Pre-alpha Demo of RTS XO Appears at OMSI: After Dark

Who knew an RTS would make its way into a science museum? Jumpdrive Studios, based in Portland, Oregon, has introduced the pre-alpha demo for its first video game, the sci-fi RTS XO, at the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry's monthly adults-only "After Dark" event. The event itself managed to reach maximum capacity - 2,100 - within the first couple of hours.
 


Quoting the excitement of Corey Warning, a member of the studio team:
 

Having people come play our space game at the science center... it's kind of perfect.

Like any great marketer, Jumpdrive Studios is striving for awareness and player feedback by attending as many local and national video game events as possible. The studio frequently meets with other indie developers hosted by Portland Indie Game Squad (PIGSquad), and even has represented PIGSquad at After Dark.



During preparation of the release of the pre-alpha, Warning expressed that it wasn't all fun and games:
 

It's been a stressful couple of weeks. It's not like we just showed up with whatever we had ready at the moment, we've been planning for this for weeks. We spent a lot of time thinking about how people would react to playing the game - what if they didn't understand it, or what if people walked by without even playing? We got this double TV rack that we can push about 9 feet in the air so that no matter how packed the room got, everyone would be able to see us. I made a gameplay trailer that played on a loop on one of the screens, and we printed a bunch of pins and stickers so everyone would have something to take home to remember XO. We really went all out!

Will Lewis, founder of PIGSquad, stated:
 

It's amazing to see where the local indie development community has come from and where it's going. I'm really pleased with how much PIGSquad has been able to support teams like Jumpdrive and how community members' games are becoming so highly polished and professional as a result.

Just to highlight the popularity of the game, OMSI event planner Sonali Shivdasani said:

OMSI After Dark: Mind Games was our highest attended event in almost a year. We were fortunate to have had a variety of companies in attendance to show off their work which allowed guests to enjoy a diverse range of games to challenge their skills. Gaming events are always popular here, and we will definitely do more in the future. We couldn't have such successful events without the participation of organizations like XO and PIGSquad, and we appreciate their eagerness to show off their products at OMSI.

To delve a little into XO, it is a sci-fi game where you command a fleet of starships against an "unbeatable" enemy, all in 80s, vectorized arcade graphics. The game is planned for release sometime later in 2015 and is 13 weeks into development. Jumpdrive Studios is currently submitting the game to larger exhibitions around the US.