Anna The Red’s Bento Factory

stuffed stuff: Wolfmother ver. 2 from Sword & Sworcery

May 12, 2013

Today is Mother’s Day which I think it’s the perfect day to post this stuffed stuff.

stuffed stuff: Wolfmother ver. 2 from Sword & Sworcery
created and stuffed: May 2012 ~ May 2013

I’m a big fan of Sword & Sworcery. It’s an indie adventure game created by Superbrothers and Capybara Games, with music by Jim Guthrie. So when I heard that they were doing an A/V jam, for fan art on their tumblr, I had to make something.

It was a rush project and I did such a crappy job just to make the deadline.

After I submitted, Craig from Superbrothers said he really liked it. I don’t keep plushes I make and it’s always an honor to give them to the creator of the character. So I was ecstatic when I offered him the Wolfmother plush, and he gladly accepted. it was then that I realized that I couldn’t send her to him as it was. I wanted to fix her up a bit first. I said to myself “well the plush is already done. How hard could it be?”

What I learned is trying to fix something I’ve already made is as hard as making it from the start.

The problem with the first Wolfmother was that she could not stand on her own. I had to fake it for the photo shoot. So I tried to figure out how to make her stand up on her own and also lay down.

As I started to take the Wolfmother plush apart, I felt like the fabric I used felt so “cheap.” I didn’t like how the teeth & fangs were overstuffed, and also the body of the Wolfmother looked a bit off.

“Dammit. I’m making a new one!”

I got nicer black faux fur which is so much softer than the one I originally used. It might be a bit too black and doesn’t have that “almost gray/silver in the light” look, but it feels so nice to run your fingers through it.

stuffed stuff: Wolfmother ver. 2 from Sword & Sworcery

It's hard to tell from the photo (it was SUPER bright day) but the fur is really soft.

As I tweaked the pattern of the body, I was wondering if the faux fur fabric could hold its shape. Also I wasn’t sure if the faux fur fabric was strong enough to hold the limbs. So I decided to make a core shape with felt to reinforce it.

I searched online for life-size stuffed animals to see how their limbs were attached. Unfortunately most of them had their limbs in a fixed position. I looked up information on animatronics but that would involve ball joints and stuff that I couldn’t easily get. After many hours of research & planning, I decided to use plastic joint discs.

Joint discs are awesome. I don’t really use them since I don’t make many traditional stuffed animals anymore, but they come in handy when I want to attach limbs to a body. As a matter of fact, the most recent project I used joint discs on was my Songbird plush from BioShock Infinite. Disc joints come with a “pin” (more like a disc with a piece sticking out of the center), a washer and a locking washer. Once the limbs are attached with disc joints, the limbs can be moved around. I think the discs I used were 7-8 cm in diameter which is the biggest I’ve seen. I wish they made the pin longer for the bigger discs though.

After the core shape for the body was made, I made the “skin” for it. It’s basically the same as the core shape but it’s slipped over the core. I also re-made the teeth/fangs. The first time I made them I was in such a rush that I didn’t make a pattern for it. So I had to start from scratch by drawing and cutting out new patterns. After some tweaking, I cut out the fabric, sewed, and stuffed them. Just like the first one I used a spandex / vinyl fabric so they would have a smooth surface.

I tweaked the limbs too, and also made the core shape out of felt. I used armature wire to create the “bones,” put stuffing around it and tied the stuffing to the wire with twine. Then I put the black faux fur fabric skin over them.

The front legs were easy because they’re straight but the hind legs were a pain. I knew it’d be a problem because of their shape and how I wanted them to rotate. The disc should be in the top middle of the limb. But even the biggest disc I had was way too small to be in the hind legs. I thought about attaching a panel on the back of the disc but if the panel came off the disc, it’d be completely useless. So I took the risk and put the disc where I wanted it to be and attached them to the body.

I didn’t think the new faux fur and felt core shape would add that much weight. I was wrong. Now it was a lot heavier than the original one. I didn’t weigh the first one but it felt heavier… Crap.

No point in panicking now. I sewed the ears, the eyes (which are huge red flat stones for beading), and the tail on and there she was!

Majestic Wolfmother on a Rockband drum stand.

Oh my god this is embarrassing.

Look she can sit!

And she can lay down!

Glad that no one was walking dogs when I took these.

Oh hey what's that over there?

Oh hai!

Unfortunately, my attempt to make her stand was defeated again by poor weight balance and gravity. But she can sit up and lay down like a puppy! Also it was extremely bright this day, so all the photos look like she has a shiny fur but it’s not.

Trying to fix something that’s already been made is has hard as making it for the first time < SPEND TIME TO MAKE IT RIGHT THE FIRST TIME

She’ll be finally on her way to Canada to meet her mom and dad. Sorry for the loooong wait Jori and Craig!!

If you have’t played Sword & Sworcery (available on iOS, Steam and Android!), you definitely should. The art and music are gorgeous, the game is puzzly and the dialogue is hilarious. I like the game so much that I even made a Sword & Sworcery bento & Derek made a video of me making it with the music from the game, composed by Jim Gurthrie. My sweet Inari who has since passed away shows up in the video too!

Also make sure to check more awesome art on Sword & Sworcery on tumblr!

For more pictures of this plush, visit stuffed stuff: stuffed stuff: Wolfmother ver. 2 from Sword & Sworcery set!

You can also check out more stuffed stuff on my flickr.

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PAX East 2013: Day 3

May 1, 2013

in Blog,PAX

I’ve had a chronic pain from my right shoulder blade to my neck to my elbow to my wrist recently and all the way down to my middle finger. I’m pretty sure it’s because of my laptop setup (using a laptop stand while sitting on a sofa), but it’s been driving me nuts! It’s also making it really hard for me to type. Regular stretching won’t work at all… If anyone knows a good stretch for this kind of pain or a better setup for my laptop, let me know!

Anyway, it’s late again but the last post for PAX East 2013!

PAX East 2013: Day 3

Ah the last day of PAX East.

I hate whoever put together the schedule for this day! Double Fine Adventure Panel and one of our all-time favorite panel at PAX were scheduled for the same time.

Alas, we had to make a decision and we made a good one.

Pitch Your Game Idea: Jeff Kalles, Kris Straub, Stephen Toulouse.
In this panel, audiences try pitching their game ideas to a couple of EXPERTS in the game industry, and the experts will make fun of your ideas. (The entire panel is meant to be a joke.)

Kris Straub, Jeff Kalles, and Stephen Toulous

As soon as Jeff explained how the panel worked, people rushed to get in the line to pitch their games. There were no official twitch stream for this panel but you can see the entire panel on youtube. (It’s shot by an audience member so the picture and audio quality are not the best but still fun to watch!)

Pitch Your Game Idea (part 1)
Pitch Your Game Idea (part 2)

Surprisingly, everyone’s idea was very… normal this time. Maybe too normal for this panel. Some seemed even serious about pitching their real game idea. The comments and questions from the panelists were still hilarious but I could tell that they were feeling a bit bad about trashing their “real” game idea.

Poor Jeff.

After the panel, we headed to the Exhibit hall again and made sure we played all the games at Indie Mega booth.

Derek played Mercenary Kings

Derek playing Mercenary Kings. For some reason, Derek holds the controller way lower than the other players (he says it's so he can relax his arms).

And of course, dice!

I saw this one cute booth and even took a picture of it.

A.N.N.E by gamesbymo

There were people in the line to play the game, so we didn’t try it at PAX East. But later I found out via my friends’ tweets that the game is A.N.N.E by gamesbymo and they have a Kickstarter. I didn’t know what the game was about but trusted my friends’ suggestion. So I went to their Kickstarter page and saw the video.

I cannot believe that we didn’t try this adorable game about “a worker robot who’s looking for his missing girlfriend.” How could this NOT be awesome?! As a gigantic robot & pixel game lover, I backed it immediately. If you find this project adorable and awesome, why not help them to make it come true? Support A.N.N.E at their Kickstarter page before it ends on May 22nd!

And we walked around some more!

The Last of Us by Naughty Dog, which we didn't stop by because Derek wants NO SPOILERS until the game is released (he's only watched the reveal teaser).

Dance Central 3 stage

Bitey Bat Hats were sold out on the first day at PAX East! W00t!

The cabinets are always popular at PAX!

Some serious interview was being held behind the Behemoth booth.

Seems like WILDSTAR replaced Firefall.

Transistor at Supergiant Games, AGAIN. I love their booth!

Soooooo many people lined up to play the demo of Transistor.

Dad walking around PAX with his daughter cosplayed as Merida on his shoulders. Now that's awesome parenting!

And it was already the time to head to watch the final round of Omegathon & closing ceremony.

Omegathon Final Round
Every PAX, the final round of Omegathon is carefully planned and the game the finalists play is a top secret. For this PAX East, the final round was an iOS game called Spaceteam.

For those who are not familiar with the game… You know how in a sci-fi show or film, there’s always a chaotic bridge scene where people are yelling technobabble to each other when the space ship is under attack or going down or whatever? It’s like that, but you’re on the bridge with your friends.

On your iPhone or iPad, there are variety of panels, knobs, switches, dials, sliders etc… with a names like “Clip-jawed Fluxtrunions.” You and your friends each have different controls on your devices and commands show up which you have to shout to your friends if the command isn’t something on your panel. You have to work with your friends cooperatively and follow each other’s commands or the panel will start leaking oil or smoke, eventually crashing the space ship. It may sound easy but it totally isn’t when you have 4 people shouting different tasks at each other.

Omegathon finalists got to pick two Penny Arcade crew members for each team.

Jamie & Jerry, and Erika & Robert were selected.

It was super intense and fun, but they kept getting disconnected from each other, and they had to start over and over again. This went on for a very long time. I think it was just that there were so many people at the main hall using wi-fi and other electronic devices so it was interfering with the connection between the iPads.

But after many attempts, we finally had winners. Both teams won!

And the winners have been selected!

After PAX East was over, Derek and I met up with the Behemoth crew and handed out some free posters to fans at the hotel lobby.

And we headed to the last dinner together in Boston!

We were so hungry when we got there, so I have no "before" photo.

Just like that. Another PAX East was over in a flash! Panels, concert, indie games and parties… So many awesome memories were made and we met many awesome people. And don’t forget the StreetPasses! We had about a dozen of StreetPasses collected in San Diego over the course of 3 months, by the time PAX East 2013 was over, we had over 730 StreetPasses! We were able to get all the puzzle pieces too. Having a 3DS while waiting in a line helped a lot to pass the time.

The early next morning, we headed to the bus station to go to NYC. And we saw a notification on our 3DSs.

Miyamoto from Nintendo!??!?! (That's Derek in a panda hat.)

That's me as a Hotdog Fairy.

Check out PAX East 2013 set on my flickr to see more photos!

Miyamoto popped in via SpotPass at the bus station! What an awesome way to end PAX East. And PAX Prime is right around the corner… (and 4 days this year!)

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PAX East 2013: Day 2

April 17, 2013

in Blog,PAX

It’s been a little while since the PAX East day 1 post but let’s do this. Don’t worry, it’s not long!

PAX East 201: Day 2

Make a Strip panel
Saturday started out with Make a Strip panel. Usually, Jerry already has the idea for the strip and Mike starts to draw and finish a strip within one hour. But this time they did it a bit differently.

When Penny Arcade had a Kickstarter last year, one of the stretch goals was to do a reality show called “Strip Search.” They’d put bunch of webcomic cartoon artists in a house and have them compete against each other to decide who’s the best. In Strip Search, artists up for elimination have to come up with a comic on the spot in a given time using two randomly selected subjects which is extremely hard especially under pressure. Jerry and Mike are the ones who judge the artists in Strip Search and they can be quite, er, “critical” of the artists’ work to be put mildly.

So for this Make a Strip panel, the audience pitched a number of random subjects that were then drawn from a box. A strip was made but unfortunately, it was NOT family-friendly so if you want to check out tons of photos from Make a Strip panel, check out my flickr set for Make a Strip.

Here are some photos that are safe for my blog.

Mike was using a Surface Pro.

A hat was gifted.

An audience member challenged Jerry a beat-box rap match, and Jerry delivered.

Double headed hotdog fairy was born.

After the panel we walked around the convention center, checking out the Console FreePlay room, Jam Space, Steel Battalion room, etc…

PC game floor

Tabletop gaming area

Steel Battalion room (I also own Steel Battalion. I only wish I still had an original Xbox...)

And we went back to the Exhibit Hall again and check out more games, and got more goodies.

I got Double Fine Action Comics AND Amnesia Fortnight with beautiful swappable covers for each game.

This day was surprisingly light on panels because we wanted to play as many indie games we could during PAX East.

Also this day we had two parties to go to and had to leave the convention center a bit early.

Around 4:45, we headed to Lucky’s Lounge for the Double Fine/Capy/IGN meetup. When we got there, there was a loooooong line outside the place. Luckily, we were on the list (Thanks to Greg at Double Fine!) and were led to the space which was PACKED with people.

Tim Schafer lecturing how to party hard.

Everyone adoringly listens to Tim.

They had Super Time Force playing on the projection screen.

Kris Piotrowski and Tim Schafer (They have very distinctive silhouettes.)

We had tons of fun, and had some fist fights with Tim Schafer but it was time for us to go to the next party. As we said good byes to the people there, Tim had a message for me to give to Ken Levine, which was “Thank you for NOT inviting me to the party, Ken.”

Cosplay contest at the Irrational Games party

Female Booker DeWitt looked awesome.

The food at the party was delicious. Check out these fancy sliders.

Mmm mmmm fancy pizza.

Unfortunately, I was unable to deliver Tim’s message as Ken had to leave pretty much as soon as we got there… BUT something magical happened at the Irrational Games party. And I cannot thank the Irrational Games community for the amazing experience.

You can read all about it on stuffed stuff: Songbird from BioShock Infinite.

Spoiler: I made a Songbird plush for Ken Levine, got to show it to the crew from the Irrational Games, and later got a video of Ken’s reaction to the plush!

Check out PAX East 2013 set and Make a Strip set (not family-friendly!) and Stuffed stuff: Songbird from BioShock Infinite on my flickr to see more photos!

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stuffed stuff: Songbird from BioShock Infinite

April 4, 2013

in stuffed stuff

EDIT: I saw in the Press Release by NECA posted online that they are indeed working on a Songbird plush (if they haven’t made it already). They did such a wonderful job on the Big Daddy plush from BioShock 2, and I’m sure they’ll make an awesome Songbird plush. So keep an eye out for it!

Derek and I are huge fans of BioShock. We liked it so much that I even made a bento of it, and had a photo of the bento signed by Ken Levine, Shawn Robertson and Nate Wells at PAX East two years ago. So you can imagine how excited we’ve been for the BioShock Infinite ever since Irrational Games announced it.

From PAX East 2011. He told me that he had seen it online. It made my year.

I keep all signed bento photos in a binder. They're my treasures.

It was around the holiday last year that Irrational Games (the video game studio that created BioShock) tweeted this image.

As soon as I saw the image, I knew what I had to do.

Stuffed stuff: Songbird from BioShock Infinite
Created and stuffed: March 2013

The plush is based on a character called Songbird from BioShock Infinite. It’s the protector of Elizabeth the heroine in game and he will do whatever to protect her & get her back at any cost.

Now that Derek and I finished BioShock Infinite once (we’re already on our second playthrough) we can say that, without spoilers, it was absolutely gorgeous and the story totally blew our minds. I fell in love with Songbird even more! Also there actually are Songbird plush in the game!

D'awwwwww

Do I wish I had seen them before I made it so it could’ve been more accurate? YES. Do I regret that I made it pre-release? NO. Because something incredibly awesome happened during PAX East, and it wouldn’t have happened if I didn’t bring it to PAX East.

First I had to figure out what the Songbird plush looked like from the holiday card. Most of his body is covered by Elizabeth’s hands, so I had to compare it with the photos of the Songbird statue which Irrational Games made for the ultimate box set for the game. I also watched the trailers with Songbird in it over and over.

I like when the eraser is smiling at me.

I drew a sketch of the basic shape for each part of Songbird.

After the sketch, I made a rough prototype of the body with felt. I like using felt when I make a rough sample or prototype. It doesn’t fray so it’s easy to cut, sew, and draw lines on if needed. I tweaked it a couple of times, changing the width and shape until I was finally satisfied with the shape.

After the body, I moved onto make a rough shape of the arms and legs. The arms weren’t too hard on the first version. I just had to adjust the length a bit. The legs & feet took a bit of thinking and required me to dig up my old patterns for Costume Quest. After trying it a couple times, I managed to come up with feet that were to my satisfaction.

In the illustration, you can see the skin/surface of the plush is kind of loose and wrinkly. It’s actually not very easy to make the surface loose like that without using less stuffing, which makes it hard for the plush to hold its shape. So what I did was to make a core body with canvas, and make an outer layer 10% bigger than the body and put it on the core body. This way, the core of the body can be stuffed as usual and the slightly bigger outer layer makes the surface a bit loose. I also did the same with the arms and legs.

stuffed stuff: Songbird from BioShock Infinite

Who knew making wrinkles intentionally is not as easy as it looks?

After the core body was made and covered with the final fabric, I attached the arms and legs with plastic joints so that you can actually rotate them. (Like a Teddy bear)

Then I moved onto the “bodysuit.” I could’ve just used the same patterns as the body for the bodysuit, but I didn’t like the position of the seams, so I made a new pattern so that the whole bodysuit was actually one piece and not three pieces like the core body. It took a couple of iterations to get it to fit nicely but it was worth it.

Then I made the strip that goes over from his head all the way to the bottom, and sewed it to the outfit. For the piece around the neck, I put two layers of felt inside as support so it would keep its shape.

Next up were the wings. I sketched out the wings, cut the pleather (fake leather) and sewed it closed. But I realized that the wings were a bit floppier than I wanted. So I decided to make bones out of pipe cleaners and armature wire. To hold the bones in place, I sewed them by hand onto a piece of felt which was cut into the shape of the wings.

I was pretty much improvising as I made it but I wish I could’ve done something better. Pleather is known to get scratched pretty easily by feed dogs (the jagged surface on a sewing machine that moves the fabric as you sew.) I didn’t have any special feed dogs or technique, so I just held my breath and hoped for the best…

Luckily, it scratched only a tiny bit. It still bugs me a lot but Derek said that he could barely see it… so I decided not to go crazy about it. I attached the wings, and moved onto the details.

I added the button for an accent & to hide stitches.

The wings are fully posable.

Finally the most important parts, the small details. The eyes, the rings that hold the piece around the neck to the outfit, the braided air pipe coming out from the mouth, the little loops to hold the air pipe to the outfit, decorative stitching, etc…

Each detail took way too long. It didn’t take long to actually do it, but it took forever LOOKING FOR MATERIALS! I missed the Fashion District of New York City more than ever. We drove around San Diego and went to many stores to find the eyes but couldn’t find ones that matched. So I modified a plastic jean button and epoxied it onto another button. We couldn’t find the rings to hold the piece around the neck either, so I used eyelets instead. For the air pipe, I couldn’t find a big leather cord, so I learned how to braid leather strings, which was actually kind of cool.

This was a total guess. I have no idea how the air pipe attached to the suit.

The hardest part of this project was definitely the “guessing” part. Even though I had references of Songbird in game, the plush version is not an exact replica of the actual Songbird. I had to guess how to simplify and modify certain things I couldn’t see, which I was really bad at. (It was hell trying to simplify the armor when I made my Master Chief plush.) Now after seeing the plush Songbird in the game, I think I’ll make some changes on the next Songbird.

Bonus: Chin down, eyes up

As PAX East was nearing, I was wondering if Ken Levine would have a signing like he did at the last PAX East. Then the community manager of Irrational Games invited me and Derek to their invite-only fan meetup held during PAX East! We thought this couldn’t be a more perfect opportunity to give him the plush.

We got there a bit late because first we went to Double Fine & Capybara Games meetup hosted by IGN (which was a blast!) As we walked in, we saw Ken but he was talking to someone. And then a cosplay contest started, so we decided to wait until the contest ended.

After the contest, we looked for him but he was nowhere to be found. Then a handsome gentleman approached us, and asked me “Are you Anna?” It turned out that he was the community manager, Ratana, who invited us! We thanked him and said that we had something for Ken. He told us that Ken had to leave and wouldn’t be around for the rest of PAX East… I could hear Derek going “Nooooooooooo” in his head. We looked around and saw Irrational Games devs hanging around chatting with fans. So we asked him if we could have them open the gift and Derek could take photos of their reactions. They did, and it was absolutely amazing.

Songbird plush meets the Irratioal Games staff

Everyone's smilin'

Yay unboxing!

Bill Gardner (on the left): "OH--"

Bill Gardner (on the left): "--SHIII." (keeping it family friendly.)

I really love how Scott Sinclair (on the right) looks frozen.

They were all super excited to see the Songbird plush, I even got teary watching their reactions. (Man, I’m getting old.)

The two gentlemen opening the box are Bill Gardner who is the design director of BioShock Infinite, and Scott Sinclair, the art director of BioShock and BioShock Infinite! We were so overwhelmed by their excitement that we totally forgot to ask Scott to sign the copy of BioShock we had in our bag. Doh!

So yes, we couldn’t meet Ken Levine, which was sad, but the super awesome people at Irrational Games TOTALLY made up for it, or even more! Not only that, Ken’s personal assistant Ashlee and Ratana told me that they’d make sure to document when Ken received the plush.

I was expecting a “hey check out this fan art” tweet which would’ve totally made me dance in joy, so we were in shock when we received this from Ratana later.

There are no words to describe what the video meant to me and Derek. We never thought seeing a middle-aged man holding a plush would make us so ecstatic.

Thank you Ken Levine for EVERYTHING you’ve done. And I’d like to thank everyone at Irrational Games for creating such amazing games and awesome community around it.

Oh, there is a leather-plush version of Songbird in one of “documentaries” of Columbia which is the city in the sky from BioShock Infinite. I’d love to make the full-leather one someday but I am not experienced with leather and I don’t own the right tools. But someday…. !!

For more pictures of this plush, visit stuffed stuff: Songbird from BioShock Infinite set!

You can also check out more stuffed stuff on my flickr.

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PAX East 2013: Day 1

April 1, 2013

in Blog,PAX

After losing our sweet kitty Inari, we kept ourselves busy with work and preparation for PAX East. We knew that nothing would make us feel better than meeting awesome people and playing awesome games at PAX East.

The letter says "So, what's going on, attendees of the REAL PAX?!"

We flew into NYC on Thursday 3/21 so I could get a haircut before PAX and had ramen at Minca.

It's been more than 5 months since the last time we had ramen at Minca.

Then we hopped on a BoltBus and arrived at the hotel in Boston around 8:30 PM. We had dinner with my tired but excited co-workers who had been in Boston since Tuesday to set up the booth at the convention center.

Even though I now work for The Behemoth, Derek and I still come to PAX as attendees. The Behemoth has a super experienced staff and usually don’t need my help, besides we love going to panels and checking out games as much as we can.

A couple of days before PAX East, there were many exciting announcements flying around the internet. The Behemoth announced the release date for their new game BattleBlock Theater (which is April 3rd. Mark your calendar!) Supergiant Games announced the new game they’re working on. And Double Fine and Capybara Games announced a super limited game bundle box set. It comes with a floppy disc with a steam code for the bundle on it. Also the floppy contains a racing game with characters from Capybara games and Double Fine games.

PAX East 2013: Day 1

View from the room

This was taken around 8:15 am.

By 8:30 am, the line was wrapped around and extended towards the hotel.

Friday morning, we entered the Exhibitor hall early with exhibitor badges and walked around to take some photos before the place got PACKED.

The glorious Behemoth booth (pre-show)

Cat Guard statue! (pre-show)

Supergiant Games' new booth featuring gorgeous art from their new game, Transistor. (pre-show)

Double Fine / Capy booth (pre-show)

2 headed Capy!

Brutal Legend station (pre-show)

After we checked out our favorite booths on the floor, we headed to get in the line for the Keynote by CliffyB. I knew that the game bundle box set by Double Fine and Capybara Games was going to be super popular… So for the very first time, I decided to skip the Keynote and ran to the booth of Double Fine and Capybara Games while Derek attended the Keynote. I was soooo glad that I did this. There were only 200 of the bundle box made, and they were sold out pretty much right away.

10 of 200! High-five!

Also I bought all the T-shirts they had at the store for Derek and myself.

Penny Arcade Q&A
After that, I headed to the main theater to join Derek and our friends for the Penny Arcade Q&A. The Q&A was filled with moving stories, awkward questions, food gifts, and laughter as usual. Even though the Qs are always very similar in each PAX, we still go because of hilarious As by Jerry and Mike. This year, Jerry showed up in the “Penny Arcade robot” costume because of one of their Kickstarter reward stretch goals.

"I know someone will come up and tell us a heartwarming story and I look like this." And yes, it happened.

After the Q&A, we headed to the next panel!

On the way to the next panel. The view of the entrance to the Exhibitor Hall.

Get Hired in Video Games Marketing
Pete Hines [Vice President, PR & Marketing, Bethesda Softworks], Cara Scharf [President, Fearless Media], Ed Davis [Account Director, AKQA]

Their advice: Don't burn bridges in the online world.

Question time! There wasn't enough time for everyone but Derek got to ask them a question afterwards.

Then we hit the Exhibitor Hall to check out some games.

Behold!! The first booth entering the Exhibit Hall was the Behemoth booth!

Look at the line to the Behemoth merch!

We had tons of new merch, including the Bitey Bat Hat and the Behemoth chicken plush I designed!

Long lines to play the game too!

I don't know who this is but an awesome costume!

There were some upcoming AAA games like Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag, The Last of Us, Saints Row IV, Watch Dogs, etc… but what we were really looking forward to was the Indie Mega Booth. We really enjoyed playing tons of indie games at the Indie Mega Booth at PAX Prime 2012 and when they announced the list of games for PAX East 2013, we checked out the trailers of each game and made a list of what we wanted to check out. Here are some photos of the booths of the game we checked out before or are looking forward to.

Guacamelee! by Drinkbox Studios

Don't Starve & Mark of the Ninja by Klei (Derek looooooves Mark of the Ninja)

First game we checked out was Contrast by Compulsion Games. It’s a puzzle/platformer game where you can enter the world of shadows to solve the puzzles. The art style is very noir-esque and really pretty and the game mechanic looks very interesting too!

Contrast by Compulsion Games

Hard to tell in this photo but your shadow can jump onto the shadow of the carousel horses.

The Swapper by Facepalm Games

I don't play Hawken but their booth looked awesome.

Check out the detail on the stations!

The detail was crazy even at the bottom of the station.

Tengami by Nyamyam

And of course, Octodad: Dadliest Catch

This time, they had an Xbox controller hooked up on one station.

Apotheon by Alientrap

It was very stylish and the animation was smooth. We liked it a lot!

Electronic Super Joy by Michael Todd Games

We then walked by the Supergiant Game booth which had a 2 hour wait to play the demo!!

O_O

Lines for the demo and their merch booth.

Simple setup but very efficient.

The line got longer and longer as PAX East went on.

At the Double Fine/Capy booth, we got to play Double Fine’s new game Dropchord. It was hard to understand what was going on in the trailer but after playing the demo, it was actually pretty simple and made me want to keep trying to get better scores. You hold out two fingers to the monitor and the motion sensor called Leap Motion detects your fingers as you move them around. You have to control the line between the your fingertips to hit & avoid certain symbols. It’s simple but can be pretty hard at the same time. Each time I make a mistake, I’d be like “Oh crap! Okay I can do this better next time…” It was definitely addictive.

You'll kind of look like a conductor when you play the game.

The two dots on the edge of the circle are where your fingertips are.

The Super Time Force stations were right behind us.

We played this at PAX Prime 2012, but this was a new build. I like how at each PAX we can watch a game as it evolves.

When we finished playing Dropchord, we chatted with Greg Rice of Double Fine and met another Double Fine staff member, Patrick Hackett. He thanked me for the 2-Headed Baby plush I made. I couldn’t be more flattered. Nothing makes me happier than meeting the people I make plush for. As we were chatting, Tim Schafer was just leaving the booth so Greg called him over. We had a chat about the plushes I made for the Behemoth, gallbladders, and a possible gallbladder plush.

As we were wandering around, we stumbled upon the Tearaway booth.

The Tearaway booth was so colorful and super adorable!!

Tearaway is an adorable PS Vita game by Media Molecule, the studio that created Little Big Planet. I absolutely love love love Media Molecule. Perhaps finally we’ll get a Vita when Tearaway comes out…! Their booth was completely covered by handmade papercraft! I can’t imagine how long it took them to set it up and I suppose they had to just throw it all away after PAX East was over.

One of the staff members was creating and adding papercraft during the show.

The details were absolutely crazy!

Then we stopped by at T he Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness booth to say hi to Jeff. I’m not saying this because I like Jeff, but I really do love the style of Rain-Slick. I grew up playing old school RPGs, so Zomboid’s art style and Jerry’s writing are like the ultimate combination of an RPG for grownups.

The Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness booth

And we walked around some more.

Sam Fisher from Splinter Cell

Assassin's Creed: Black Flag. I can't really imagine a pirate assassin but sure...

Twitch, I love your service but I really hope in the future you don't broadcast interviews and games SO LOUD throughout the show that I can't hear myself talk by your booth.

Square Enix had Deus Ex: Human Revolution Director's Cut for WiiU

After the Exhibit Hall closed, we joined the Behemoth staff for the mixer. Over drinks and snacks we chatted about how the first day went. Derek and I visited Supergiant Games to play their upcoming game, Transistor. While waiting for our turn, we talked to Jen Zee, Darren Korb and their new 3D artist Camilo Vanegas. We don’t know how many times we watched the trailer of Transistor after the announcement. The trailer has a Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex feel to it, and Jen Zee’s art is just breathtakingly gorgeous. After playing the demo, we felt that 2014 couldn’t come soon enough.

Wish we could’ve stay longer for the mixer but we had to leave for the last event of the night.

Actually, there was another thing we had to do before the concert. Which I’ve been meaning to do a little after Jamie Dillon was hired at Penny Arcade. I’ll write about it after I’m done with my PAX East posts.

Friday Night Concert
We never missed the V.G.O (Video Games Orchestra) concert at PAX. We are such huge fans that we even went to Boston for the full orchestral concert in October last year. This time, they had a small choir which was super awesome. Yes, they did play One Winged Angel. (a.k.a. “Sephiroth’s theme”)