After showcasing GRIDHACK in 2024, I was very pleased to get the opportunity to show the game at the 2025 event. Taking place September 27-28 in Vancouver, BC at the Roundhouse in Yaletown, the Vancouver Game Garden was at a bigger venue and a more central location that drew many visitors. Interest in the event was huge: I’ve heard of estimates of over 3000 visitors split over two days – I’m sure the free entry helped a lot with this as well.
I was especially happy that Jayde, who started as a programmer on GRIDHACK in 2025, was able to make the journey and present the game to audiences alongside me. They also took the nice photos in this post!
GRIDHACK was very well received by players. It is always extremely humbling and motivating to see so many people play the game and getting “sucked in”, trying puzzle after puzzle. A special shout-out to the lovely people who tried the game in 2024 and came back to see what’s new this year. The “action nonogram” was an intriguing pitch, and many people gave GRIDHACK a try or watched others try to battle virtual viruses with their nonogram skills. By my own subjective observation, the split of people familiar with Nonogram games to people completely new to the genre was about 50:50, which surprised me a bit, since its still a bit of a niche puzzle genre.
On the side of people unfamiliar with nonograms, we were able to introduce quite a few people to the rules and joys of nonograms. Genre-fans were intrigued by how we were mixing up the established formula: We always aimed to make a nonogram game that’s different, adding focus on action, added time pressure and the “meta”: Attacking and sabotaging the enemy, while managing your own health and action-points to use for abilities. People complimented the art style and polish of the game and gave us a lot of feedback and suggestions – another big benefit of showing a game at an event like this: Direct playtesting with the public!
A few people posted their impressions of the event and of GRIDHACK online. One example was Daniel who I had a nice chat with about the game. He shared his impressions on the Omnigamers’ Club Podcast in this segment:
If you weren’t able to make it to the Vancouver Game Garden, keep your eyes peeled on our social media feed for any future events we might show the game. And of course, please wishlist GRIDHACK on Steam!