{"id":13073,"date":"2015-01-29T00:01:34","date_gmt":"2015-01-29T00:01:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/?p=13073"},"modified":"2015-01-28T11:04:07","modified_gmt":"2015-01-28T11:04:07","slug":"pax-south-2015-part-1-gaming-in-the-lone-star-state","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/2015\/01\/29\/pax-south-2015-part-1-gaming-in-the-lone-star-state\/","title":{"rendered":"PAX South 2015: Part 1: Gaming in the Lone Star State"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"PAXSOUTHLOGO\"<\/a>The Penny Arcade Expo, or PAX for short, is one of the biggest gaming conventions open to the public.\u00a0 It\u2019s been around for a good while, but at first it was only limited to being in Seattle.\u00a0 Over the past few years, that\u2019s changed as there have been PAX conventions in Boston and even Australia!\u00a0 And now, for the first time ever, they had a PAX South convention located in San Antonio, TX last weekend!\u00a0 I live near Dallas, TX, so I thought that was cool that they had one so close to where I am!\u00a0 Usually when I go to PAX in Seattle, I only bring one or two people with me.\u00a0 But for PAX South, I had a whole crowd including both my parents, almost all of my little brothers, and a few of my good friends, too!\u00a0 Keep reading to find out everything I did at the show last weekend!<\/p>\n

The PAX conventions aren\u2019t just about video games, they\u2019re also about board games, tabletop games, and card games, too!\u00a0 In Seattle, these kinds of activities are spread out all over the convention center, but at PAX South, they had their very own section on the show floor, so it felt a bit more prominent here.\u00a0 With the introduction of kickstarters and 3-D printing, board games and card games have had a bit of a renaissance lately.\u00a0 Here\u2019s a picture I took from the second floor looking downward at the tabletop section.\u00a0 As you can see, there were a lot of tables and chairs where people could sit down and play these games.\u00a0 They even had a library of sorts where people could check out board games to play.<\/p>\n

\"TABLETOP\"<\/a><\/p>\n

As you can see, Magic: The Gathering had a big presence at the Tabletop section, including competitions and a store!\u00a0 But there were a lot of other board and card game companies there as well.\u00a0 I even met with one of them: AdMagic.\u00a0 They\u2019re best known for Cards Against Humanity, which is an adult game that plays similar to Apples to Apples.\u00a0 Many members of my family have enjoyed playing it a lot, but remember, it\u2019s not for kids.\u00a0 Anyway, AdMagic made it clear at PAX South that they make other titles as well, and many of these are good for kids.\u00a0 Educational, even!\u00a0 At their booth, they had demo stations where the creators of the different card games would demo their wares to anyone interested in learning how to play.\u00a0 Two of their card games involve reading and spelling, and are certainly educational.\u00a0 One was a fast-paced spelling card game called Twirk, and another was a combination of Scrabble and Monopoly, as you try and spell words to make money and buy letters so other people have to pay you to use them!\u00a0 That was called Letter Tycoon.\u00a0 Finally, I played a card game that was similar to UNO, but it was called Poop: The Game.\u00a0 And yes it is safe to play with kids.\u00a0 In fact, the creator of Poop designed it with his seven-year-old boy.\u00a0 Here is the creator of Poop demoing the game.\u00a0 I\u2019ll be reviewing the game soon, too, so be on the lookout for that later.<\/p>\n

\"POOP\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The other side of the show floor had all the other game companies and stores.\u00a0 Here is a shot of that part of the show from the second floor.<\/p>\n

\"SHOWFLOOR\"<\/a><\/p>\n

There were a lot of stores selling everything from used games, t-shirts, plush toys, and other goodies.\u00a0 We even bought a board game called Duck! Duck! Go!\u00a0 The game pieces are actual rubber ducks!\u00a0 Here\u2019s a shot of the Valve store with a giant pink unicorn thing floating above it.<\/p>\n

\"VALVESTORE\"<\/a><\/p>\n

There weren\u2019t a whole lot of flashy booths at the show, but there were a couple that caught my attention with blinky lights and such.\u00a0 Here is a truck at the Alienware section that had color changing flashing headlights.\u00a0 I thought it was pretty so I took a picture.<\/p>\n

\"VAN\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Another neat looking booth was the one for Dungeon Defenders.\u00a0 Here is one side of the booth.<\/p>\n

\"DUNGEONDEFENDERS1\"<\/a><\/p>\n

And here is the other side.<\/p>\n

\"DUNGEONDEFENDERS2\"<\/a><\/p>\n

One disappointing thing about PAX South is that there wasn\u2019t a big presence from larger console game companies like there is in PAX Prime in Seattle.\u00a0 Nintendo was there, but they were only showing upcoming 3DS offerings like Majora\u2019s Mask, Monster Hunter 4, and Code Name S.T.E.A.M.\u00a0 They also had the New Nintendo 3DS on display.\u00a0 I guess it\u2019s understandable that they had a smaller presence here than in Seattle, considering their home offices are in Seattle\u2019s suburb of Redmond.\u00a0 But it would\u2019ve been nice if they had some Wii U demo stations as well, to show off upcoming titles like Kirby and the Rainbow Curse.\u00a0 Here is what the Nintendo area looked like.<\/p>\n

\"ZELDA1\"<\/a><\/p>\n

They had a statue of Majora\u2019s Mask in the booth that I took a picture of as well.\u00a0 They even gave out paper Majora\u2019s Masks at the show!<\/p>\n

\"ZELDA2\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Tablet and mobile games had a larger presence at PAX South, and one of the bigger booths was for tinyBuild Games, which showed off almost a dozen titles!\u00a0 I even reviewed one of them a while back called Spoiler Alert.\u00a0 They had that and a few other games at the show that I played.\u00a0 One was called Fearless Fantasy, a cartoon RPG with a turn-based battle system that uses timed screen taps and swipes for stronger attacks.\u00a0 It was similar to the gameplay in Elite Beat Agents.\u00a0 Another game I played there was Divide By Sheep.\u00a0 It\u2019s a math game where you must put the correct number of sheep on a raft, but limited island space, wolves, and other obstacles keep your brain thinking as you calculate the best paths for the sheep to go.\u00a0 Sheep can even be split in two, only to be duct taped again to make them whole!\u00a0 So there are a lot of hidden fraction and equation problems in this puzzler.\u00a0 They also had the multiplayer title BOID and a cute and colorful 2-D title called Snail Bob 2.\u00a0 Hopefully I\u2019ll be able to review some of these games when they become available.\u00a0 One last tablet game that I played at another booth was called Force of Elements and it played a lot like Puzzle Quest.\u00a0 I hope to review that one, too!<\/p>\n

While big name game companies didn\u2019t have much of a presence at PAX South, indie game companies sure did!\u00a0 I even met with a few of them.\u00a0 Serenity Forge had two games that caught my eye, one being Pixel Galaxy, which they described as a cross between Ikaruga and Katamari Damacy.\u00a0 Another was The King\u2019s Bird, which is a 2-D platformer where you control the wind and has an emphasis on flight.\u00a0 Another company, Berserk Studio, had Just Beats and Shapes.\u00a0 The name says it all.\u00a0 It\u2019s a multiplayer challenge where you avoid any shapes coming at you, but everything is timed with the beat of the music, so you can anticipate where things come by listening to the beat.<\/p>\n

Other indie games that caught my eye were ones from Level Up Labs.\u00a0 They had a 2-D platforming dungeon making game called Nefarious, a motorcycle racing game that plays like Road Rash called Road Redemption, but my favorite was Tadpole Treble.\u00a0 It\u2019s a music game where you are a tadpole and must avoid music notes on sheet music.\u00a0 There is even a creation mode that reminded me of Mario Paint\u2019s music program!\u00a0 The neat thing about all these games is that while most were all PC games, they are looking to port them to consoles as well!<\/p>\n

One of brother Jeff\u2019s favorite games at the show was called Guild of Dungeoneering.\u00a0 In the game you have an explorer venture into 2-D top-down dungeons that you make with cards in your hand.\u00a0 You don\u2019t control the explorer directly, but attract him where you want him to go by placing monsters for him to defeat and treasure for him to collect.\u00a0 This game will be published by Versus Evil, who had some other cool games at the show including The Banner Saga, Kyn, and more!<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know if it\u2019s the popularity of games like Shovel Knight, or gamers my age longing for the simpler games of their youth, but I saw a lot of 2-D retro styled games at the show.\u00a0 But the best one was probably Adventures of Pip.\u00a0 It\u2019s a successful kickstarter game that\u2019s a 2-D platformer.\u00a0 An evil queen has stolen all the pixels of the world, and it\u2019s up to a single red pixel named Pip to stop her.\u00a0 It\u2019s a pretty typical 2-D platformer, as you run around and stomp on enemies.\u00a0 I played it at PAX Seattle but they had a new and better demo here.\u00a0 In the game, you can stomp on certain enemies and evolve into different versions of Pip.\u00a0 8-bit Pip, or Agile Pip, has more human-like features and can run fast and wall jump.\u00a0 16-bit Pip, or Strong Pip, attacks with a sword but is really heavy and can\u2019t wall jump.\u00a0 You can de-evolve at any time, but you must find special enemies to stomp on to evolve again.\u00a0 Not only does the game have a neat retro style, it also has tight controls and lots of secrets to find.\u00a0 It may even end up being this year\u2019s Shovel Knight.\u00a0 Just as in that game, Adventures of Pip was made from ex-Way Forward employees, and the music was done by the same person who did the songs for Shovel Knight, Shantae and the Pirate\u2019s Curse, etc.\u00a0 It\u2019ll be available for nearly every game console out right now, and they\u2019re hoping for a release day around May-ish.\u00a0 And I\u2019m hoping I get to review it!<\/p>\n

Other retro styled games I saw at the show include Freedom Planet, which looks like a cross between Sonic and Gunstar Heroes.\u00a0 Jumpjet Rex features a dinosaur in a jetpack.\u00a0 Super Slam Dunk Touchdown looks like a cross between all those 8- and 16-bit sports games we loved, like Super Dodge Ball combined with every other sport out there.\u00a0 Capsule Force is a capture the flag game with old school 80\u2019s anime characters.\u00a0 And The Terrian Saga has a flying robot in a 2-D 8-bit world.\u00a0 One of the most creative combinations is in a kickstarter right now and it\u2019s called Star Mazer.\u00a0 It\u2019s a mash-up of a 2-D shooter and a\u2026point and click adventure?!?\u00a0 If you\u2019re interested, you can look it up and see if you want to support the kickstarter for it.<\/p>\n

One last thing to conclude this article.\u00a0 PAX conventions always have lots of panels you can attend about various subjects.\u00a0 Most of the ones here at PAX South featured various YouTube celebrities, so I didn\u2019t go to those.\u00a0 But they did have a Gamer Parenting panel that I did attend, which was hosted by Kristin Lindsay and Jeff Kalles from Penny Arcade, and Eric Neustadter from Microsoft.\u00a0 They talked about various subjects, like what games are best for kids and how to balance gaming with regular life.\u00a0 It was a very informative panel, but naturally they couldn\u2019t cover everything you could talk about in just an hour.\u00a0 But the coolest thing was they posted a slide of various gaming resources for parents, and the GamerDad.com site was up there!\u00a0 (see below picture)\u00a0 I was really excited to see that and stood up and introduced myself during the Q&A part of the panel.\u00a0 So if any of you are visiting this site from PAX South, welcome and please don\u2019t hesitate to ask us questions!<\/p>\n

\"SLIDE\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I think that panel was probably my favorite thing at PAX.\u00a0 I don\u2019t really need recognition and attention most of the time.\u00a0 But sometimes I do get discouraged and wonder if anyone is really reading my stuff and if I\u2019m really doing anything useful.\u00a0 So it\u2019s nice to see things like this every now and then.\u00a0 It sure made my day and helped me feel better.\u00a0 Maybe someday, I can do a panel, too!<\/p>\n

Anyway, that\u2019s all I saw at PAX South.\u00a0 Tomorrow in Part 2, we\u2019ll look at pictures of people in costume at the show, as well as other things I did in San Antonio last weekend!\u00a0 –Cary<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Penny Arcade Expo, or PAX for short, is one of the biggest gaming conventions open to the public.\u00a0 It\u2019s been around for a good while, but at first it was only limited to being in Seattle.\u00a0 Over the past few years, that\u2019s changed as there have been PAX conventions in Boston and even Australia!\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":13063,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13073","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-miscellaneous"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13073","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13073"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13073\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13076,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13073\/revisions\/13076"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13063"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13073"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13073"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}