PAX is fun, yeah? Go play some games, see some cool dudes, enjoy the panels. It’s a wacky vacation for nerdom. Unless you’re like me, and decide to go for all four days to heavily push and promote your game. (Arcade Spirits, in case that wasn’t clear.) …especially if you’re also an introvert who fears smalltalk with strangers, and has to carefully manage a physical disability 24/7… yeah. In that case it’s a harrowing firey hoop of death, something you gotta leap through and possibly get burned.
But the good news? I did it. I put myself out there, I made new friends, I talked business things with businesspeoples, and did it all with only a minor amount of physical crash at the end. I got it done. We handed out bookmarks, we talked up the game, we made some forward progress with it despite not having a booth. And I’m damn proud of myself for helping make this happen, when I could’ve mumbled something and withdrawn from the spotlight. Hard work, but satisfying work.
Each year I like to do a neatly organized blog post running down the people I met and the games I saw. Let’s do that, shall we?
GOOD GOOD FRANDS
Here’s a shoutout to those who supported me the whole way:
- Aenne (Twitter/Twitch), my co-author, a living maelstrom of social mixing. She went hard in the paint on this one.
- Shadra (Twitter) who helped us sort through industry wisdoms and made some badass light-up signs to promote the game.
- My brother-in-law Andrew, for being my physical assistant through thick and thin and occasional pukeys.
- Emily (Twitter) who provided some late night gaming funsies.
- Miellyn (Twitter) who arranged the Romance in Games panel, which was loads of fun!
NEW COOL PEOPLE
This was the year I really pushed to talk to new people, and it worked out nicely! I can’t list every single person I chatted with or I’d be here all day… but here are a few highlights!
- Mae (Twitter/Twitch), a community management expert and streamer, and all around awesome person.
- Ash (Twitter) one of Aenne’s friends, to talk about the Switch and the indie industry as a whole.
- Arden (Twitter), the developer of visual novel Date or Die, which in part inspired us to make Arcade Spirits.
- I Need Diverse Games (Twitter/Twitch) which is run by lovely people doing lovely things, because I do in fact need diverse games.
- Take This (Twitter/Web), which hosted an excellent panel on impostor syndrome. Helped, considering my tendency to downplay my own accomplishments.
- Graham of LoadingReadyRun (Twitter/Twitch) who, to my surprise, recognized me. Senpai~
- Jacob Burgess (Twitter), a super cool voice actor I recognized from LRR’s visual novel streams, and the criminally underrated Where The Water Tastes Like Wine.
- Samantha from ArenaNet (Twitter), who recognized that visual novels are awesome — and already knew about Arcade Spirits, which was a nice surprise!
Now, let’s get to the games!
YEARNING FOR NARRATIVE GAMES
Not many purely narrative games were on display at PAX this year. Not even many partially narrative games, really. I can understand why — they don’t demo well on a show floor, where you want to play an extremely short gameplay loop to get an idea of what a game is, then move on. But even if that cold logic is against them, I love stories, and want to highlight the stories I did find while cruising around. They deserve a spotlight, even a dim and flickering one such as my own. Here you go:
- A Case of Distrust (PC, Available Now) A noir tale, built in Twine, then ported to Unity with some truly excellent and flavorful art aesthetics. Got to chat with the developer, Ben Wander (Twitter) about narrative games, and learned quite a bit.
- Monstrata Fracture (PC, Available Now) We saw this visual novel up in the diversity lounge, and just loved the art style and character customization. We’ve got a lot to learn from fellow renpy developers like Astralore Games (Web) and it’s great to meet them for a chat.
- Bound By (PC, Coming Winter 2018) Rather than a pure visual novel, this is a tactics game with a heavy emphasis on story and theme — it’s right there in the title, “What are you bound by?” with plenty of delicious answers.
- Seventh Circle (PC, Kickstarter) If you want to get in on the ground floor of a customizable-player visual novel in the urban fantasy genre, here’s your chance. Hoping this one launches!
- Masquerada (PC and Switch, Available Now) I’m not normally into tactics games, but this one is an interesting blend of tactical RPG and action game, with a beautiful art style and some terrific voice acting. The worldbuilding is on point, too.
- Monster Prom (PC, Available Soon) A multiplayer visual novel! Amazing idea — you’re competing for the attention of the characters, building up your stats and making decisions along the way. Nasty little sense of humor about this one, too!
HAWT ARCADE ACTION
Now, this had heavy representation at PAX. My interest was very laser-focused on games that would play well on my crazy Windows-based arcade cabinet, and had a reasonable single player component.
- Streets Ablaze (PC, Kickstarter) You know I love side scrolling beat-em-ups like Final Fight, and that’s what this is… in full 2.5D, with some nice artwork. They also used a genuine arcade cab to demo the game, which is terrific.
- Double Kick Heroes (PC, Early Access) Your basic Guitar Hero style music game, but the trappings are delicious — a pixel art heavy metal road trip, blazing down zombies with machine guns mounted to your car. I like games with simple controls and fun premises, so this is my jam.
- Blazing Chrome (PC, In Development) A side-scrolling Contra / Metal Slug game. But that’s not enough to catch my attention, no sir. CRT effects, scanlines, vignetting, screen curvature… and some of the BEST 16-bit pixel art and animation I’ve ever seen. That will catch my attention, yes sir.
- Super Retromaker (PC, In Development) Like Mario Maker, this is an old school retro game design kit. Beautiful CRT screen effects, with pixel art presented via impressive 2.5D extrusion. Looking forward to trying this one on the cab.
- Retrotainment HQ (NES and PC) Rather than a specific game, wanted to highlight this amazing homebrew developer releasing plastic carts for your plastic 8-bit Nintendo. Also playable on Steam, but for the full majesty, gotta blow on dat cart and slide it on in.
- Renaine (PC and Switch, Kickstarter) I love the pixel art style on this one. The heavy black outlines give it a unique feel, like every line and curve are distinct… a strange blacklight poster come to life in low resolution.
CAN’T WE JUST GET BEYOND THUNDERDOME?
I also saw plenty of “couch multiplayer” games, mind you. Like, plenty. Maybe more than plenty. Probably too many; I must’ve played a dozen fairly generic “four dudes duke it out in a single-screen arena” type games. They demo great on the floor, but the amount of times a year I have enough people on my couch to really make these work, much less people interested in crazy-frenetic action games, is countable on one hand without all fingers represented. Still, a few stood out to me…
- Just Shapes and Beats (PC and Switch, In Development) A bullet hell dodge-em-up music game. I’m completely pants at it, but it’s simple and fun enough to be great for the couch, with some amazing music and visual design. Minimalism rules.
- Plunder Panic (PC, Available Now) Inspired by Killer Queen, this hybrid of action/strategy jam supports a ridiculous number of players at once. Considering Fist of Discomfort was inspired in part by Killer Queen, this has coolness by association.
- Epic Loon (PC PS4 XB1, In Development) This is… weird. It’s presented in grimy VHS style, with a gothy grotesque art style, but is actually a very zany physics platformer with extremely simple controls. Good style plus easy to grasp gameplay always wins with me.
THE FUTURE IS NOW (ACTUALLY A YEAR FROM NOW)
I’m already looking forward to the next PAX, using lessons learned from this one. Four days is just too much PAX, I’ve learned, notably; you can chop off Sunday and have a great time of it, Thursday is definitely worth it. I also neeeeed to get into the Westin to make this work, as a waystation for handling rest and recuperation. And consistently getting non-awful food is… problematic. I’ve got a dozen and one little complaints, yes, but… I can make this work. I can loop back around in a year and keep pushing my game. I’m ready. I can do this.
For everyone I met at PAX, thank you. Even if we just chatted briefly, you helped me get through it all. And I hope you look forward to Arcade Spirits!