Another year, another MAGfest report.
This year was full of good times and pleasant surprises.
I was a panelist for the 2nd year in a row, reprising my "GamerQuest" text adventure game. Since I had put so much work into making it, I figured it deserved to be played by more people than the meager group I had last year. Unfortunately, a substantial portion of the meager group this year were returning players. Also, I was scheduled even LATER than my first year; this time at 1:30 AM. which made it hard for me to get potentially interested people to come out during my promotional efforts. I learned from last years audience management errors, and this time had the audience queue up at the Q&A microphone, which worked a lot better than my lack of a system last year. Also, my visuals ran more smoothly off of the thumbdrive (once I tracked someone down to help me hook up the projector that is) Last year I used my phone which ran out of power towards the end. Things that were not so great: I was not completely over a cold and so when combined with the late hour, I didn't feel terrific. Also, the game wasn't as fresh in my mind as it should have been and I got a little befuddled a couple of times flipping back and forth between pages, and didn't always have the next dialogue response on the tip of my tongue as I had to scan the paragraph for a few seconds to find my place. Overall, I was reasonably satisfied with how it turned out, (until I noticed that my one and only feedback on guidebook was 1 star).
Gamebook history panel: I attended this partly to drum up business for GamerQuest, but also because it is a subject I am genuinely interested in. (I was a devoted Choose your own adventure reader as a kid) and I found this presentation to be very interesting and informative.
JS Joust: I have now done this every year and it is still a lot of fun. Although it didn't quite capture the energy and magic I felt that first year. Perhaps the novelty just wore off? or perhaps it was because the cavernous room wasn't quite as intimate? I did pretty good in the tournament and nearly made it into the final round.
One Man Star Wars: THIS was a pleasant surprise. I missed the first 30 minutes, but since I am so familiar with the movie, it was easy to feel up to speed. He did a line for line recition of the movie (with very few mistakes) and the audience helping him out if he missed something. He also did pretty damn impressive impersonations of the characters and the sound effects. (as well as inserting his own meta commentary scattered throughout). I will definitely put this on the "will do again" list.
Protomen: I checked out this concert because I had heard a lot about this band for years. They were fine, just not really my cup of tea. Their best song (imo) was a Phil Collins cover of in the air tonight, although their rendition sounded pretty close to the original, which I think makes it more like karaoke.
OMG, WTF did I just watch: In preparation, for my panel I got to the hall early and sat through the end of the strange videos from Asia panel that looked like a lot of fun. (I had seen a few of them before, but it was still pretty good.) I will definitely look for this in future years.
Laser Tag: I got lucky, and came across the sign up table, moments after they set it up, so I was the first one to put my name down. This is just laser tag, but it was a lot of fun.
Fuse beads panel: I thought this was just going to be a lecture, but I decided to poke my head in out of curiosity, and was excited to discover it was actually a make and take! I made a bubble bobble dragon!
Magfest VS: Basically a recreation of the Nick Arcade gameshow. I have a little bit of history with this event. I was originally signed up to be on the development team, but just didn't have the time to commit to it unfortunately. Legend has it, that my Nick Arcade cosplay might have even been the initial inspiration. I submitted my name to be a contestant but was not selected. (bummer) This was fun to watch, and I while I understand the reason for highlighting indie games in the showdowns, a couple of these were too complex for the players or the audience to immediately understand without having any prior playing experience.
Bit Brigade: I love this band and the shows they put on. For this one, their game player speed-ran through Castlevania, Batman, and Ducktales finishing each one in less than 15 minutes, while the band rocked through the amazing metal versions of the soundtrack, perfectly synched to the onscreen action.
Pachinko: AbleGamers was doing a fund raiser where you could play Pachinko in exchange for a donation. These machines were really unique and interesting looking. I had never played them pachinko before, so it was cool to have that chance. The games themselves were not really games. (anymore than a slot machine is a game) its all pretty much just random whether you get the ball in the hole or not. I had a run a Ghost in the Shell:stand alone complex machine that ran for so long I honestly thought maybe the machine was broken, and I was starting to get a little bored of winning so much, but I guess I was just unnaturally lucky.
Cartoon Sing-Along: I had wanted to go this last year, (but couldn't make it since I had run my panel the night before and was still sleeping) This year, the scheduling worked out better, so I dropped in. I enjoyed the energy and positivity of the crowd, and it was cool to see Josh and Marzgirl, (since I am a fan of their movie). As for the actual cartoons, there were only a few I was familiar enough to actually "sing-along". Most were anime from the 2000's and later. On the bingo card where you predict what they would show, I wrote down titles such as "smurfs", "snorks" and "scooby-doo" and a younger guy behind me said "wow, you're really thinking outside of the box!" I guess I am too old for this. I talked to Josh, and he mentioned that they actually did show a lot more older cartoon intros in previous years and got a lot of blank stares and have since tailored it to cater more to the younger audience.
Escape Room: Signing up for this was quite an ordeal, since they had so few slots, and it seemed like all 20,000 attendees were interested in playing. My first two tries I got turned away, after hearing they were all full. My third try, they attempted to turn me away again saying they were already full, but I persevered, and waited on standby for more than an hour, and was eventually rewarded with a spot for the next day. When I actually played it, it was pretty cool, although the puzzles were probably too hard for me to figure out for the most part. (we didn't escape) I don't think I contributed much to the team either. Probably not worth so much trouble.
Arcade:I played a couple videogames such as Nibbler, but I mostly played pinball: Terminator 2, Starship Troopers, Future Spa, The Getaway (really fun), Bride of Pinbot: The Machine, AC/DC, Monster Bash, Black Knight 2000, Medieval Madness (I LOVE this game!!) I was really stoked to see Black Hole as this is a game that I have been curious about since I was a child and literally EVERY single time I have ever come across it, it has been out of order. I have heard this machine is notorious for breaking down. Not surprisingly, it was out of order at MAGfest too. But later in the afternoon, I noticed a guy was working on it. I came back a little later and there it was: a functioning Black Hole machine! The actual game was sadly disappointing, the main play field is pretty slow and boring. The only really interesting feature is the sub play-field, which is only accessible through a somewhat difficult shot to make. Given how this is whole reason for playing the game, if it were up to me, I would have made it so that any drained ball would automatically send you to the black hole sub-field (that way you're guaranteed at least 3 sub-field rounds per game). In the console room I played some Gumshoe, Warlords, Kaboom and met up with fellow NA member: theinhumanwretch (Andrew).
Indie Games: I played a cool IOS/Android game called Where Shadows Slumber. It had a neat art style and you had to make your way through maze like levels by causing the course to alter by casting shadows on things in a trial and error fashion. (I gave them feedback that it might be enjoyable to have the puzzles be a little more logic based, a la Sokoban). I played Pig Eat Ball which was a cool party game. My absolute favorite was a "1-dimensional dungeon crawler" called Line Wobbler. It consisted of a long LED strip, (that half of it went up into the air), and you controlled your light with a wobbling joystick on a spring. You could move forward, backward, or wobble to trigger an "attack". There were a variety of levels, which had you attacking red dots, dodging lava, fighting against the wind, or attacking a pink boss character that shot red missiles at you. Whenever you died it made a glorious explosion of LED light and sound. This might be my "Game of the Show"
Expo Hall: I bought two really sweet homebrew NES games: Haunted Halloween 85 & 86. There was also a ton of amazing art prints, that I sadly had to pass on as I just don't have any room in my house to display it. I didn't buy any old games, as the prices I saw were all pretty steep.
In the tabletop gaming area: I checked out Tok Tok Woodman, (which is basically like Jenga with an ax) and then proceeding to try to flag down passersby to play with me. It was a pretty good way to make friends, (and once I got one game going, it was easy to draw a crowd for subsequent games) One of the guys who played was pretty drunk and afterwards challenged me to rock-paper-scissors winner-take-all bet for $2. I won. I also got a chance to demo a really cool 80s themed light-cycle game called Lazer Ryders, that was a lot of fun! They already had a successful kickstarter, so the game should be coming out soon. The packaging is styled like a VHS boxset, and looks awesome!
The computer museum: I found this place oddly comforting and kept getting drawn back to here. They had a Nintendo Playstation on display here, which was pretty neat. I also played some Vectrex, (which never seems to live up to my expectations) also played a cool Shmup called Gate of Thunder for the Turbo Grafx turboduo. My beloved TI-99/4a was here, (although sadly, without a working joystick). I also spent a decent bit of time guiding a kid through Space Quest III, (which I still have memorized). I just like being around these old computers, watching people play Commander Keen, Number muncher, Doom, etc.)
