Get Ready for War Games: MADFINGER Games at Unite Copenhagen 2019
A seven-man team from the MADFINGER studio rolled up to Unite Copenhagen last week with a real treat for visitors: a first look at Shadowgun War Games.
Since their first Unite conference in San Francisco back in 2007, Unity has held events all over the world, welcoming contributors from a wide variety of industries. Experts from fields as diverse as architecture and engineering to media and entertainment have the chance to showcase what they’ve achieved with Unity’s real-time 3D technology.
This September the conference returned to the Danish capital. MADFINGER Games, a strategic partner of Unity, were proudly included in the keynote, showcasing how we are using their “Connected Games” technology. It was a perfect opportunity to celebrate the opening of beta sign-up for Shadowgun War Games, with the stunning new teaser trailer receiving its world premiere at the conference.
Our Lead Programmer, Vladimir “Zadr” Zadrazil, also joined Brandi House, Unity’s Head of Product for Cloud Services, on stage for a detailed walkthrough of MADFINGER’s use of the “Connected Games” stack.
Petr Jirák, Brand Manager for Shadowgun War Games, gave me a summary of MADFINGER’s time at the event …
DAY ONE: ARRIVAL
“The first day was all about getting to Copenhagen and set up for the event. We had a booth where players could play 5v5 War Games battles, so there was quite a lot for us to do. We didn’t get to see much of the city, but it looked like a beautiful place. I had six burgers during my time there, and they were all excellent!
Setting up the booth took ages and there were a few tense moments, but it wasn’t anything other than I expected. From my experience, there are always a few technical issues in these situations, and they always seem to work out OK in the end.”
“Once the booth was set up, we went to the Keynote (watch it here). It kicked off the whole event and really set the tone for the next few days, with some very good speakers showing off their achievements. Brandi gave us a great introduction, saying how we battle test their tech to create games of the calibre of Unkilled, Shadowgun Legends, and now… Shadowgun War Games! For us to do that, we needed to cut out lag, deal with cheaters, implement quick matchmaking, and open safe communication channels for players. That’s where our collaboration with Unity comes in.
After that, all we had time for was a few drinks and some dinner before bed, ready for a big day ahead…”
DAY TWO: FIRST DAY OF UNITE
“For the next few days my routine was: wake up, go to the War Games booth, talk to people about games all day, go to the bar, talk about games some more, then bed.
We were all a bit nervous but also very excited, because this was our first major opportunity to try the game in a hardcore 5v5 situation. The people playing were taking it very seriously, which gave us our first inkling of what a real tournament might look like.
There were several players who kept coming back again and again to play, trying different characters and getting better at the game each time. It was incredible to see industry people, coders and designers coming back ten times a day to play. A lot of them knew about MADFINGER and our previous games, and found the art style most impressive. Some couldn’t believe it was possible on mobile, especially on lower-end devices.
There was a lot of media interest over the course of the event, and Mara (Marek Rabas, CEO of MADFINGER Games) gave a video interview for GameReactor TV.”
“After a day in the booth, we went for some well-deserved dinner with our hosts at a nice restaurant in the city centre. We all had a good conversation and got on really well. It was good to see that our cooperation with Unity extended to socializing as well.
Then it was back to the hotel bar for a couple of nightcaps…”
DAY THREE: ZADR TAKES THE STAGE
“On the second full day of Unite was Zadr’s joint tech talk with Brandi and the premiere of the Shadowgun War Games teaser trailer. We’d hardly seen Zadr during the daytime because he was so busy rehearsing for the presentation. He wasn’t particularly nervous, but he just wanted to get it absolutely perfect.
I have to say, he nailed it. The talk was really well received, and his natural sense of humour made the presentation very engaging. A lot of people said to me that they thought it was the best talk of the whole conference.”
“In the evening we decided to skip the after-party. We were all pretty tired after two days of talking and showcasing War Games, so we decided to have dinner for just the seven of us in the Sukaiba Japanese restaurant on the 23rd floor of the hotel. We had some great ribs and sushi, not to mention plenty of sake! It felt like our reward to ourselves after all the stress of the event, just chilling with good food and friends with a beautiful view of the city.”
DAY FOUR: TIME FOR HOME
“Everyone headed off to the airport, leaving me and Oscar to pack up. We had until about midday to get everything sorted and head to the airport ourselves, which gave people a last chance to play War Games. Eventually we had to kick them off the game, otherwise we would have missed our flight!
We had a bit of a tense moment at security. Most of the gear was sent via a transport agency, but we took all the phones with us in our hand luggage. The security officer wanted to know what we needed with seven phones each…they thought it was a bit suspicious until we explained who we are and what we were doing at Unite.
Unite Copenhagen was such a great event and an important learning experience. It gave us a good idea about what is fun about War Games, and what is not so fun at the moment. The demonstration also showed us what we might need to change, how it can be rebalanced, and how some skills could perform differently. Most of all, it showed us that there is a great appetite for what we’re doing with War Games, and we can’t wait until the next time we get to show it! We’re very thankful to Unity for the chance to participate in such a great event. It was certainly a superb opportunity for us.”
