Hello again from Seattle, friends, and welcome to another daily summary, where I’ll recap the events of Saturday at PAX Prime 2015.
Saturday felt especially fast. Steve, Kate, and Jonathan split ways, and rather than lining up early, I stayed in NYC (did I mention it’s an amazing sandwich shop?), eating an awesome cookie, typing up my summary of the day before. 1 hour and 2,500 words later (what can I say, I’m passionate about VR!), I decided it was time to get ready for my first interview, which was scheduled about 45 minutes later.
I made my way to the Indie Megabooth and met with Bodie Lee, one of the developers at Lunar Ray Games, who is creating Timespinner. We spoke briefly, I set up my equipment, and then we began to record an interview. Now folks, if you’re ever in a situation where you need to record an interview in an expo hall, prepare for the absolute worst. I kid you not, the audio was unusable due to the sheer awesomeness of the hall, and someone dressed as the Joker, either intentionally or without realizing, jumped in front of the camera twice.
When I walked away from the Indie Megabooth to review my footage and sound, I was crushed. I felt completely defeated, as if I had wasted the trip. The interview was completely unusable. I saw a fork in the road with only two options: either I can quit and wander Seattle aimlessly until the rest of the team is ready to go back to the hotel, or I can persevere, find a quiet place to record, and ask developers if they would be willing to record there instead. I went back to NYC to charge my laptop, and meditate (aka: take a breather and eating a beautiful Reuben sandwich).
After finishing half of my sandwich, drinking some water, and calming my nerves a little bit, I decided I’d give it another shot. I already had the interviews scheduled, what could I lose by asking for something only a little uncouth?
I went back and explained myself to Bodie, and he agreed to another interview later in the day. I then approached my next scheduled interviewee, Luke from Sigtrap games, and he agreed to do an interview elsewhere in the convention center. Now I was in business. We reached a bit of a quiet area, and after a little bit of setup time, filmed a 7 minute interview that went very smoothly. This interview will be going up once we return from Seattle.
It just goes to show with some persistence and politeness, and when the person you’re talking to is polite and professional, you can accomplish a lot.
After my interview with Sigtrap Games, I had an interview with Fred, the VP of 3D Realms. On the way to this interview, I bumped into Zoë Quinn, the developer of Depression Quest. She was attending the expo as a spectator, so I didn’t want to take up too much of her time, but she was polite and friendly.
On my way to my next interview, I randomly bumped into an old friend who I hadn’t seen in years. After the brief chat, we made plans to go for dinner, and I made my way to my scheduled interview with 3D Realms. This time, Fred actually lead me to a quiet place that he knew, and we talked for a good 5 to 10 minutes before beginning the interview at all. If there is any takeaway I have from PAX this year, it’s that Fred from 3D Realms is an awesome, humble guy, and many developers are friendly, accommodating people. Our interview was fantastic, insightful, and even a little touching — we even got exclusive footage of Bombshell that was given to no other news outlet! This, like the other interviews, will be online once we return from PAX. A special thanks to Mario Kroll for setting up this interview.
Following Fred’s awesome advice, I brought Bodie Lee to the same place to re-shoot our interview, and it also went extremely well. I can’t say enough about how friendly and accommodating he was. In the meantime, if you don’t want to wait for my interviews, please check out Bombshell, Sublevel Zero, and Timespinner.
After my last interview, Jonathan and I attended a panel about “Exploring New Worlds” in VR, which was essentially a free-form discussion with four developers, who discussed their approaches to mitigating motion sickness. There were a few exclusive looks into games that haven’t been released quite yet, and it was an interesting discussion, but there wasn’t much to share here.
To cap off the day, we went out for Chinese food at Dragonfish Asian Cafe with our old friend. The food was cheap and delicious, the service was great, and it was an awesome experience reconnecting with a friend that none of us had seen for years. After a long and delicious meal, we walked our friend to a Magic: the Gathering tournament and then Ubered home to the hotel, where we had a few beers to celebrate a successful day, and crashed for the first good sleep we’ve gotten since arriving.
Just like yesterday, to cap off the post, here are some amazing cosplay pictures! Enjoy, and thanks again for reading.
Thank you to all of the unbelievable cosplayers who let me use their pictures in my articles. The following cosplayers gave me their cards, so I’d like to share their social media info so that you can check them out:
@cnepoy on twitter, @thewazaaman on twitter, @drlongshotx on twitter, @trojanwarred on twitter, @SuperSprill on instagram, undiscoveredphotography.com/cosplay, facebook.com/lovelyladyace, facebook.com/dv8props, and everyone else who did not share their information. If you see your cosplay here, and you would like me to link to your page, please let me know!
To read up about the other PAX days, check out the following:
