After relaunching Apogee last year, we went to PAX West 2021, the first live PAX event since COVID hit the USA. We had four original games within our line-up a year ago. Now, a year later, we have 10 in the works (new ones soon to be officially announced!). Most likely, we'll have at least 15 next year.

Like back in the 90's, today's Apogee is still involved in quite a range of game types. In fact, 9 of our 10 current games are in unique categories. As a company, we've never been so diverse. The only category we're currently doubled up in is FPS — a fun little genre that we helped create back in the day.

Anyway, back to PAX: make sure you visit our booth (#1501!) to see what's up. Here's a few highlights:

Our booth at PAX East 2022 earlier this year.

We've been experimenting with booth layouts. This year we're trying for a open-style booth. For the first time players can actually walk within the booth. Previously our booths were set up so that the playable games were on the outside edges of the booth.
Our only game currently in early access, Turbo Overkill (a 100% positive review rating for the past month on Steam at the time of writing), will have playable levels from Episode 2. These have a different look and vibe compared to Episode 1. The line to play Turbo is often 30+ people regardless of how many PCs we set up, so it's best to come to our booth early in the day before the line gets long.
Dead Fury and Elements will be showing a lot of fun new content.
Below the Stone keeps adding really cool content too, like dynamite (that you can craft). Check out how dynamite adds to the fun!
We'll also have our still unannounced "party rage" game playable at the booth. This a co-op game in which your lives truly depend on each other. You'll either hate this game, or hate it even more, but you'll be laughing your butt off just the same.
And we'll have about 22 people from Apogee there, including 10 core Apogee leaders, producers, and developers both internal and external, flying in from all over the world to show off their games. Come say hi!

Why We LOVE Going to These Events

It's the best way to meet a LOT of press people, content producers and influences. Thanks to our marketing partner, Stride PR, we'll be talking to over a hundred press people this event. That generates a LOT of coverage for our games.
These events also allow us to see our games being played by hundreds of players, who often provide us with terrific feedback that we really listen to. After the event, we use these notes to make our games even better.
It's also really reassuring to the developers that their games are well-liked and on the right track. It gives them all extra motivation after the event is over to keep developing with renewed energy and motivation.
Finally, and definitely not of least importance, these events are the time for everyone involved with Apogee to get together and share a lot of fun times together and make our personal connections even deeper. As a company, we really value this aspect of these big events. Every evening, for example, we always book a big dinner together and Apogee treats all of our developers to a great meal. You simply cannot underestimate the value of team bonding.

As a final treat, we created postcards for each of the five games we'll have at our booth for anyone to play. These postcards are meant to be selfie shots of the lead characters. Here they are...