This post is part one of two. The second part will be much longer and deal with expo builds in general. I separated multiplayer out into its own post, because it’s a special case with many of its own unique pitfalls.

[I will put a link here when part two is published]

I’m David Hayward. I’ve been running events, hosting developers and showing other people’s games for around fourteen years now. I’ve run big stuff, small stuff, shown my own work, and shown a lot of other people’s work. At a quick estimate I’d say I’ve been responsible for showing around nine hundred games in public over the past decade alone. I tend to run things at a scale where I interact directly with developers, and often have to sort out problems myself rather than call upon a team or tech company. From massive showfloors and marquees, to cinema screens, art galleries and small corners of festivals, I’ve learned a lot about showing games in public.

Here are the best things I know about showing multiplayer stuff. Showing local mutiplayer games well is often more about people than code, and showing networked multiplayer games involves specific infrastructure problems that don’t affect expo builds in general.
(more…)