Running both your booth games off of one tiny computer
As a starving indie dev, I was delighted to hear that Intel was sending me a developer gift. I received it just a few weeks ago!
The NUC Hades Canyon is a powerful little box (with a big beefy power brick) that's been managing to impress me throughout my last few weeks working with it. As advertised, it's VR-capable, and it's excelled especially well with the lower demands of my own self-developed games.
Anyway, the story is: I was invited to showcase my games at Awesomecon, a large 3-day gaming/'geek' festival in the middle of Washington D.C. First problem? I'd just gotten eye surgery and couldn't drive (still can't!) I'd need to carpool with another indie studio. My friends at One Million Machine lent me a hand and my trip was secured.
Second problem? I had to fit my booth equipment in with 1MM's if we were going to reasonably make it to the con and back. Troubling! My usual con set up is: 2 machines running 2 games, requiring 2 boxes and 2 monitors to start. I wasn't sure we'd have space for even 1 PC let alone two.
In the week before the con, I figured it out. I found a mildly suspicious multiseat program for Windows (ASTER) and plugged in two monitors to the NUC. Within an hour, I had two setups running at the same time, showing two separate games, on the same computer:
- Dell Monitor for FLAMBERGE
- Mouse/Keyboard
- Powered speakers
- TCL TV for my other game (FLAT FORM FIGHTER)
- Mouse/Keyboard
- XBOX wireless receiver
- MayFlash Gamecube controller adapter
- Mayflash N64 controller adapter
- USB powered speakers
Awesomecon went smoothly and great, and my booth weighed very little altogether! Thanks for the gift, Intel!
