Ok, this is the last part of this post-mortem. I just want to go over a few thoughts that I didn’t get to cover in the previous two posts.
Was the language barrier an issue?
No, not really. I had two friends helping me with the booth during the convention, Sagar and Patel. Both of them speak Japanese and were able to help translate. There are also several student volunteers assigned to the Indie Game Area who can translate. These guys were all pretty awesome. They’re there for everyone in the Indie Game Area, so you have to find them first, but this is not a big problem.
I knew a little bit of Japanese, so could provide hints (“hinto”), and also point out when things were bugs (“bagu”). I also tried to talk to Japanese players as much as possible after they’re done playing in order to get their perspective, and see whether the puzzles were too difficult or too easy. Often, I would just ask them to wait a bit (“mate”), and then go and find a translator.
I had the bilingual poster and postcards too, which were really helpful. It also helped tremendously that the UI for the game was all in both Japanese and English.
How did Japanese players respond to the game?
Much better than I had expected! I wasn’t very familiar with the Japanese game scene prior to going to TGS, but from what I had gathered, it didn’t seem like first-person games were very popular there. The few that were popular seemed to be either shooters or horror games. I didn’t have much hope as a first-person puzzle game.
All in all, I was really surprised. Most of the people playing the game seem to be very comfortable with FPS controls (this may have probably been due to self-selection, of course, with people who enjoy first-person games wanting to try out another first-person game). I did ask most players if they played a lot of first-person puzzle games before, and while many answered they had Portal, a few had never played a first-person game before.
One thing I did notice is that Japanese players tend to prefer controller over mouse + keyboard. Also, for the control scheme, I had set the right and left trigger buttons as the action to rotate onto a wall, and someone pointed out to me that most Japanese control schemes tend to use the face buttons, and not the triggers or bumpers. This is quite interesting, and I did notice that most Japanese players would confuse the triggers and bumpers when they first pick up the controller.
Japanese players also tend to play for much longer. One thing I noticed with conventions in North America is that a lot of players would constantly be looking over their shoulders to see if others were waiting. In Japan though, people were much more focused. I wonder if this might be because queuing is much more common in Japan and people are much more polite and more used to it? Anyway, it wasn’t uncommon for people to play for 15+ minutes at a time, and I saw several people completely finish the demo.
How about food during the convention?
Like with any convention in which I’m exhibiting, I never go to get food during the event. Mostly this is because I’m far more fascinated with watching people play the game (it’s really useful playtesting), and also because the lines for food are always so long.
On the first day, Sagar introduced me to Calorie Mate, which is a brand of energy bar/drinks in Japan. The block form is sort of like shortbread, and comes in a number of different flavors. It is also a bit of a meme. It’s in Metal Gear Solid:
And there’s also a bizarre TV commercial featuring Kiefer Sutherland: http://youtu.be/K_swFUVeVKo
Anyway, what I would do at the start of each day is grab two boxes of Calorie Mate block:
And two 2L bottles of water:
And I was all set. The 2L bottles made me look a little ridiculous, but it was a great idea, and some of the other indies started adopting it as well. Gotta stay hydrated!
Was it worth it?
Yes! Undeniably so. It was definitely one of the most incredible events I got to be part of so far in my journey as a game developer.
This is not to say that it was easy, or that if you participate in TGS, you’ll get a ton of press and sales.
On the contrary, I actually had a somewhat difficult time getting US press to come to my booth. I think this was due to the event being so big, with so much going on, and also my game doesn’t across right away as something typical for the Japanese market. I also had a lot of publishers tell me that my game won’t sell well in Japan because it’s first-person and a puzzle game.
However, I got to meet a lot of really great devs and also players. On the last day, I remember this one guy who played the game for 30 minutes, and when he was done, he seemed really touched by the game. We talked for a bit, and he said, “I really want to keep talking to you, but I don’t know what to say”.
It was an incredible experience for me, to have spent nearly 2 years on this project, and to have someone living on the other side of the planet, get what I was trying to do. 
It was really great to connect with players on a one-on-one basis, and to see people enjoy your game despite not speaking the same language. It was quite powerful and affirming, especially in light of all the recent stuff that’s been going on with the game scene on twitter.
Oh, and getting feedback from Japanese players and designers was really helpful. It definitely showed me I was moving in the right direction overall, but they also pointed out a few problems that I hadn’t seen before. One one of the business days, I had designers from both Bandai Namco and Capcom play the game, and their feedback was very insightful.
Conclusion
So yeah, I had a blast at TGS and Japan in general. It was really good experience both from the point of view of exhibiting the game for feedback, as well as personal development. The Japanese indie scene is also full of super cool people.
Finally, I want to take this opportunity to thank all the student volunteers as TGS who helped me with translation. You guys are awesome! And also, huge thanks to Sagar and Alex for helping me with the booth during the 4 days!
Here’s a pic of me and Sagar:
And here’s one with me and Alex:
