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