A couple weeks ago (November 5th), I had the pleasure of attending the Dutch Games Association (DGA) Network Lunch in Utrecht, hosted by Slashdot. I signed up to be one of the showcases and luckily I was selected! That gave me a chance to show off Gametje to others and get some feedback in person. I haven’t done anything like this before, so I was a little bit nervous. It would be the first time getting feedback from strangers in person rather than just my friends &family.
Arriving unprepared
The turnout for this lunch was larger than I had expected. I’m not sure why, but I was expecting a smaller group where we would be given time to present and demo our work. It turned out to be more like an expo floor with people stopping by to look and play. I was unprepared and had no marketing material to hand out. I also did not have any QR codes to share to allow people to learn about the project on their own time. I spoke with quite a few people but that made me the bottleneck. I was trying to get games going while actively answering questions about myself and Gametje. Next time I’ll definitely bring more marketing material that tells the story rather than having to repeat myself many times over.
Photos from the event
It was a nice mixture of game development students and some professionals. I’d estimate around 80 people attended which I’m told was a little bit lighter than usual.
Feedback
Overall the feedback was positive about the games. I got some good ideas for improvements and wrote down a few bugs I saw. I’d estimate I spoke with around 20-25 people and around the same amount played the games. I found that the real benefit to attending this event was less about the games themselves and more learning how to properly showcase Gametje in such an environment. Fairly last minute, I decided to change how I was going to present it to the attendees. I decided to bring an old 27" monitor with the plan of demonstrating my “hot of the presses” Android TV app. I tested the basic functionality at home but didn’t try playing any of the games. Turned out that the monitor had a different aspect ratio than a normal TV and thus had less “height” available to use. Unfortunately, that meant some of the game content was cut off when there were more than a few players. Not so professional looking :(. The monitor also didn’t have a speaker included so it was largely silent without any of the fun sound effects or music Without the music, it definitely felt a bit more bland than usual.
The Android TV app was only “finished” a couple days before the event and I had not really evaluated its use in such a setting. It didn’t have a lot of explanatory text like how to join or even the website link. It also didn’t pair well with needing to create/recreate sessions after players left and the next batch arrived. I should have just demoed from my laptop with the monitor instead of using the app. My original thinking was that I could double up and have two games going simultaneously (one on the monitor/Android app and one on my laptop). Given I was more occupied with conversations, I did not get multiple games going at once. Before I attend again, I will definitely add a “showcase” mode to allow me to recreate a game session with 1 click.
Lessons Learned
Here a few of the key takeaways:
- Ask to speak at the beginning of the meeting so everyone will have some context when they approach my booth. That will allow me to focus more on the games and people rather than explaining my story many times.
- Bring lots of marketing material. Maybe some printed photos/postcards of the games with links. Something easy to hand out with instructions on how to play later.
- Create QR codes for LinkedIn (both my person page and the Gametje company page)
- Create QR codes for the Discord server to encourage users to join and build a community there. These games are playable within Discord, so it makes it even easier to attract a community.
- Bring a TV instead of an old monitor so it will be larger and allow me to play the music and sound effects. This should make it more immersive and draw more attention so bystanders will come and watch.
- Bring a rollup banner or poster with a short explanation of what Gametje is and where to play it. That should encourage others to play themselves without me being involved. I underestimated how much content for async communication I should have prepared.
- Take more photos, ask people to take a photo of me or do Selfies. I confirmed with the DGA that people consent to have their photo taken when attending these events.
Up next
Overall I was thrilled to attend this event. DGA did a great job putting it on and it’s a super useful event for the Dutch gaming community. I learned a lot, made a few new friends + LinkedIn connections, and learned a lot of what NOT to do when demonstrating for a larger audience. I also joined a few Discord servers filled with users in my target audience which will help with gathering feedback later.. I also spoke with a few students looking for internships which led me to go look up the requirements for offering a position in the Netherlands (quite a few hoops to jump through!). I haven’t ruled it out yet, but I’m not sure if I am ready to have an intern.
I’m thinking of signing up to showcase again on January 7th 2026 (There is no DGA lunch in December). I’ll be better prepared and can hopefully get more feedback about the games themselves. It will also be a good warmup session for the PG Connects event in London. I am planning to attend from January 19-20 so wish me luck! They generously awarded me an expo table in the IndieDev area to demonstrate Gametje to a larger audience. Very excited to see what that experience is like.