Magfest 2016

I was only there for Friday/Saturday. Definitely a lot better than the 1 day I did last year but also a lot more physically draining. On the second day, I was dragging a little bit.

Didn't buy any games in the dealer room. There was some nice looking repro/homebrew/romhack carts that I was tempted by, but saw no vintage games I was hunting for at an attractive price.

I packed a lot of activity into this time and didn't have a lot of downtime to socialize. I came alone, and didn't have anyone coming to meet up with. I'm a little disappointed I didn't really talk to more people, but I have a bit of social anxiety, so that is kind of daunting for me, (easier if someone else is initiating) There were a few people from NA, twitter and facebook that I have chatted with online in attendance, but we never crossed paths. (Or maybe we did and I just didn't recognize them.)

Here's some of the things I did and my impression

Atari 1-1 documentary: Pretty well done. ran a little too long. Similar to the Atari game over doc

Power of Glove Documentary: Also a pretty good documentary, although I was really tired and had trouble staying awake through it.

GamerQuest: I had a lot of fun doing this. It was pretty much everything I had hoped it would be. One of the high points of the convention for me. The audience seemed really into it and were asking if I could come back next year to do a sequel. They gave me a laptop to use, but the wifi was so awful that I couldn't get my images to download so I ended up running it off my phone instead. It worked okay until the battery on my phone died (luckily it was close to the end). I was actually surprised that the audience were able to finish the game. (I gave out moonpies as prizes to everyone who solved a puzzle within the game)

I read a review of my panel on someone else's blog who said that it compared favorably to the Action Castle panel from the previous year, however they said some parts could have been better, particularly my audience management, which I kinda fumbled... I started off by going round robin to everyone in the room, but then switch to calling on people raising hands. Neither method was great. I should have had them form a line at a microphone. This would have helped me to hear them speak too.

breakfast cereal championships: This might have been more fun if I was drunk. It was a bit of a mess, because they kept encouraging the audience to vote by being roudy and making noise, and then shushing the crowd and acting frustrated that the audience was being too noisy. I was dead on my feet by this time, (around 2:30am) so I called it quits.

Super Art Fight was fun

The stuntshow was kind of cheesy so I bailed.

JS Joust: I had a ton of fun playing this last year. So I played again this year. It was kind of spoiled when a guy called me an asshole when I got him out. He accused me of getting him out after he had already gotten me, but I think we took each other out at the same time. I quit playing. But fortunately I gave the game another chance the next day, and had fun again.

Ice cold beer tournament: I had played a lot of this at MagClassic on freeplay and found it kind of addictive. The tournament was kind of a mistake because it was a really long wait for my turn and I was severely outclassed by a lot of much better players, so I bailed and didn't try for a second round.

Got to demo a cool new game in the tabletop area called Super Hazard Quest. I will definitely support that when they launch the kickstarter.

Arcade: Joust Pinball was awesome. Wizard of Oz pinball was awesome too, (because of it was a part of tournament I only got to play it once). Played some Indiana Jones and some Robotron. I waited in line to play Pop'n Music which was disappointing when I couldn't figure it out.

Youtubers: I saw AVGN at a Q&A, he liked my question and had a very interesting answer. (I asked if he would have gone in a different direction with his movie if the Alamagordo landfill had been excavated prior to his making the film. He said he probably would have, his other idea was to make it about the swordquest prize contest and tracking down the missing prizes. (He might still do that idea if he makes a sequel).

I saw Bootsy and Kyle at the cinemassacre booth as well as Billy and Jay at their booth. Didn't talk to them because I didn't know what to say other then "I've watched your youtube videos", which seemed kind of pointless.

Concerts:The Oneups: Played a jazzy funky set. I enjoyed it. but then for the last few songs they switched styles and it sounded like a totally different band, which I didn't like as much

Tupperware Remix / ninja sex party: Tupperware portion was mostly forgettable tracks with digitally processed vocals that kept mentioning "The future". When Ninja Sex Party joined them I thought it improved. But the audience went freaking insane. They were fine, but I just don't get all the love. This girl standing behind me started crying and orgasming when Danny came out.

DJ Battle: Was too loud, and not really my thing I left after about 10 minutes.

Journey Live: I was one of the few people who thought it was going to be a Journey cover band... so I was only slightly disappointed to find out I was mistaken. It was the game "Journey" with live orchestration which seemed like a cool concept... I stayed for a little bit, but then I got bored and left.

Bit Brigade: They were awesome. So glad I got to see it. (Missed them last year) This was the final thing I saw at Magfest before going home.