Laura and Bruce at Stirring Dragon Games dropped Update #46 to the Unknown Realm Kickstarter page last week, with a short, practical invite: Unknown Realm: The Siege Perilous — their long-in-development 8-bit RPG for PC and Commodore 64 — will be back at the Portland Retro Gaming Expo, which runs this year from October 9–11 in — where else? — Portland, Oregon.

We first covered the project when the Kickstarter launched nearly a decade ago. The pitch has not changed much in spirit: an exploration-focused, turn-based western-style RPG in the classic 80s mould (Origin/Sierra/Infocom nostalgia included), with modern quality-of-life bits layered on so the grind does not eat the weekend. Release remains the unfinished sentence everyone asks about; this update does not try to answer it. It is about the booth.

From the post:

It’s that time of year again – the Portland Retro Gaming Expo is just one week away and we’ll be back again this year!

We’ll be running playtesting at the Stirring Dragon Games table throughout the weekend. As with last year, we’ll have limited hours for playtesting. Last year the interest was high enough that we had to kick people off after 45 minutes so everyone could have a turn. This year playtesters receive a character disk so they can return to our booth throughout the weekend to keep playing. And they can take the floppy home and pick up where they let off (with some bonus gold and buffs) to the official game when it releases! If you’re interested in playtesting, please reach out so we can reserve a spot for you.

We’ll be in Hall C/D at Booth #760.

We’re also hosting an awesome panel on storytelling and game design with some really cool game designers and writers.

Tickets are at retrogamingexpo.com. Character-disk carry-over into the eventual release is a clever little offering, and it also quietly signals that the save format they are handing out this weekend is meant to mean something later — which is more concrete than a lot of “almost done” talk ever gets.

If you are on the floor and get a turn (or a panel seat), I’d love to hear how the build feels now versus last year’s demo queue. Hope the booth stays crowded, Laura and Bruce!