Keeping with what I did last year, I decided I’d do a quick roundup of what I experienced at PAX East this year.
Games I Played
Spaceteam
Spaceteam is a free iOS party game that’s already available. It’s about you and a group of friends shouting technobabble at each other, like “Set the fusenipple to 3!” or “Flush the flux dynamometer!”. Each player is given a control panel with random controls on it, and each player is shown a task. Sometimes it’ll be something the player can take care of themselves, or sometimes they’ll have to shout it out and hope the person with that control is paying attention. If you miss too many tasks, your ship is consumed by a supernova. If you succeed long enough, your ship will warp away and everyone gets a new control panel. Once things start going wrong, you’ll have panels swinging out of place or ooze seeping around panels. Then there’s the random anomalies like “Translator Malfunction”, where your controls are labeled in an alien language and you have to figure out what they do along the way. It’s quick, easy to play, and a lot of fun.
Luftrausers
A crazy 2D shooter where you get to customize your plane and pull off some fantastic moves. It’s amazing to watch in motion.
Dropchord
What appears to be a pretty catchy rhythm-action game is hindered by its reliance on an awkward motion controller.
Soda Drinker Pro
The most advanced soda drinking simulator on the planet. I got to drink soda at the beach.
Games I Saw
Divekick
Right next to the Double Fine/Capy booth, I ended up watching a lot of this game. It involves jumping into the air and divekicking. That’s it. It looks glorious.
Watchdogs
I hadn’t heard anything about this, but it looks like a modern-day (or near-future) Assassin’s Creed, which means I want it. Using a smartphone to control your environment sounds really fun.
Panels
There weren’t many interesting-sounding panels this year. I only went to two.
Mass Effect Retrospective
There were a few bits of interesting information, but it was mainly a BioWare circle jerk.
Terrible iOS Games
One of the best panels I’ve been to. It was entirely about really bad iOS games. Very funny.
Who I Met
I enjoyed being able to walk up to several people and say, “Hi! I backed you on Kickstarter!” Hopefully it came across as the “I support what you’re doing and wish you the best” that I meant it as and not “I gave you money! Give me stuff!”
I got to meet the entire team behind Castle Story and get them to sign a poster. They seemed like really nice guys and I got to claim my free hug. When John commented on liking the Bricktron design because it looked like a smiley face come to life, one of the devs said it’s not supposed to be a smiley face – “Since our AI is kind of dumb, we wanted them to look like they were confused.”
I got Tim Schafer to sign a bunch of my crap. I wish there was time to chat with him about stuff, but there was a huge line waiting to get stuff signed and I already had him signing far too much stuff.
I got to meet a dev from Strike Suit Zero, tell him how much I loved his game, and leverage my Kickstarter backer status to get a free soundtrack.
I got to talk with the dev on Edge of Space. It still looks really early, but it’s come a long way from the last time I played it.