Elysian Shadows

Hey, I was just wondering if anyone else here was going to PAX at the beginning of September. A few friends of mine (one of which who won't know I'm coming until the day of) and I will be driving down from Vancouver. We'll be there for the 3 days plus a few extra - leaving just in time to get back for the start of classes.

I'm psyched!

I won't be attending as I am on the East Coast but you're in for a good time. I went to PAX East this past March and it was a goddamn blast.

I'm looking forward to seeing the keynote speakers.

Also, I want to hear Jonathan Coulton. Cody Monkey anyone?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5W_wd9Qf0IE

EccentricDuck wrote: Also, I want to hear Jonathan Coulton. Cody Monkey anyone?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5W_wd9Qf0IE

Haha thank you for the link.
This song is awesome :D

I'm here in Seattle for the conference. Will be going to a meetup for Playstation and IGN in a few minutes, and after that I'll meet up with another group of people for some informal meet and greet thing (not sure who or what it is exactly - a friend of mine who I'm here with spends a lot of time on the Playstation and Xbox communities and knows the organizer). Tomorrow it officially starts.

Milch wrote:

EccentricDuck wrote: Also, I want to hear Jonathan Coulton. Cody Monkey anyone?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5W_wd9Qf0IE

Haha thank you for the link.
This song is awesome :D

I have to see that anime, my cousin told me about it, seems pretty cool and.. different.

Have a great time EccentricDuck! :D

Day 1:
Went to two Game Design panels. Two of the same people were at both so part of the conversation from the first carried on into the second. In the first panel they talked about all kinds of things from where to start in design to the types of emotional/fun responses players feel in games to finding meaning in games. Regarding where to start - some said story/narrative, some said mechanics (and Nichole Lazzaro said focusing on the player's experience). One of the best things was that they often had different thoughts on different design questions and the resulting discussions were really good. The second panel talked a lot about the importance of iteration - going through the process of actually making something as much and as often as you can (for experience), and also it's importance in design and playtesting. They talked about different inspirations for new game ideas - and what seemed to be common to all of them was that they rapidly prototyped their ideas. Most of them tested them with other people (in or out of the team) and went from there - being willing to throw out the idea or go through several iterations to make it fun. The importance of writing and communication was also a big topic in the second one. Especially, for the designer:
- having empathy for team members.
- not being hesitant to try out new ideas and mention them
- being willing to throw an idea away because it doesn't work

Overall, there were many different opinions and ways the designers approach their own games - even when their was some common thing that they agreed on. It was really cool to see.

The best panel I saw was one for people interested in Indie Development. Of all the people I saw today, they all seemed to be the most down-to-earth. Really, the most important stuff I got from it was that they were all programmers to one extent or another and they all had ways for keeping themselves relatively focused and on track at home/work (sometimes defining their own specific hours of work). They talked a lot about the ease of making and publishing something versus how it used to be (including a mention of how there's more crappy titles out there, but there's also many good ones), how vital it is to reach out to gaming communities and players to gain an audience, and a lot of the reasons why they like being small/indie developers as opposed to a big studio (as well as the challenges).

I think my favorite part was getting a chance to talk with James Silva who started Ska Studios (The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai, I MAED A GAM3 W1TH Z0MB1ES 1NIT!!!1). He started from a hobby background as opposed to industry experience and programmed with C# and XNA.

Anywho, it's time to go out and celebrate my friend's 21st b-day (we're from Canada so it's not like we couldn't buy alcohol previously, but it seems appropriate to be in Seattle at the time).

And shamelessly (or for anyone who might be interested) here's a link to my friend's twitter feed - we don't go to the exact same stuff but we came here together. MyLAAG is for My Life As A Gamer.

http://twitter.com/mylaag

Sorry I haven't had a chance to post anything else. PAX was awesome - I loved it. I know Duke Nukem was one of the big things there, but I personally never made it to the display. The guys I travelled with did and they told me all about it. I was too busy going to panels so I didn't spend much time in the expo hall (so many awesome panels on game design, indie games, RPGs, storytelling, one by the guys from Geeknights on Game Theory... pure inspired greatness).

For now, I have my first day of classes starting tomorrow plus I've been inspired to code since PAX started... so I'm going through my collisionDetection tonight and then heading to bed (for the moment - first comes programming, then comes school, then comes sleep...).

Cheers!

Dang, I haven't been paying attention to the forums lately, otherwise we could have said hi at PAX. I spent a lot of the time in the BYOPC area, though.

vargonian wrote:Dang, I haven't been paying attention to the forums lately, otherwise we could have said hi at PAX. I spent a lot of the time in the BYOPC area, though.

That's too bad I missed you, but maybe next year. I'm pretty sure I'm going to attend again - I got a lot out of it (even though I missed out on most of the swag ).