PAX 2019 was a hit!

I guess _I_ was enforced...

This year, I Enforced and attended my third Penny Arcade Expo! My section was Classic Console Freeplay, which is one of the many things that sets this gaming convention aside from other 'gaming' conventions: actual gaming! To explain: Tokyo Game Show has a few dozen developers showing off their games, and if you're not in line to play a demo, then you're looking at booth babes, cosplay or gaming-related merchandise. I would say (ridiculously hot) cosplay is the main draw, and game demos and swag are tied seconds. Tokaigi, held in the same space (Makuhari Messe in Chiba) as TGS, is a little more about actually playing games, with consoles, PC and handheld stations. I did a quick run-through of Seattle ComiCon, and saw a lot of gameplay with prizes (awesome!) and a shitload of cosplay.

Zagreus and Aphrodite (Hades) and Red (Transistor)

PAX, however, probably has all gaming conventions beat: there are giant rooms for tabletop games, a room of beanbags for handheld gaming orgies, an entire floor dedicated to the current 2 consoles, another floor of PCs, another 2 floors for console and PC tournaments, a floor for classic consoles (from NES to Wii/PS2/Xbox), gaming trivia all around downtown Seattle, pin collecting and swapping, digital slot machines that dispense prizes randomly to attendees, and scavenger hunts. There are even run-of-the-mill cardboard puzzles. Of course there's cosplay, anime, trinkets and discussion panels, but the amount of gaming here is next-level.

I was on the team that checked out games to attendees who would sit down at stations and play with friends. There were 32 stations, and most were in use the entire 4 days. Considering loans are 30-minutes at a time, that's a lot of activity! There were faces we saw all four days, as it's a great time killer for certain events. Sometimes, you just don't want to stand in line for 3 hours to play a 20-minute demo. In general, I worked my normal full-time job, and did PAX for the 3-day weekend, and now I'm lumbering through my normal workweek. Sleeping 8 hours took priority over attendance, so I only showed up a few hours early to tour the expo before my shift, and didn't hang around much after.

HOWEVER. I definitely saw some shit!

Lead voice actor Logan Cunningham!

For me, PAX belonged to SuperGiant, the makers of Bastion, Transistor and Pyre (review here). One day, the key dev team held a panel where they told their story of working on these games and how the team met teach other. I got to meet the lead voice actor but was too nervous to do more than tell him I was a fan and smile. I didn't tell him that in the 2 weeks of playing Bastion, I narrated everything I did around the house in a gravely voice. After my enforcer shift, SuperGiant's composer put on a concert with key tracks from those three games as well as their newest, Hades. There was also an orchestra and his other vocalist. During that sweet hour at the Paramount, we were treated to a light show, some anecdotes and almost every duet from their games. Chills the whole time. Getting so much exposure to this independent developer was an amazing experience. If Motion Twin (Dead Cells) ripped through PAX, I would have met my two favorite small developers and that would just be hard to top.

I also went to the Make-a-Strip panel, where Penny Arcade founders Jerry Holkins (Tycho) and Mike Krahulik (Gabe) drew a brand new comic and answered all kinds of questions from their e-nor-mous fan base. To think that these two average-looking dudes from Spokane started the 15-year-strong convention for almost 100,000 people from all walks of life to flock to Downtown Seattle by writing a comic about two roommates playing videogames and talking shit.

If you can make it to Seattle for the Labor Day weekend, then sign up to Enforce at PAX in May!

SuperGiant composer Darren Korb

PAX 2015: A first of many to come!

 

Rocket League tournament@SONY

For those of you who don't know, the Penny Arcade eXpo is a 4-day weekend of tabletop games, videogames, anime, cosplay, gaming culture presentations, and there is a ton of winning winning winning! At TGS, Tokaigi, and other conventions, you stand in line to play a game demo for 15 minutes or watch a trailer on a huge screen, all while on the lookout for hot booth babes or cosplay. You can find this at PAX, but there are a lot more ways to walk away with stuff: gaming tournaments on every system, scavenger hunts based on finding qr codes throughout the 8-building grounds (holy shit, right?), games played while waiting in line, and tons of even-if-you-lose concessions. 

(B)Link

Tickets to this event were sold out within hours of going on sale, and that was 3 months before the event. Luckily, applying to work at PAX opened after that, and lil ol me was accepted to join the ranks. The Enforcer[E] crowd are good people. Nerds of every caliber who were there to help other nerds be nerdy. My favorite part about the event was talking to people: PAX is so very social, which I cannot claim is true for other expos of its type. My Japanese is conversational, so it's not all lack of skill and effort on my part. But, the host culture means that TGS and Tokaigi attendees talk to their own groups, and leave the noisemaking to the presentations. To contrast, I had a dozen attendees during PAX come up and talk and hang out (well, I WAS at a lounge with beanbags) and struggle with eye contact and stumble through sentences about Pokemon, Final Fantasy and Legend of Zelda. I'm not poking fun at these people, I'm saying they overcame their uncomfortableness to talk about cool shit. There were lots of tips when and where to wait in line for limited pins and giveaways. With the exception of my family and friends, it was the most genuine group of strangers I've ever rolled with before. 

I've never been more aware of the getting-to-know-someone process than here because there were no professional guidelines or barriers to limit the context of conversation.

This poor bastard was bleeding for 96 hours.

Some of you reading this might be like my co-workers who ironically live in Seattle and look down on gaming culture. I hope you open up and welcome gaming into your life, because pretty soon you're gonna be the weirdos who don't game out! Also, there are major economic opportunities: I met two people from Tulsa who said there weren’t any PC cafes there, and the only arcade had games that were 30 years old. Not to mention the fact that there probably aren’t any connections to Japan or anime. $10k, open an arcade for all the IT people who need a place to spend it!

The biggest sour point was that I wish I had had friends to attend PAX with on my off-hours, though. However, there were almost 1000 [E]s, so it was pretty easy to chat up one of them when I was feeling like doing something other than gawking excitedly. I’ve also heard that going with a group means you’ll inevitably spend time doing things you don’t want to do.

NintIndies...I see what you did there!

Highlights of the event: NintIndies had a room in the Sheraton Hotel with a dozen titles: Typoman, a sidescroller with live word puzzles; Runbow, an 8-player frantic platform racer; and a game called Shantae, a sidescrolling adventure game with leveling up. Also, there was an [E]-only Magic: the Gathering draft tournament where I won the first of three rounds, but ultimately had to concede because the second round took place a little too late for my tastes. Had a blast, though.

WRONG ARIES, dude...you're looking for Ares!

One thing that didn’t rule about that weekend was how much non-PAX time I wasted not being there. Friday and Monday were work days, and Saturday’s power outage meant an extra 2 hours burned in traffic/waiting for the bus. 

All in all, the event was A++++ 10/10 would buy from again! 

Top experiences of 2012 (in no strict order):

While some things have always powered me through, like chats with the family, repeated listenings to Gorillaz, BT and M83, good coffee and drinking nights with friends, there are some experiences that really stand out this year. I'm sure there were more, but I want to get this up before 1/1 is over!

(July, December) Playing Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword. All of the signature Zelda-isms: Mute hero, cinematic shots, great score, instrument, animals, and a buttload of quests. My end game time was 50hours, and I still had a few things left. You know, they could add a hard mode where you hold the wand in your left hand (Link used to be a leftie before the Wii).

The answer in Twilight Princess was to mirror the entire mode, but the challenge would be that you're a leftie fighting mostly right-handed enemies. That's a different strategy...they'd really only need to change Link's handedness back to the original.

But I digress. The game was filled with classic moments like retrieving the Master Sword and finding the Triforce pieces, but my favorite sequence was this:
Learning your first harp song

(December) Coming back to see friends after 3 months. A close friend told me that with real friends, regardless of time, you pick up where you left off, chiding and talking like you just saw the person. It was nice to run off to Japan and experience so much difference, and come back and hug everyone. It's true that I had business to take care of in Seattle, as I transition my life to overseas. However, any financial and stress cost of logistics is worth being with my own. Apologies to Bruce and Candice for the lack of photographic presence! You can see Candice's red hair in the bridge photo.

 [Lake 22]

[Chloe's Birthday@Din Tai Fung]

(December) Re-experiencing Kyoto after 10 years.

[Every 20 minutes, you'd think they'd be cheaper than $120/way]

This was actually a lot of awesome rolled into one: I took the bullet train,

 got to stay in a really nice hotel, and went with my awesome friend, Ran. 

[What's crackin', monkey-monks?]

 In my 11 years of overseas travels, most of it has been alone. There are tons of benefits: moving at my own pace, being as frugal as I want, and the communication challenge. Most of that time, though, I felt like the experience was discounted without sharing it with someone, and I don't mean sending a photo. It's all about the look on someone's face, and the 'Remember that one time...'s.

[Kinkakuji - yes, it's like the Empire State Building in that you've seen it 100000 times]

[Kiyomizudera - after praying to the god of business and fiscal matters]

 Shopping was great, the food was awesome, and our lunch [yakisoba and okonomiyaki] was a lot more flavorful than its Kanto equivalent.

Movies: (August) AVENGERS! I missed out on this movie for a few weeks, and finally saw this movie with Chloe, Sam and Jaaron. That movie was really well done, had tons of WOW moments, great comedy, looked sweet, and I thought it was really sweet that Jaaron and Sam saved another viewing for me.

(July) The Dark Knight Rises midnight showing. Say what you want to say about the movie (lord knows I've heard it all), but you just can't beat that rising tension with fellow nerds when the lights jam off, and you hear the IMAX emcee say some cheap nerdy quip. This year, they even had some trivia about stuff in the Batman universe and gave out comics! I came late and ended up alone at the back of the line until about 30 minutes til, and we were all together, excitedly chatting about whatever came to mind. We got to experience that movie purely, without the baggage of the unfortunate shooting that happened the same night.

[Nature rocks!]

(February). San Francisco and Yosemite. During Aki's last week in the US, her mom came, and the 3 of us went to California. The first destination was Yosemite - a 5-hour drive from SFO. 

 [Half-Dome, I taught a lesson on this!]

After the day at Yosemite, we drove back to San Francisco to have clam chowder, see the bridge, Ben and Jerry's and make a hurried photo attempt at Lombardi Street, which we never saw.

[Cross-cultural drinking!]

(April). Return to Japan A - Chiba.
Aki and her family hosted me in the province east of Tokyo. For 2.5 weeks, I ate great food, saw famous Japanese sights, and got frightened by trembles of earthquakes.

[Sensouji, on a hella rainy day after some awesome kibidango]

[Tokyo/Tsukiji - The hella famous fish market, having some fresh-ass seafood]

[BELIEVE IT!]
















(September). Tokyo Game Show 2012. I'd read about it for more than 10 years, and happen to come to Japan just in time. My friend Wei-Ming is 100% responsible because I never would have looked. Either way, after a few subway transfers and a 20 minute walk to Makuhari Messe, I took this picture:

[Ohh yeah, there are videogames at TGS...]

(April) Radiohead concert. Elizabeth and I went into a warm Key Arena, after some bad security decisions. We were all stopped at one of 4 door entrances to give our tickets to be given a receipt, and sent a quarter turn around Key Arena to get bracelets. With the bracelets, you can enter the arena. You know, instead of having the ticket scanner do BOTH JOBS. Anyway, once you entered, you couldn't exit for security / preventing smoking of any kind protocols. Alas, I forgot my camera that night! Alas....earwax!

(December 11th) Becoming an uncle! J and Ash had a baby. I haven't met Ella Taylor Strong, yet, but she looks cute enough.

(September) Japan B The long-awaited return to Japan. 20 years of videogaming, 8 years of Japanese study, 2 years in university training to become certified, and 6 years of teaching experience later, I've finally made a professional appearance in Chiba. May's trip had a lot to do with me choosing Chiba, and I couldn't be happier with the experience. I taught university students conversational English, and got to meet some incredible people, Japanese and non-!

[Left-to-right: Me, Eda, Raul, Martyn, Kim, Lori, and Wei-Ming. A fine set of teachers, indeed! ]

[My students at a nomikai-gathering]

[Ramen - my new favorite food]