Well hello there!
Been a while. It’s been a little slow going on the writing front; sometimes it’s a slog, and you just have to muscle through it. ._.
I just got back from PAX! Penny Arcade Expo is a huge gaming convention in Seattle, and this year it went from Friday August 30th to Monday September 2nd. Four days of wicked awesome gaming fun with my best friends, and 80,000 other people.
We had an 8 bed room at a hostel. I made a nest up on the top bunk by the window, and it was excellent.
But I’m getting ahead of myself…
This is perhaps the most clutch example of bureaucracy I will ever recount. I still cannot believe it happened. Truly, I am in the luckiest timeline.
9PM the night before leaving for PAX: someone in my group posts on our coordination thread that they just realized that their passport was expired. The rest of us gave our condolences and continued packing.
So at about 9:05PM, the night before we leave, I also discover that my passport is expired.
There was much freaking out, but I kept it together. Discovered that it was possible, though not likely, that I could get a new passport in time to make my 11:30 bus the next morning.
10:05PM: get passport photo taken. Thank goodness for late night convenience stores that take passport photos.
That night I packed and figured out the timeline for the next day. If I got up at 6, I could get in line for the passport office at 6:30. When it opened at 7:30 I was the first in line, of about 40 people. I explained my situation to the teller with a good a mix of urgency, optimism, and cheerfulness, but with an underlying panic that was impossible to conceal.
Longer story shorter, my new passport was handed to me at 11:17AM. I was in a cab at 11:20, and on the bus with all my friends at 11:25.
I cannot believe that worked. The people at the passport office in downtown Vancouver are wizards, literally wizards.
Bonus: my friend who was in the same predicament got his passport as well and made it to PAX in time for An Afternoon With Patrick Rothfuss.
Onto PAX! Here I shall share my top 10 games to check out.
#10: Against the Wall
Against the Wall is a first-person platforming-adventure game set on the side of an infinite wall. You have a weapon/tool equipped to manipulate sections of the wall, pulling them outwards so you can climb on them. This game looked challenging and fun and I look forward to trying it out. (by Michael Consoli)
#9: Mushroom 11
I only got a quick look at this game but it seemed really neat; you’re herding an ever-growing fungus through a side scrolling maze. (by Itay Keren)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkFGbMYmeT8#t=5m54s
#8: Orbitor
There was a contingent of Australians up on the 5th floor of the main convention hall, near the PAX10, and I had a brief peruse to see what would catch my eye. Orbiter jumped out at me because of how insanely beautiful it is. It’s a space game where you orbit stars and moons and blow them up for energy. The effects are eye catching and the soundtrack is great. Just a beautiful game that I look forward to playing more of. (by Tim Stasse)
#7: Aarus Awakening
This game was eyecatching- everything in it started hand drawn on paper. The concept was neat and challenging- little beasty-dude can teleport to where your mouse cursor is. I had a tough time picking it up, but that was mostly because I was exhausted by the time I got to it. This is one game I will be playing again, when I have skills like basic hand-eye coordination, and brain function once again. A neat game.
#6: Cannon Brawl
Cannon Brawl is out right now. My husband plays it a lot. He was very excited to meet the creators of it; he made a shirt and they were pretty thrilled to see how into their game he is. They signed it for him, and played the game with him. The creators are super cool, and their game is absolutely fantastic. Think Worms Armageddon meets tower defence, with real time zeppelin warfare and destructible terrain. It’s super fun! Check it out, and get your Cannon Brawl on.
The next three on the list are all about sound. Visuals and gameplay are great, but mostly it was the soundtrack that drew me in.
#5: Soundodger
It’s like asteroids, but you can bend time. Oh and also the soundtrack sometimes kicks into reverse, and so does everything else but you. It’s hella cool, and free to play.
Sidescrolling 2D platformer that has a kickin soundtrack to accompany you on your perilous journey. The look and feel is really great. Bought it when I got home.
This is a fantastic concept that’s so well implemented I could have played this game all day. You move to the beat of the music to keep your combo multiplier going, and it rocks my socks. This had such a crowd around it, mainly because they had a DDR pad hooked up to it, so people had to get their feet moving to the beat to dodge skeletons and fight dragons in this roguelike rhythm dungeon crawler. No picture could do it justice; you have to hear it to believe it, and everyone watching was bobbing their heads along to this awesome game.
This game was round 2 of the Omegathon, and boy oh boy was it fun to watch. It’s like Smash Bros, but with more game types, and with the cute factor pumped to 500%. Customizing your little battle dudes before the fight is super fun; there’s a jillion different heads to get. I bought it when I got home, and have a stoic lion head as my mug of choice. Want a party game? This is the one. Epic fun times ahead with Battleblock Theatre.
#1: Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime
Holy moly this was fun. Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime at the top of my list for sure: it’s beautiful, sounds amazing, and is so inventive I fell in love with it immediately.
It’s two player co-op. You and your partner are manning a ship, and there are four guns, a shield, a giant space lazer, and thrusters, and you have to operate the ship in real time while being assaulted by space aliens, and simultaneously trying to save whole planets that are being attacked. It’s super fun, and I cannot wait to play more of it.
But wait there’s one more: it was the most hilarious thing to watch and then to play. Octodad: Dadliest Catch is a game where you play an octopus in disguise as a normal human dad, trying to fake his way through normal human stuff without letting on that he’s an octopus in a suit. Controlling the jelly-noodly-flip-floppy-cephalopod resulted in constant laughter. Having to do such mundane things as “Get your daughter the milk” and “Make coffee” resulted in near catastrophe as my flailing tentacles sent things flying around due to my inept control. It was so, so funny, and I will make everyone that comes into my house play it, so that I can laugh at them.
So that’s *my* PAX10. PAX11 I suppose. There were so many games, and even more that I list here that I’m looking forward to. The final round of the Omegathon was “Spy Party” and I think I’ll get it and play the heck out of it, and I will learn a new meaning of the word “subtlety”.
(My lanyard by the end of the con!)
That’s all for now folks! Thanks for checking it out. I hope I’ve inspired you to take a look at a few of these games and see if you like them.
Cheers.
Heidi out.
H.G. Bells 