The Boundary Condition - GDEX 2022 Award Winner!

Some of you may know that since early 2021, I've been working on a video game (a 3D puzzle-platformer) called The Boundary Condition. A part of that journey was learning how to do game development in the first place, learning to make digital music, and figuring out exactly how I wanted it to work. However, in the last six months or so it has really felt like it's starting to come together, and it finally felt together enough to start getting feedback from a broader audience than just my wife Kate and a handful of close friends. Around the same time I started feeling this way, I discovered that GDEX, a game conference that takes place here in Columbus, was coming up. I had never been before, but when I saw that they had small tables for independent game developers, I decided I'd see if they'd take me. Before long, it was official: I was going. So I started scrambling to make sure my game was actually going to hold up to the demands of random testers.

My first day of exhibiting the game was last Thursday, June 9th. I spent four long, exhausting days showing it to person after person, but was thrilled to find that many people seemed to be really enjoying it. I had a lot of great conversations, both with people that stopped by my table and with the other exhibitors. On Saturday, I was also fortunate enough to break away and see Jonathan Blow, thanks to my friend Paige who was helping out at the table.

After that talk was the GDEX awards. I wasn't expecting to win anything, but given the strong reactions I had seen from some of the people that tried out my game, I couldn't help but think I might have had a chance. And it turned out, I did! The Boundary Condition was announced as the winner of the Best in Show: Most Innovative award.

Even now it's kind of hard to believe that this work-in-progress that I honestly consider nowhere near release, was able to win an award up against so many other great games that were being exhibited, many of which being much further along in their development. Nonetheless, the other exhibitors were extremely supportive on Sunday, which I appreciated immensely. I'm so grateful for everyone that tried the game and gave their honest feedback. In the end the game will be better because of them.

I left the conference with pages of notes. Bugs to fix, advice, new puzzle concepts, and more. But most of all, I left with a renewed confidence that this game is something that people will enjoy. Something worth seeing through to the end.