When Penny Arcade announced that they were bringing their suddenly legendary gaming convention, PAX, to the East Coast, we took it as a sign. How could the biggest gamer event in Boston manage without Overthought documentation?
The Overthinking It pictorial recap of PAX East, after the jump.
Like any big subculture event, PAX East brought its share of gaming movers and shakers.
Eric from Harmonix (HMXPope) serenades us in the Harmonix Lounge.
Scott Kurtz (PVP) and Kris Straub (Checkerboard Nightmare) do sketches and autographs.
The Protomen.
(Please note that the Protomen’s latest album, Act II – The Father of Death, boasts a cover that’s a clear shout-out to Cargo Cult favorite Streets of Fire)
Rich and Katie, two developers for Kings' Quest fan-project The Silver Lining, fresh off a round of interviews.
Brandon DeCoster and Scott Rubin of GeekNights hosting the Beyond D&D panel.
A few words on the “Beyond D&D” panel. I was surprised to see a panel on indie role-playing games pack out such a large conference room – nice work, GeekNights! The talk itself was big on enthusiasm but could have used a little more structure. The first 40 minutes was Brandon and Scott talking abstractly about abstractions: how D&D and games like it rewarded certain types of gameplay but didn’t give a lot of options for others. Then there were 15 minutes of examples, all of which were good: inSpectres, Primetime Adventures, Dread and Burning Wheel. 5 minutes of Q&A at the end (yours truly was the last to get the mic). In short, while there was room for improvement in the structure, the content was solid and it definitely found a good audience.
Total sidebar question – I’m a huge Kris Straub fan. I met him at Comic Con last year and actually shook (Didn’t even do that when I met the great Billy D!). I’ve read everything Chainsawsuit and Starslip and even his shortlived music comic. I got about 5 strips into Checkerboard Nightmare and gave up. Anyone know should I continue? I totally forgot about CN until I saw it on the above picture.
Thank you!
Perich – glad you had a good time and appreciate the pics!
Holy crap. Bottom photo, page 2. Those were my college roommates. It figures they’d go to PAX East and not invite me.
UPDATE: Just got in touch with one of my old roommates, and according to him, they were “D&D adventurers, rolling 20s through hordes of chaos and all that good stuff.”
So, Perich, your assessment was pretty much right on the money.
Hey! I know those guys too. Hey Wade, thanks for showing me this. I just realized with a start that there are actually 4 people in that picture. Oh well, I got about an hour long retelling of the whole experience from the guy in the armor and it sounded awesomely geeky. I wanna go now. The other pics are awesome as well, thanks for sharing!