GameCon is an X-Team event that celebrates all things gaming. This year, for an entire month, we celebrated the game changers: the games that pulled us into worlds we could never imagine, that pushed entire genres through their limits, that did what had never been done before. This blog post is a summary of the biggest events of GameCon 2021.
To celebrate the game changers, it seemed fitting we would create a game ourselves. While we'd already created a Slack-based battle royale game that we still heavily play to this day, we wanted to change the game and see what else we could build. Enter the Tower.
The Tower is a Slack-based action game. Every X-Teamer played as a Watchman who had to find their way to the top floor of a ShadowCorp Tower and destroy the network containing time-traveling Watchman technology. Easier said than done, because advanced machines and cyber-soldiers protected every floor.
Once an X-Teamer had entered a ShadowCorp Tower, they could search for weapons, armor, or health kits, attack enemies, hide to protect themselves, and heal with one of their health kits. The enemies on each floor were vicious. Reaching the top floor of a Tower was an incredible challenge that required both strategy and courage.
There were several achievements to earn: Complete the Tower five times, complete the Tower with 100 HP, complete the Tower with three health kits, etc. Each achievement would give an X-Teamer two bounty coins and two Luna for their House. In addition, there were more rewards for the House whose players collected the most bounties.
X-Teamers take competition seriously. Over a month, they completed hundreds of Tower runs for their respective Houses. Ultimately, House Panda took home most of the rewards and won the Rulers of the Tower award.
The X-Team Vault is a constantly changing treasure trove of epic collectibles. During GameCon, our Vault Drops were themed appropriately. There was a Resident Evil-inspired T-shirt and the 1UP bag full of logos of the games we love.
X-Team also organized a Community Collab where X-Teamers were given the chance to design a GameCon collectible. Using Slack comments and gem emojis, X-Teamers could nominate and vote for the videogame characters that inspired them the most.
The gem emojis served as credit points that had to be paid in Vault coins on the 16th of April. The characters that didn't have enough points would be progressively eliminated as time went by.
Ultimately, the characters that survived were:
X-Team is now whipping up an awesome collectible around those characters that X-Teamers will be able to purchase in the Vault over the next few weeks.
GameCon 2021 ended on the 15th of April with the Trivia Dungeon, a live-stream charity game show where X-Teamers would answer game trivia questions to raise money for Gamers Outreach, a charity that brings games to hospitalized children and gives them access to adventure and fun in what is otherwise often a scary and lonely place.
We kicked off the Trivia Dungeon with a Super Mario piano medley from legendary video game pianist Dr. Martin Leung. Throughout the entire livestream, Dr. Leung would play some of the music-related game trivia questions or encourage us with short snippets of piano game music. He even played a stretched-out Happy Birthday song for an X-Teamer (40:18 in the video).
The Trivia Dungeon had four rooms X-Teamers had to go through. Each room had a song-based question and a screenshot question, as well as a boss to defeat and a question from an epic hero. These were the heroes of our livestream:
At the end of the livestream, after X-Teamers had answered all questions correctly (and earned many cool prizes in the process), they had generated a total of $3,500 for Gamers Outreach. Enough to buy one of their gaming carts that will bring joy to hospitalized children for years to come!
Finally, the Trivia Dungeon ended with the results of the Game Changer Awards. Throughout GameCon, X-Teamers had put in their votes for the game that had 1) the most breakthrough technology, 2) was most impactful in their lives, and 3) they considered the best experience of all games.
These were the nominees for the Tech Changer award (winner in bold):
These were the nominees for the Life Changer award (winner in bold):
These were the nominees for the Game Changer award (winner in bold):
GameCon 2021 was a celebration of the games that changed the game. The games that moved us, pushed boundaries, and inspired some of us to become game developers.
Games are an incredible way to have fun, connect with others, and marvel at what technology can do when combined with human creativity. During GameCon 2021, we cherished the games of the past that brought us some incredible memories.