For more than a few years now, I have been heavily involved with anime conventions in Central Florida. It started out with just attending as a fan, and then I started doing panels where I talked about whatever anime or videogame I liked at the time. The past couple years, my responsibilities with conventions have grown to do actual events and contests that take more work than preparing a panel. My role at the conventions evolved to entertain fans and provide them with a good time. It has been pretty fun and I’ve tried to make anything I do officially at a convention as fun to be at for the fans as it is as fun for me organize and run. Last year, myself and some of my peers that I work with at conventions with were asked by Anime Festival Orlando to help them out with Swords of Orlandia II. It was quite the feat to accomplish what we had from that point on.

The concept of the original Swords of Orlandia would motivate players to participate in various aspects of the convention that included going to panels and events. If they did this, they would be rewarded with plastic coins that they could use to level up and help their chosen side, whether it was the good Prince Horus or the dark Prince Hesperus, to determine who would rule the fictional kingdom of Orlandia and the heart of Princess Raine. Players earned the coins by attending events and panels or by solving riddles posted throughout the convention. They also had ribbons to show off their current level that they gained by trading in coins they have earned. The final aspect of the game had story events held at a few big events of the convention to get players interested in the characters they were supporting. Whichever side had the most players with maxed out levels won the battle of the weekend. Overall, the game was thin in terms of scope; however, the foundation was there for future incarnations of the game.

With Swords of Orlandia II, we(and by “we”, I mean some group called The Consortium which is really just four people and whatever friends they can get to help us out at the time) were tasked to develop the existing game mechanics to have more content. The main goal of the game has been to reward players with an increasing progression through a game by actually participating in the convention events instead of hanging around the hallways and doing nothing but paid loitering throughout the weekend. We assumed that it would be something that players would play for short periods of time in-between their favorite events and trips to the dealers room. We would soon learn that the game would be far more popular than that.

We created characters that represented the good of Orlandia, led by it’s new ruler Prince Validus, or they could be rebellious and side with the fiendish Prince Hesperus, whose true intentions were not revealed until the end of the show. These characters gave players quests and challenges to players in exchange for experience coins and we even had hourly tavern games and other competitions in a room dedicated to the game all weekend – the Raven’s Roost Tavern. A lot of quests and other content for players to earn experience were already pre-determined before AFO IX, but much more activities for players to participate in were made up on the fly.

For example, after the convention closed on Saturday night, there was a pool party at the hotel that was brutally epic(as it is every year at AFO) and I had quite a bit too much to drink. So when I had my hangover on Sunday morning, I came into the tavern telling a tale of how an evil wizard had cast a poisoning spell that clouded my mind and gave me a severe headache and that I needed to be cured. Several of the players went to get things for my like water and a couple even left the convention to get Tylenol from across the street. I exhanged the products for a nice amount of experience coins as opposed to real money. It was from there that we saw players took the game so seriously to the point that the fake money we were giving out at the convention started to form an economy where players bartered and traded money for services amongst themselves and even with us(I got a whole garlic chicken pizza this way). The experience coins were just as good as real money at AFO!

There were a lot of fun times; we sent players to fun events that they would not have gone to otherwise, and we held fun competitions over things such as push-up contests, thumb wrestling, arm wrestling, jalepeno pepper eating, anime trivia, and player vs player combat in the form of rock-paper-scissors. Instead of players maxing out to determine which side wins, players had to win shards from two legendary swords that were previously destroyed. The side with the most shards would win(or so we thought; the storyline team had other ideas) and these could be earned through special contests and contests held within the tavern. To keep leveling up relevant, maxing out earned a shard for a player’s side. Game characters such as the one I portrayed could also participate in these contests and try to win shards too.

Another popular aspect of the game that was popular was being able to purchase epic mounts after players maxed out to level three. They were simply printed stickers that they could put on their badge. Some were original designs and others where based on popular culture. We had players that showed great passion to cover their whole badges with epic mounts. They actually didn’t do anything besides let players skip through the halls of the convention. I suppose it could also be viewed as a way for players to prove their mastery of the game. We definitely are bringing epic mounts back along with epic weapons and both will serve a big purpose in player vs player battles.

The Tavern games we held had mixed results. We wanted to do a spoof on Pin the Tail on the Donkey by having something called Pin the Crown on the Prince. The idea was to blindfold players and give them a cardboard cutout crown with Velcro attachments and then spin them around. Then they would try to pin the crown on their sides prince, but they might actually pin the crown on the wrong prince! It was a fun idea but we could not get the portraits for the either Hesperus or Validus. We’re trying again this year. A lot of our equipment go damaged as well, due to improper care and the fact that most of our stuff was cheaply made. We had both a Nerf crossbow and a toy boy that we used to fire suction cup arrows at targets and both of those were broken before the weekend. We substituted with a Nerf gun but that took away some of the Medival feel. We also tried wind-up bike racers for a “chariot race” event but all six of those toys broke before Saturday night. I guess the big lesson from these misfortunes were that toys made in China aren’t meant to be played with. We had a much simpler time with games we made with random objects like tossing balls into marked cups or throw darts at a magnetic board.

Overall the game was pretty awesome. We had a bigger turnout than we had imagined and we expected people to play this game lightly only to see a noticeable amoung of players spend much of the weekend grinding through the game like it was their favorite MMO. This actually made it harder for us to think of things for obsessive players to do when all they wanted to do was play our game instead of enjoying the convention, which was the main goal of the game in the first place. We ran low on challenges and quest ideas for such players because they did practically everything. That’s very cool that they liked our game that much, but at the same time you can learn Karate from the Green Ranger at the convention! Come on people! I actually sent people on that quest and only half of them returned. What a monster training session! This is actually one of the biggest challenges we will have to overcome this time and I can confidently say that we got something good going on this year.

There’s a lot to be revealed for the upcoming Swords of Orlandia III. The game is going to be bigger and better than ever and we are going to reach a thrilling climax together! We have seen what people like about the game last year and what didn’t work. Therefore, we have been focused on what people liked more and there are a lot of new gameplay elements added into the mix. Not only that, much of our talented game staff from last year are returning to be a part of the action again! If any of you who played last year are reading this, then I hope that you are excited to play our game at the end of this month. The final chapter of Swords of Orlandia has only just begun!