So before you continue, this post is mostly just a transcription of what I said in my PAX 2024 video. I’ll separate the blog exclusive parts below the transcript along with the socials of the people I talk about.
There will also be other posts for PAX, so this won’t be the end of it! In any case, this is the video!
Day 1
The last two years I had gone, I was there to cover the event alongside Rintaichou. This year, she was unable to attend due to scheduling conflictions. That means I was covering the event as myself for myself! Friday was a fairly packed as I had appointments with three different companies — Serenity Forge, Ysbryd Games, and DreadXP.
Serenity Forge
Serenity Forge had a really good roster of games that appealed to my love of horror games, which is why I was originally interested in booking an appointment with them! The games I played from their booth were Centum, Roman Sands RE:Build, and Keylocker.
Centum was the first game that appealed to me, since it was presented as a psychological horror with point and click puzzle gameplay. That format was always a fun platform to experience a psychological horror in my opinion, and the demo definitely validated that. Roman Sands was a very fast paced game all about going through a loop of fulfilling mini quests. I honestly had a bit of difficulty trying to understand the game, but I think I would have figured it out if I had a bit more time to play the game. Keylocker was a very pleasant surprise with how it played! It reminded me a lot of Super Mario RPG, which meant I died a lot since my reaction time is garbage.
Ysbryd Games
Not too long after, I had demos with Ysbryd Games for both games they brought to PAX West, Love Eternal and Everdeep Aurora.
Love Eternal is a platforming psychological horror developed by Toby Alden. Now this game checked all the boxes I love in a psychological horror. Great gameplay, something that’s engaging, and an environment where you’re constantly in a state of unease. It was great hearing Toby’s thought process behind the development of the game and its origins leading up to it.
Everdeep Aurora was a nice refresher as this game was more of a “comfy” sort of game. They specifically went out of their way to avoid using violence for anything, and the entire point of the game is to explore the underground. This time around, I was accompanied by Rob C, the Production Lead at Ysbryd Games. Rob was able to talk about the game at such a consistent pace that I was utterly impressed!
DreadXP
Lastly, I went to DreadXP to try both Heartworm and Dread Delusion.
I’ll be honest, Dread Delusion wasn’t really my cup of tea. It played similarly to an Elder Scrolls game, but with PS1 graphics. While that’s not terrible, I’ve grown out of that genre, and it’d have to be in a specific theme for me to get hooked anymore.
Heartworm, however, was right up my alley with its Resident Evil like gameplay and horror themes. I had a lot of fun trying to explore the maps and solving the puzzles it had.
Almost all of these games that I demo’d are still in development, so it’ll be a while before they come out. It’s such a terrible tease because now I have to wait for a while before they finally come out for me to play! Still, I am blessed to have gotten to chat with the publishers and developers in all of these bookings. If the opportunity ever rises again, I’d love to give them a proper interview when I have better equipment (and perhaps some help in the future).
Day 2
Shueisha Games
The first appointment I had was with Shueisha Games to demo their game, Urban Myth Dissolution Center!
I’ve probably already said it enough to annoy people at this point, but I absolutely LOVE horror games. So it was a no brainer, for me, to give this game a try. The game played similarly to the Phoenix Wright games in the sense that there is a little bit of exploration to ultimately solve mysteries. The twist is there are a lot more horror elements to the game! The way it was presented and the pixel art that accompanied it drew me in and I was already in love. Easily will be one of the games I’ll get to stream on Twitch!
Kess Entertainment
The next appointment I had was with Kess Entertainment. In the email that was sent to me prior to PAX was in regards to the games that they had available to demo. The first one they mentioned was a board game based off of One Piece. I had never seen an episode of the anime, so it honestly did not interest me. However, they did mention Sonic, and I was easily convinced.
When I got there, I met with Court and Tony. Court was the marketing PR for Kess Entertainment, and Tony was the guy who actually designed the games! He even designed the Spy x Family board game I got a while back, so it was very neat to actually be able to meet him!
The first game we demo’d was Sonic Speed battle, which was similar to that of Monopoly Go, in the sense that it was a board game that was easy to dive into with very little setup. The game itself consists of three mini-games, so there was room for a lot of variety.
The second game we demo’d, however, is easily the biggest highlight of PAX for me.
Sonic Roll is definitely more of a sit down board game that involves a bit more set up, but it was very fun to play! The art was beautiful, the colors really popped out, and the gameplay was fairly straight forward despite it looking pretty intimidating at first. There’s too much to go over to properly describe what I really like about the game in such a short time, but it was enough to convince me to buy the game right then and there.
After the recording was finished, I was about ready to purchase the game, but then Court came up out of nowhere saying that they had a present for me, and in the bag, was Sonic Roll! They gave me the game for free! So now I have a burning agenda to spread the word about the game as much as I possibly can, because I really do just love the game that much. Even right now, I want to just jump right into the game and play it. I may do a review of the game when I have a proper set up to do so. I want to give the game the best presentation as I possibly can, because it very much deserves it!
Misc
You can find a gallery of the photos I took here!
SHOUTOUT TO THE PEOPLE I MET!!
I think one of the best things about traveling or even going to conventions are all the people you get to meet, and reconnecting with old friends! I wanted to have a specific section to talk a little bit about them.
Kurotsuki and Haze are local friends of mine who also attended PAX. Although they had their own schedules, we still hung out for a bit and had dinner a couple times! Any time there’s a convention in WA state, I always know I can hang out with them. They’re fantastic people.
Zetta is a long time friend who I don’t get to see in person a lot. He was coming up to PAX for just a day and we figured it’d be a good opportunity to meet up real quick and just catch up. Although the time was pretty short, I still had a good time nevertheless hanging out with him and his friend that tagged along!
Zsofi from Serenity Forge was my point of contact when I was at their booth. They were very pleasant to talk to and were very informed about all of the games that were being demoed at the booth! This was also their first time in Seattle, so I tried to think of good places for them to visit, but I fell a little short. It’s always ironic how little I know about Seattle despite living close to it.
Everyone at Ysbryd Games, Fizz, Kyle, and Rob, were all fantastic people! Despite their busy schedules, they were cool to just chat a bit. For some of them, it was their first time at PAX and Seattle, so it was interesting to hear their thoughts on the event. It was also especially neat to hear Rob talk about Everdeep Aurora. You can tell he’s invested in these games and has an incredible in-depth knowledge of them! The flow of consciousness like talk he had was fascinating to witness!
Toby, aka Brlka who developed Love Eternal, was a really fun person to talk to during our interview. It was honestly really nice to be able to chat with someone who has the same appreciation for the horror genre. Just overall swell person!
Parker from DreadXP was fun to chat with throughout the con! If there was a bit of down time for either of us, I found that we would end up chatting about whatever came to mind. Before I would even realize it, a lot of time will have passed leaving me realizing that I would have to leave soon in order to catch something I had previously scheduled for.
John Davis from Shueisha Games was a very insightful person to chat with. We were able to talk about the difficulties of getting a booth in PAX with multiple publishers/developers. In previous years, smaller developers would be able to share a booth to help mitigate the costs. Since post covid, that option has been removed giving John fewer options when it comes to bringing games to PAX. It was very eye opening, and I was thankful he was willing to talk about his experience!
Court and Tony from Kess Entertainment were bubbly people I enjoyed spending time with! Court was one of the few people that actually took a look at my socials and gave me their thoughts on how my reach was, and it really gave me a bit of pause, because it was a first for me. Plus, Court was just genuinely a fun person to be around. Tony was also great as he talked about the design process for the games we played. It is always charming to listen to someone who has genuine joy in the creation of their work!
The Staff from Toge Productions were all wonderful people! Arya, Gerald, Kris, and Eka were very nice despite how often I came around to visit the booth. Honestly I felt like I was pestering them a lot with how frequently I would stop by and chat. Part of the reason I would come around so often was because my friend, Clover Inari was volunteering at the booth! By the way, they voice in VA-11 Hall-A voiceover project I did, which you can find in the description or in this tag thing here! I’ve hung out with them a little before, and they’re always good company to keep. This time however, I was definitely bothering them while they were working.
The other volunteers, Lyra, and Starling, were very nice too! I’m pretty sure they got tired of me pretty quick just like the rest with how much I showed up. My apologies to you two, with having to deal with me.
I did find out, however, that Starling is a composer and has done some incredible work! Please do give them a follow in their socials which I will have in the description!
Brandon, aka Brandobard, was someone I had actually taken photos of long time ago was working in an ocarina booth, which honestly wasn’t surprising. I’ve known them as the Young Link cosplayer from several years ago, and I remember seeing them playing the ocarina a lot, and improving with each year. So it didn’t come too much as a surprise when I saw them working at that booth. It was nice being able to reconnect with them!
While I was in the arcades, I met an older gentleman named Ian who was with his grandson whose name I had forgotten (sorry kiddo!). We started chatting because he noticed my camera. It was nice to talk about photography and how it had evolved from the times of having to develop the film in a dark room to how it is now.
Ian wasn’t the only one that I had a chat with through photography! While I was waiting in line to take a picture at the Monster Hunter: Wilds, Jake noticed my camera and started asking questions as he had been interested in trying out portraiture photography! A very grounded, humble guy! I really enjoyed chatting with him too.
In the Rune Factory booth, I saw some props they had for attendees to use for a photo op! Kurotsuki and Haze told me that one of the cosplayers working at the booth had actually made the props himself, so I wanted to ask him more about it! Johnny Junker was more than willing to talk about it, and showed me all the techniques he used to make them. I was absolutely floored with some of the things he did to make the props, including the fact that he was able to 3D print SCREWS?! Seriously blew my mind.
Socials
I tried my best to get the socials from the people I mentioned. There will be some that were missing, which happens! Not everyone wants to have a social media presence, and power to them. That being said, here are the socials I did find!
- All the Toge people
- Staff
- Clover Inari: https://twitter.com/cloverinari/
- Lyra: https://twitter.com/coolnormallyra
- Starling: https://twitter.com/starlingoboe
- Ysbryd Games
- Kurotsuki: https://twitter.com/kurotsuki_cos
- Haze: https://twitter.com/Haze_XVIII
- Johnny Junker: https://www.instagram.com/johnnyjunkers/
- Ian: https://www.instagram.com/ian_morris_500/
- Brandobard: https://www.instagram.com/brandobard/
- Jacob Fincer aka Finnie Photography: https://www.instagram.com/finnie_photography/