So it’s been a very long couple of weeks for us! The long radio silence was sadly a combination of spotty Japanese Internet—we couldn’t use 3G/4G either—and then extreme exhaustion from exhibiting and jet lag etc., but regardless, we must apologise.

We travelled to Japan on the 14th of September for the Tokyo Games Show, thanks to the wonderful people at Chorus Worldwide, to exhibit De Mambo in the Indie section. Let’s just say that our Japan experience was immense. As lame as it may sound, we really felt that Japan was our spiritual home.

As game designers—especially designers interested in Japanese games design—Japan was almost like a video game in itself. One example was the traffic lights, which had health bars that decreased to show how much of the green light was left. This most probably existed before games did, but it was fascinating to see such design embedded into Japanese culture. It really helped us feel welcome in such a foreign place.

At TGS, some of us were slightly worried at how the Japanese public would react to De Mambo, but thankfully, they loved it. We’ve never seen anyone pick up the controls so quickly before and reach such a good level of skill so quickly. It was honestly a pleasure to play De Mambo with everyone at TGS, as we had some intense matches!

Thanks to the amazing Ryuji at Chorus, we received a lot of attention from the Japanese gaming press, including Famitsu and 4Gamer:

http://www.gamespark.jp/article/2015/09/23/60409.html

http://game.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/news/20150921_722209.html

http://www.inside-games.jp/article/2015/09/20/91430.html

http://www.4gamer.net/games/318/G031879/20150920024/

http://www.gpara.com/infos/view/27490

http://www.famitsu.com/news/201509/18088927.html

Finally, we’d like to thank all of our backers so much for supporting us! We’re now in the final stretch, so please share and spread the good word!

You can find our Kickstarter page at the link below:

kickstarter.demambo-game.com

It’s been a while.

We’ve had a long few weeks preparing for, traveling to and then exhibiting at Radius Festival in Vienna and then Develop in Brighton whilst trying to maintain development on De Mambo.

It’s been an absolute pleasure to meet all the great developers, journalists and public humans at these events and we hope to see you again at some point!

But… we have some slight bits of not-so-new news.

Like the unavoidable stench of someone’s regurgitated lunch, on a crammed train on the hottest of day, you will never escape The Dangerous Kitchen. We will be there at every turn you make, everywhere you look and in the back of your mind…

What I’m trying to say is that The Dangerous Kitchen will be exhibiting at Now Play This and EGX 2015!

EGX Rezzed was incredibly toothsome so we’re thoroughly excited for EGX and the possibility of a dawning deadline to push development into the extreme!

Now Play This is located in Somerset House at the New Wing on the 4th-6th September.

But, there is another. Thanks to the exceptionally amazing people at Chorus Worldwide, we are exhibiting De Mambo at the Tokyo Games Show 2015! A monumental opportunity that we could in no way miss, we are super excited for the Japanese public to try out De Mambo!

We may also have news about a certain kick that may start at some point if you smell what I’m stepping in… And if anyone is interested in making a Let’s Play type thing, then please sign up here and we’ll send you a Demo De Mambo!

Until next time.

So far, The Dangerous Kitchen have only been to three events to exhibit De Mambo; EGX Rezzed 2015, Develop Interface and the Manchester Day Games Room. All three were incredibly valuable as we learnt so much, met some fantastic people and also peered into a dark, unknown facet of human repugnance… where heinous machinations of a strange cult-like people attempt to poison innocence—but, I suppose you didn’t come here to read that…

…yet.

The Games Room in Manchester, although lacking the first-time excitement of Rezzed, was probably the best time we had at any of these events, whilst simultaneously being the most exhausting.

We woke up at 4:00am on Saturday, boarded a train at 6:30am—barely making it, set up for 10:00am and then exhibited until 6:00pm. After a ritualistic consumption, we travelled a fair distance to our Airbnb destination and were greeted and shown to our room by two cats; Coco and Bossboy. We awoke at around 7:00am on Sunday, exhibited as usual from 10:00am – 6:00pm, gorged on some fine pizza (my personal favourite part of the journey) and then boarded the train home at 8:55pm—again, barely making it. After coldly waiting for a bus and then a delayed train, we finally got home… bone-tired and ready for our inner sandmen to lull us to sleep.

One could hazard a guess and say that pre-E3 hype played a part in keeping us alive, but in all seriousness, it was the stellar reaction De Mambo got in the Town Hall that sustained us through our broken wrists, hollowed shoulder bones and sleep-deprived crazy-eyes.

Bearing in mind that we are gamers who selfishly made a game for ourselves, it was great to see small children react so positively. We’d had a few children pick up De Mambo at Rezzed—much quicker than a lot of adults and season gamers mind you—but since the Games Room was open to the general public, there were tenfold more of these wonderful little people around. There were even times when we had children about 5 years old competing with twenty something year old gamers—which was insanely glorious since they held their own. The cherry on top though, were the SNES controllers we used to play De Mambo. We saw a few adults in shock with not only seeing the SNES pads, but that children were using them, which must’ve taken them back.

We never designed De Mambo to unite the world, but seeing stuff like that gave us hope. De Mambo will usher in a new era of world peace… or more probable, drown the world in fear, famine, pestilence and—A-A-Achoo! Excuse me. The combination of cat allergies and hay fever has crippled me profusely.

Anyway back on topic, we here at The Dangerous Kitchen just wanted to thank Rock, Paper, Shotgun, David Hayward, Simon Smith, all the individuals involved in setting up the Manchester Day Games Room and everyone who played De Mambo.

We truly had a remarkable time. Thanks!