Roving Rovers at SAGE 2024!
Off of last year’s success the SAFC held another South Australian Games Exhibition over the course of 16th of Feb afternoon and the entirety of the following 17th. This was something we had waited a whole year for again, a space dedicated to just games and on top of that SAGE worked alongside the Fringe as well to make the event even better and bigger than the previous years.
And boy was it!
As we came into the start of 2024 we were continuing to work on our Rover Simulator alongside the ATCSR and Adelaide Uni in preparation for the upcoming Australian Rover Challenge in March and so we decided that SAGE was also a great opportunity to showcase Roving Rovers.
Throughout the Friday afternoon and following Saturday we had many people come up to our booth at SAGE because they find space to be very interesting, especially since Rovers being the main focus is an uncommon decision. So we had many people specifically interested in space come up and play Roving Rovers enjoying how the rovers are customisable and give more freedom to the player. They enjoyed being able to try what the minimum or maximum they could get away with when creating a bespoke rover.
Despite an implemented built-in tutorial for the rover builder and the overall game controls, many players would spend the whole allotted 10 minutes we provided each player, with players at some points actively finding just how much they could do before the game itself broke and had to be restarted.
I would also recommend that other developers who look for users to follow their socials or keep up to date with the game include a QR code in their setups. We had many visitors using their phones to open up our Linktree so they could look into Roving Rovers later on when they were back home.
Our CTO – Camryn Schriever – attended the networking get together on the Friday night after that afternoon of showcasing Roving Rovers to the public. He was able to catch up with many other developers who had just gone through the stress of setting up and showcasing a game all in one day.
Camryn described that event below:
“The SAFC hosted networking on Friday was a good opportunity to network with other local devs, and relax after a stressful day of setup and showing our game. I am very thankful for the opportunity SAGE presented us, and it’s always good to see local developers get the recognition they deserve.”
On top of Unwind, an SA developer get together, the community here in Adelaide is quite close and it’s lovely to come together and support each other and their projects. We would recommend that everyone in the industry or interested in joining should attend these events as they are a great way to network and get to know the industry and determine where you will fit in best.
With such positive reactions from many visitors it will definitely continue next year and I would expect it to be even more grand that what it was this year, especially since it was only SAGE’s 2nd time running. In 2023 it was something we were confident was going to continue, but didn’t expect it to attract as many visitors as it did this year, it’s fantastic to see the support that our local community and the wider SA has for the growing games industry!
It is definitely an event that is going to continue for years to come and will hopefully become a staple within the South Australian games industry; as an event that we all look forward to each year as a great way to bolster the industry and the confidence in our studios and upcoming talent.
Thank you to all who attended, either as a guest or as an exhibitor, thanks to the SAFC, Patrick and Phillip for keeping our industry connected and supportive. And thank you to Natacha for organising all the stall holders and keeping the event running. We thoroughly enjoyed this experience and can’t wait for it to be even bigger and better next year and to see the improvement on everyone’s projects and studios. Thank you for being an amazing industry and I hope South Australia can continue to show its strength in the coming years!!