community through a message board, sub-reddit, or weekly chat time. The last large topic was funding. Custer noted that running a Kickstarter is a bit like having a New York office. Its the type of thing that you want to do once you are well established. Programs like Go Fund Me and IndieGoGo are much more friendly to the early stages of a project, primarily because they do not use Kickstarter's all-or-nothing format. Last, was some discussion about human psychology; namely the problem of near miss rewards. That is to say, our brains will reward us for talking about our projects even if we don't actually do the work. For this reason, Custer recommends that you don't talk about your project until you are ready to launch it to the public. Again, Custer did a great job with his presentation. He had slides that sumarized his discussion points and had his topics organized such that one logically led to the next.

How to Build an Immersive Game World

This was another panel by the Andrews from yesterday. They first provided some tips about building a world as a set piece. For example: making maps, thinking about the places and such. Then, building onto the set by adding the people who inhabit the world. Consider their histories, religion, customs, and holidays. This information doesn't need to be dumped on your players (or readers) all at once. But having these underpinnings (or background) fleshed out to some degree makes it easier to plant small pieces of it at various times. Without NPC's and background characters who feel like real people, the setting is little more than a cardboard set. The people in the world make it a living thing, and provide the level of immersion that creators and GM's strive to achieve.

Finally, here is a photo of our purchases from artists' alley. Lots of really cute stuff, which I always enjoy.

In summary, I had a good time. It was a small convention, but the people were a lot of fun and the atmosphere was relaxed and easy-going. Everything ran on time and the convention space was appropriately sized for audience. The hotel staff was friendly and they kept the facilities clean and well stocked throughout the weekend. If the crew behind DakuCon can organize a second show, I will make every effort to attend, my professional schedule permitting. Have a great year everyone and I hope to see you at DakuCon next time.