08.10.06
Bliss
So it’s been… oh, about 12 hours since we started demoing our new product Hero Lab at Gen Con, and already there are two (mostly accurate) stories on gamingreport about it. Here’s one.
(Hero Lab is a character creation engine for tabletop RPGs. Eventually you’ll be able to use it to create characters for a bunch of games, including Dungeons and Dragons, and a bunch of others we’re doing deals with here at the convention.)
For the last 3 weeks, I’ve basically been working 12 hours a day, 7 days a week to get Hero Lab ready for primetime. (Damn, it feels nice to be able to write that, instead of having to call it “our secret project”.) Management and I polished off the last thing at 5am yesterday morning, then got up at 8:30 to go off to the first day at the convention. At 10am the doors opened and we held our breath.
Looking back on it now, 12 hours later, I honestly don’t think the day could have gone any better. We had our usual Army Builder / Card Vault traffic, plus about 3 times as many people who don’t play CCGs or miniatures games… just roleplaying games. And finally, we can give them what they want.
Here is an actual reaction from real people we demoed it to. I am not making this up:
<random girl> Oh my god, Hero Lab could be better than sex!
<her boyfriend> Uh…
Management and I headed off for a meeting at 2pm, leaving our trusty assistants / booth babes Cin and Nan in charge. When I got back, there was some guy clicking around the (partially functional) demo, saying “I can’t believe this is so easy to use.” The last 3 weeks have been totally worth it. We’ve had nothing but positive feedback so far, with multiple people asking if they can buy it right now and being disappointed that it’s still a few months away. (We’re planning to release in late Autumn.) And there’s no better endorsement than that.