PAX continues unabated. I was up until 5:00 AM with the night topped off by a trip to the nearest diner – the Hurricane Cafe – which was a good seven blocks from the Sheraton and the conference center. The thing with urban centers is that they are particularly lousy at facilitating living in the off hours, hours frequented heavily by the nascent zombies that comprise the PAX audienceship.
The exhibition hall is much busier today than it was yesterday, and there are quite a few more cosplayers and other adorable misfits filling the halls of the Washington State Conference Center today. I managed to get in games of Puerto Rico and Betrayal at House on the Hill before having a nice chat with the people from Prima Publishing about the ins and outs of being a strategy guide author. Assasins Creed made a big splash in the main theater today, but I was not in a position to snap up any media from the demonstration.
Betrayal at House on the Hill can be an uneven boardgaming experience, and I was pleased the game worked out as well as it did. I became the traitor, and had a pet dragon (Haunt 15 for those keeping score at home). I managed to decimate one of the other players, but the protagonists had the time to equip one player mightily and rather than drag out the affair I met him head on and died – badly. But it was fun.
There are a few things I’ve noticed about PAX: the vast majority of PAX goers are local, and they don’t seem to like strangers chatting them up in line. Also, the tabletop freeplay is pretty barren, and what I saw a lot of today was curiosity seekers wandering in and taking a game from the library, only to return it 10 minutes later after reading the rules. The groups of people doing this we’re all small and looked awkward and unhappy. I felt for them, I really did.
I’m going to return to tabletop land shortly and hopefully manage to facilitate some fun-making for such curiosity seekers.
Last note: Will Wheaton is really quite attractive in person. Is this some sort of latent impression from watching him on television all those years? The ineffable charisma of a celebrity? I don’t know. It was a short line to get an autograph, but I passed as, well, what the hell do I need signed by Will Wheaton?
While in line this morning I wrote as follows…
2 hours in line and things are starting to move – finally. Already you can smell BO, and I’m surrounded by two distinct types of PAX-goers: people who are chatting loudly with their own brought-to-PAX group, or those that have been quietly immersed in their own DS or PSP experience the whole line standing experience. Looking to my sides I can see 6 people in close proximity listening to iPods, small white earbuds keeping out the world around them.
Last weekend I attended the Edmonton International Fringe festival which was a stark contrast to this scene. While this may be gamer heaven, it is well evidenced to no surprise that gamers are an antisocial bunch of people. As a peer group the frustrate the hell out of me.
But I have a few prearranged meet and greets, so despite a dull line experience I remain optimistic as to what the weekend holds.
And then the day continued…
I really didn’t get to meet many interesting people today, which I thought was a bit disappointing. I trolled the tabletop freeplay rooms on a regular basis and they were consistently barren. I hope that later tonight or tomorrow I can find a little more board gaming action.
The highlight of the day was a demo of Fantasy Flight Games new Starcraft board game. It really has turned out well, and I briefly chatted with a representative who summarized its development hell. They had a complete, Blizzard-approved game that they threw in the bin because they knew they could do better. And what they have now really shines! I don’t know about play balance, but the interacting mechanics feel really interesting and fresh – despite a lot of them coming out of other FFG titles. It was simply delightful to try it, and of course it was spectacular to behold. I had a hard time not buying one of the very few copies available. But the budget is stretched as is…
Due to phenominally bad planning I missed the keynote presentation an the Uwe Boll panel. Hopefully I can be more attentive to my schedule tomorrow.
Con swag was in abundance, but most of it was terrible. Nabbed a Bully “schoolbook” from Rockstar, a handful of stickers, and registered in a tournament for a card game I’ve never played before. Purchased obligatory PAX 07 t-shirt as well as Book 4 of the PA Dark Horse series – $10 at the con special you know. There is a concert tonight, but the Penny Arcade forum moderators are having a dinner so I’ll miss parts of it. Tomorrow has Jonathan Coulton, which I’m much more excited about.
The smell of geekery is in the air. Penny Arcade Expo, the annual pilgrimage of gamers and misfits is this weekend, and I’m sitting in my Sheraton hotel room and couting down the 4 hours until the doors open. Yesterday we drove 14 hours across the Canadian Rockies from Edmonton, Alberta – spirits high, iPods filled with video game music. Was it fun? Well, I mean its 14 hours, thats a long time. Someday I hope to be uncheap enough to spring for a flight.
I’m here as a hanger-on to some of the team from BioWare presenting Mass Effect at the Microsoft booth, so while I am laden with choice tidbits of secret information I had to sign an NDA before stepping into the car. Damn. The guy I’m bunking with at the Sheraton is a programmer on their unannounced Xbox 360 project. Want to know about it? Sorry, they told me they’d have me killed.
As I’m unable to liveblog (roaming data for 1 cent a kilobyte? No thanks) and can’t produce much video my updates will be occasional at best, but I hope I can bring you a bit of the style of a super nerd video game convention from remote. This is the biggest independent gaming con in the history of foreverness, or so they tell me. And all for two guys who draw pictures and write funny words. I should have ignored my parents and followed my dream.
The line at 10AM was already considerable. People were playing card games and assembling jigsaw puzzles (?) while awaiting permission to enter gamer mecca. The street is decorated with banners, so I guess PAX has finally made it to something resembling mainstream. I ducked down the street for $11 donuts and coffee at Lola, having indulged in the best pizza in the entire world at sister restaurant Serious Pie last night. If you happen to be in the neighbourhood, you can drop me a note at [email protected] which I can pick up via mobile.
(if you hit Serious Pie the clam pizza was spectacular, as was the sausage and peppers shown here. The clam was better though.)
2K just sent word that they were making the score to the blockbuster hit BioShock a free download on the Cult of Rapture website. To grab your copy of the score, head on over to http://www.2kgames.com/cultofrapture
