Adventures in PAX Land
The following is a breakdown of the trip to Seattle and PAX West:
PAX West - Day 0 Seattle
After getting up at 4 am for the trip to the airport, I was a little blurry as I went through the travel routines. The cat was unhappy at being woken up early and that I wasn’t paying her enough attention.
The flights were largely uneventful except for one thing:
While boarding my second flight, the flight attendants started passing out square blue plastic packages. As they whipped them out to every man and woman at point-blank range, I was taken aback at the bold move from the airline. I know they take protection and safety seriously but I didn't know a condom would be needed for this flight! A missed opportunity for a mile-high club joke…
After sitting down with a multitude of strange scenarios in my mind I examine the package a little closer. Flipping it over reveals the truth:
Having never received sanitizing wipes immediately upon entering a plane before, a whole other set of scenarios are now playing in my mind…what happened in this plane?
The middle seat is empty so at least it's a comfortable, though confusing, flight.
Lost on Trains
There is only one train line that goes from SEATAC to downtown Seattle. I spent 2 hours lost on it.
The WAC (Washington Athletics Club)
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| Not bad for a hundred years old |
The room is fantastic. We're high up and have a view of the docks and Puget Sound. It's a bright day and the sun is streaming in the windows.
Almost Lost Russ
But rest and relaxation didn't handle the fact that Russ has missed his flight and might miss all of PAX if he cannot get his flight adjusted. There's not much to be done on my end though, and when you can't do something your anxiety can build up. So with a phone charged and clean clothes, I head to a fun place. The pub for a drink!
Haunted Pub-
The pub is exactly what you want from one. Down an alley with a single sign, windows that obscure the going-on inside, and a dark interior with the malty smell of beers and old wood. The food was solid and the beers were excellent for a man recovering his vacation mindset. It is also supposedly haunted, but reports of the piano playing itself didn’t occur while I was there. Just a good set of fish and chips and a couple of good beers.
Even better, Russ is going to make it! I agreed to meet him at the airport to act as his now well-traveled train guide.
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I counted 84 steps, and watched a guy jog up them wearing a full backpack and boots. Rocky only had 72. And I still had four more blocks like that to go!
Seattle is fantastic to walk when going downhill, and exhausting uphill. Serves me right coming from the flats of Dallas.
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| Seattle is not on flat ground. And not for the weak-legged. |
Russ arrives without further complications and we make plans for the following day as we collapse in the hotel room, tired from our trips.
PAX Day 1
Monday at PAX and I'm full of nerves. I'm still trying to relax as I'm hounded by terrible visions of getting hassled by security, or my badge getting lost, or not registering, or having a bad encounter with a cosplayer. None of these are rational- my badge is secured, I left my knife back at the hotel, and cosplayers are more afraid of me harassing them.
Breakfast in Seattle is a sad affair after the massive brunch and breakfast options of Texas. Apparently, most folks just have coffee out here.
The Seattle Convention Center has two central areas - the Arch which is the older part that I've been to before, and the Summit which is the new convention building. Our hotel is two blocks from the backside of the Arch, which we have to pass by on our way to the Summit.
We end up in line out in the sun at the Arch. It's hot for Seattle but nothing compared to the Texas heat (or Colorado sun). They finally open the doors and we get in. It honestly happened very smoothly, and they didn't even check my bag.
The Expo hall was great, many fun games to try from AAA to the smallest of indie dev teams. Somehow I ended up talking to the art director or artist at each one we stopped at. Some of them have fantastic taste and the whole game feels complete. It makes my art skills feel very rudimentary and our game feels very rough in comparison.
Legal Advice
Our first event after a bit of exploring is legal advice. I know, it doesn't sound like the most exciting thing. A panel of lawyers sounds like captivating entertainment for a comatose ward. However, there are very few more terrifying things for indie game devs than getting all your hard work destroyed because of a lawsuit. Lawsuits aren't free advertising. They take time, effort, and money to deal with- even if you end up winning.
We learned all about copywriters, patents, trade secrets, and trademarks!
And some more general advice: Do not mess with Disney.
Good news - Our stuff is copyrighted as soon as we create it. To take legal action all we have to do is register it and we don’t even have to do that until we have a problem.
Bad news - We're riding a thin line with some of our puzzles, and we agree that changes will have to be made. We both head out with a handful of notes and contacts as well as some heavy thinking going on.
Omegathon
Russ has been talking up this event since we started planning for this trip. Before PAX starts, the organizers email out to everyone registered. 20 individuals are selected and they play a variety of video games, eliminating people round after round each day. Russ had signed up but (to his dismay) had not been picked.
The first game is Tetris. NES Tetris. You have two minutes to earn as many points as possible and the players with the lowest four scores are eliminated. I sit there wondering if there is something else to be at, it's not what I usually call entertainment and the setup and gathering of the players is uneventful (except for the mom who got volunteered by their kid and had no idea).
But I can admit when I am wrong. After the second competitor, the crowd is in for it. Listening to their cheers and boos as well as the haphazard host (who is the definition of an unreliable narrator) go through two minutes of chaos was a blast. Some had played and had a plan, others got hosed by never getting the right piece (like me on carp!). By the end, I'm analyzing strategies and plotting scoring moves.
Russ and I discuss the sword-fighting puzzle. After the legal advice panel, we realize we have to make more changes if we're going to be in a clear and safe zone. More on that later. For now, it'll have to be a trade secret!
As we continue our exploration, I see pretzels but I cannot find the source. The hunt will continue (until the final day) as a personal pizza will have to do. Honestly, way better pizza than I was expecting.
Going around both the Arch and Summit, we find all sorts of inspirations for puzzles and puzzle variations. Just for the inspiration alone, this trip was worth it!
Later we met up with my friend who lives in the area and will be with us the next two days. He takes us to a Scottish pub. Russ has been curious about whiskeys so I put a few cocktails in front of him. However there is a catch, these are all Scotch. Which is like thinking about hiking, and going to start with K2.
None of the cocktails did it for him, though I thought they were fine. Not the greatest but I’ve found Scotch to be hard to work into cocktails.
PAX Day 2
We have breakfast inside our hotel and it's fancy but good.
Back at PAX, We hit up the RPG and tabletop areas looking for anything that piques our interest as we meet up with our friends.
Three of us took on a Golf with Friends tournament in the PC area. We all had played before but none of us could be considered amazing at it. I thought we were all going to make it, our scores getting us top half through most of the first round. But right at the end, Russ got caught by something I hadn't even noticed. There was a time limit on each hole and failing the time limit gave a massive penalty!
Luke and I had made it to round two, but now the holes were more complicated and longer, and more and more fell to the time limit penalty. The game was no longer the lowest strokes but if you could finish in time.
I was sitting in a comfortable second at the last hole, well ahead of the third place (with only the top three staying in), then a bad shot had my last chance at the hole counting down the seconds. I overshoot and watch the ball keep rolling as time runs out. Dropping me out of the round. Rage, bargaining, more rage, sadness, blaming the idiot who chose such a short time limit…eventually acceptance. Still a little rage. Luke however had made it to the finals! During the finals, it became clear halfway through that it was a race for second place only. While everyone else was struggling to beat the timer, one player was nailing every shot and secret path. Luke fought through and from a second at the bottom placement early on came to end up on the podium!
Nobody threatened the #1, and he casually waltzed to the win with more than twenty strokes between him and second place.
Omegathon
I knew the next game for Omegathon was going to cut some of my favorite contestants. For my generation and those who played a lot of games, an FPS game like Halo wouldn't have been a challenge. But if you haven't handled two thumbsticks of modern controllers, it can be a very confusing and difficult challenge. Especially when you are up against others who have those skills and are merciless.
The greatest cheer from the crowd came not from the continued barrage of kills the leaders rolled up, but from the single kill the mom who was roped into Omegathon managed to get.
To her absolute credit, it was not a gimme-kill. The player that came for her was in second place, full health, and tried to trap her. But her chaotic pattern meant he couldn't predict where she was going and she just fired like a maniac, taking him down as he tried to chase her.
She was unfortunately eliminated, but for barely having ten minutes to learn before being dropped into a game she didn't know the controls for, she did amazing.
Lunch was some fantastic burgers at Li'l Woody's and a massive basket of fries. The server looked straight at me as I ordered the second basket for the four of us, stating that the basket would feed three people. I told them in that case just one would be for Russ and we'd be back for more. By the end we ended up getting three baskets of fries, but we did have a friend's friend show up with his kid and cleared them all.
Afterward, we had some time before our next event and wandered to the board game rentals in the tabletop area. I wanted something quick so I could get a few rounds to understand it. Instead, we ended up with Puerto Rico the board game. I only now kind of understand the game, and there were some flubs with the rules, but we managed to finish in time.
I am proud to tie for first. Though I'll admit it was no small amount of luck.
Late in the evening was the D&D live play. Acquisitions Incorporated. This group has been playing D&D live at PAX since it started 20 years ago!
I will say I do not recommend it for people who have never played before and are expecting what you see or hear in professional recordings. The best quote I've heard regarding it is that comparing regular D&D to recorded professionals is like comparing sex to porn. One has a vastly larger budget, planning, and more people in the room than you may expect.
If you can keep that expectation in mind, then you'll have a great time both playing and watching.
It was slick, but I appreciated many of the on-the-fly decisions and house rules that were played upon. Things not going to plan but having to pivot on the spot happened as they do. Awkward moments and having to read descriptions of abilities and spells, creative ideas, and poor roles all combined for a good, more genuine experience than some other podcasts. All in all, I had fun but I certainly felt that there were large gaps in my understanding- like jumping into a show at season 5 without any context. Gonna have to start catching up I guess!
PAX Day 3
Omegathon was early today and it looked like a good one. There would be two Omegathon rounds today, with less time to prep for the second.
This round was Excite-bike. Back to the old-school NES for some retro fun. Contestants would take the best time of three regular runs, or you could take a fourth but you had to accept it even if it was a worse time.
Russ and I had fun discussing the way retro games did things, the strategies and skills, and how symbols had changed meanings over time.
I was glad to see so many ladies still in the competition! In almost all realms of competitive video games, men (boys sometimes in mental age) tend to dominate. The best run by a long shot was one of the ladies. Most of the others were within half a second of each other. I was only partially interested in the times however and more in the mechanics of the game. Sometimes someone looked faster but the clock gave their time as slower. You'd think the clock wouldn’t lie, though after watching speedrunners describe glitches that can warp a game and my own game dev experiences I can tell you NEVER TRUST A VIDEO GAME CLOCK.
One game we had been spying on since day one was Artemis Bridge Simulator, where up to five people take star-trek-style positions on a ship to fly around, accomplish missions, and blow up space baddies. I consider myself a well-rounded nerd and have watched almost all Star Trek series and movies at least once. The people running it however made my nerd creds look like a flashlight out in the sun. Their passion was evident and I admire their love of the theme and what they had made.
Everyone said the Engineer would be the most difficult, but after a few minutes, I felt fine in the role. Most of it is simply clicking a button to reallocate power and coolant. My friend next to me had the piloting station and had to manage multiple views as well as their own HOTAS to get us around. He loved it, so we'll be picking that up for game nights.
Russ had a trading card game tournament and while we cheered him on for a minute I had a Romance in videogames panel I wanted to attend. So I left him to his own devices (his tournament was several hours (and he lost 0-4)) and made my way to the panel.
I feel it is an awkward thing, sitting in a room of strangers talking about romance. It needed wine and candlelight to set the right mood.
The panel turned into a talk about the psychological effects and debates about what a healthy relationship is. I just don't have the mind for that in my swashbuckling and puzzle-making. As of right now, there is no plan for any NPC romance mechanics for our game. There will be some social options but those will be strictly between players.
We caught up with Russ for the second and last Omegathon we felt like going to. It was the O.G. Mario Kart (SNES), and most of the underdogs had been weeded out. They played a 1v1 race bracket with double elimination and the top four continued. Only one race was close enough to be considered entertaining. Most were a one-sided blowout.
They did not shy away from the tough courses with both rainbow road and boos haunted tracks showing up, and all players fell repeatedly. Again I was glad to see some ladies making it through. One ended up in the loser's bracket but fought her way back to claim one of the last spots.
We had some extra time before our next event, The Dark Room, so we took advantage of the RPG library and Luke found a quick playing game called Outgunned with an action movie game setting. With Russ’s dice, we were able to run a nice, fast-moving game, complete with a bar fight (technically a diner), a chase scene, and a skydiving finale with plenty of explosions!
We're getting copies of that for some short adventures later on!
Lastly, we went to a show called The Dark Room. The description at least sounded fun: “An improv-heavy metal video game experience!” A little hard to get your head around for sure, but none of us were prepared for how much fun we were going to have.
The best way I can describe it is a heavily accented man (picture a goth-mad-max-cosplay) took the audience through the Zork-like challenge of turning on the lights. Complete with jokes, audience participation, and fun, if worthless, prizes.
I cannot recommend it highly enough. Unfortunately, the show will not be touring again in the States for some time, but you can find it on the interwebs and enjoy it.
Pax Day 4
Clouds may make some people unhappy and I will never understand that. I grew up under the gray skies of the Pacific Northwest. You don't get sunburned, everything is green and lush, the water is always fresh and pine trees smell great.
The Seattle clouds rolled in, cooling the atmosphere and making further walks more comfortable.
PAX on the last day still wasn't dead, though quieter for sure and with significantly shorter lines. It was just Russ and I at the events but we only had two big items we wanted to get. A bag of dice and a panel of indie game devs.
But we had some time before needing to be at our first stop, and we found a VR game called Space Pirate Trainer. Little did we know we were entering a tournament that only a few people had shown up for. Boyeed with overconfidence, Russ and I gave it a go! It was a very stereotypical VR experience: you stand in a small area, blast targets that come by, and dodge attacks. I was alright but Russ fell over once and the guy who came placed first in the tournament quadrupled my score.
And then, we found the pretzel vendor! We must have passed by them a dozen times and just missed it in the crowds.
The small team's indie panel had a good variety of people. Russ recognized one of them as a person we sat next to earlier! Had we known we would have picked their brain and gotten some good advice for our scenario.
Both Russ and I took large amounts of notes on everything from how to stay motivated to how to set yourself up for success, as well as all the resources they recommended and avoiding pitfalls.
Afterward, we met up again with Luke for a bit more Seattle fun. We decided on another VR game, this one at a location where we could all play together. I spent a little bit more for a pay-to-win mini-gun because reloading is for chumps. We slaughtered many zombies, and managed to earn a five-star rating and save all the civilians, which I was told was hard to do. Thankfully they did not have a video of the dance off at the end.
To cool off we found a mini-golf place (putt-putt to those in the know). Monster mini-golf was a delightful campy course, themed with a pair of unique characters working with a gang of monstrous celebrities. After our Golf with Friend tournament, we felt well-prepared to dominate but the simple-looking holes belied their difficulty.
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| There were weird Bellevue facts scattered around too.. |
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| He wakes and speaks randomly |
They found a genuinely talented artist for those!
Plans for the Future
Russ and I ended the evening with a lot of plotting and planning. We have an official roadmap consisting of 3 phases and four versions. The phases are internal checkpoints, with phase 3 being our closed beta, and Version 1 will be the official release of Empyrean Raiders.
All together PAX was an amazing experience and spending the time together helped us solidify plans and reassure ourselves that we work well together even after being exhausted, stuck in a room together, and doing tons of new things for days. We came out feeling energized about the project and looking forward to putting a ton of time into making a great game!
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