New York’s biggest two-day game convention Play NYC will return for its third-annual event this summer.

Play NYC was created by video game tools provider Playcrafting. In 2018, the event welcomed 5,000 attendees and over 200 media attendees who generated 60,000 live stream impressions. There were 162 playable games and over 300 exhibiting developers on show over the weekend.

The third-annual Play NYC will take place at The Metropolitan Pavilion on 125 West 18th Street, between 10am to 6pm on August 10th to August 11th, 2019. Tickets for the event can be purchased here.

Play NYC is a media partner of Steel Media.

First game convention

“In 2017, we gave NYC its first dedicated game convention,” said Play NYC organiser and Playcrafting CEO and founder Dan Butchko.

“In year two, we took everything to the next level, doubling the number of exhibitors and games, expanding our live stream with the biggest names in the industry, and more. Gaming keeps growing in the US because of its talented community of creators and fans.

“This year, we’re going back to our roots, ensuring everything about Play NYC - from the look of the show to its hundreds of playable booths - reflects, celebrates and creates opportunities for creators and fans to unite through the power of games.”

Exhibitors confirmed to be attending Play NYC 2019 include:

Alpaca Games
angryottergames
Anthropic Studios
Ape Tribe Games
Artists Writers & Artisans
Astral Clocktower Studios, LLC
Avalanche Studios
Bose
CalvertCreates
Computer Lunch
Crispy Games Company
Curious Visions
Decoy Games
Exog3n Studios
Fabraz
Glass Robot Games
Glenn Orzepowski
GrahamOfLegend
Greystone Games
Haiduc LLC
Hot Chocolate Games
Inequality-opoly
initialPrefabs
Item Get
Kinetic Games
KinSoul Studio
LegendEx Games
Macho Zero Productions
MHarris Games
Mild Beast
MindIsle Games
One Method Monkey
Other Moon Games
Playcrafting
Playful People
Pseudozap
Ratbird Games
RTEmit Studio
Saturnine Games
Scary Good Studios
Scholarcade, LLC
snowhydra
Synesthetic Echo
Techlandia
That Indie Studio
Verizon
Verseability
WhaleFood Games
Windy Games, LLC
Wirescribe Corp
Zero Eden Games

We spoke to 2018 exhibitor Khalil Abdullah, Ahmed Abdullah and Chris Venne of Decoy Games about their upcoming Nintendo Switch indie title Swimsanity.

PocketGamer.Biz: How long have you guys been working on the game?

Decoy Games: We’ve been prototyping Swimsanity since 2012. When we began working on Swimsanity, it was the very early stages of teaching ourselves how to develop and produce artwork for a video game. After rehashing the idea and moving to a different game engine, we started working on the Swimsanity build you see today.

What inspired you to start working on Swimsanity?

We grew up playing a lot of multiplayer games. If we weren’t playing multiplayer games, we were really into games like RPG Maker on the PlayStation One or making paper prototype games to share with each other. We always were interested in creating games but didn’t really know how In college.

Khalil registered for a flash development class then created a simple flash game by the title of Swimsanity: The Adventures of Mooba Jiver the Scooba Diver. The concept was simple. Play as a scuba diver who attempts to recover as much gold from the ocean while dodging the dangerous sea creatures. It was a pretty big hit within the class and he decided to make a flash sequel: Swimsanity 2: Deep See Jivers.

In this version, Khalil added an online multiplayer experience. Instead of just dodging other sea creatures, you were also competing against an opposing player who was trying to steal your treasure for themselves. The player with the most treasure at the end of the match wins. To add more insanity - or Swimsanity? - to the title, we added weapons and power-ups.

Once I saw Khalil prove that there’s a legitimate path to make fun games, I followed his steps and focused on ways we can develop games for consoles. That’s when we really began meshing the games we grew up playing, with the base concept of Khalil’s Swimsanity flash games.

What is the biggest challenge you’ve faced in the process of making Swimsanity as an indie game company?

Our vision was to always release a commercial game on consoles. We found out very quickly that the major consoles typically only accept video game developers who have previous experience in the industry or a supporting publisher. Which meant every aspect of being a game publisher and developer was completely in the responsibility of a team of three.

We had to get very creative in showcasing ourselves as a legitimate self-published indie game studio. Whether that involved how we presented ourselves at conventions or the business relationships we built with others in the industry.

We had to be prepared to take risks and fail before we found paths to success. As most small studios, we faced a lot of obstacles getting exposure to the masses.

Even after landing on consoles - which have a much less crowded market compared to PC or mobile - we still faced a lot of challenges of gaining visibility, since it’s our first time breaking into the industry. We felt we were able to overcome these challenges by building great business relationships and partnerships with people in the industry.

Play NYC takes place between August 10th to August 11th, 2019. Any companies looking to exhibit at the event can apply at this link.