Posted in News by Ken Gagne on Mar 14th, 2011 7:56 PM
At PAX East 2010, I was introduced to the concept of Parsely, a cross between Dungeons & Dragons and interactive fiction, the latter being the old-school text adventures we'd play as kids. Parsely turns those games into live-action entertainment that replaces the parser with a human interpreter. Though the interface is as clunky as always — GO NORTH, GET LAMP, and so forth — the results are far more hysterical and more conducive to group play.
I missed the Parsely session last year but bought my own copies of some of the scripts from Memento Mori Theatricks so that I could run them for an audience of retrocomputing enthusiasts. Wanting to be in the audience for once, I made sure to attend PAX East 2011's Parsely session. so I could be in the audience for once. Unfortunately, the first game that host Jared Sorensen presented was Action Castle, the same as last year's and the one I had run. It was still fun to watch, but the challenge for me didn't arise until that game was won and he dusted off the sequel, Action Castle II. I captured excerpts from both rounds in this YouTube video:
Posted in News by Ken Gagne on Mar 13th, 2011 10:58 PM
Here are pictures from the third and final day of PAX East 2011. Highlights include Bill Amend of FoxTrot, Bioshock Infinite's Elizabeth, and the Penny Arcade Q&A (with many donations to Child's Play).
Some post-event thoughts and collected photo album to follow. In the meantime, be sure to catch up with photos from day one and day two.
Posted in News by Ken Gagne on Mar 12th, 2011 10:01 PM
Here are pictures from the second day of PAX East 2011. Highlights include Paul Saunders, Kathleen DeVere, and Graham Stark of LoadingReadyRun, the Rooster Teeth panel debuting the trailer for Red vs. Blue Season 9: The Freelancer Project, a Pac-Man CE DX tournament, and cosplay of Cammy, Batman, Catwoman, Dr. Who, Final Fantasy IX's Vivi the black mage, Bioshock on Rock Band.
Posted in News by Ken Gagne on Mar 11th, 2011 7:10 PM
Here are pictures from the first day of PAX East 2011. Highlights include Jane McGonigal's keynote, Donald Hayes playing Joust, Jared Sorensen hosting Action Castle, Andrew Plotkin on a Kickstarter panel, the Red Faction 3 exoskeleton, and cosplay of Assassin's Creed, Street Fighter's Ryu, Darkstalker's Morrigan, and Zelda's Kokiri and Sheik.
Posted in News by Ken Gagne on Apr 14th, 2010 2:27 PM
The Escapist Magazine recently rolled out a subscription model. Rather than putting existing content behind a pay wall, they are instead offering new features, such as high-quality video streams, exclusively to subscribers. As they point out, a subscription breaks down to only about five cents a day, but if you've already registered a free Escapist profile, the first year comes at 50% off.
The first high-quality movie my subscription has afforded me access to is from comedy troupe LoadingReadyRun. My PAX writeup detailed my experience being in the audience for their panel; now they've published the video that resulted from that session. Prepare yourselves for some potty humor:
I'm visible in all the audience shots but most clearly at 5:53 as the guy in the aisle seat looking at his camera. Unfortunately, I made the cardinal sin of glancing into the video camera! You'd never know from such an amateurish mistake that I'm actually an experienced film extra. Sigh. If I had a SAG card, I'm sure they'd be revoking it now.
Posted in News by Ken Gagne on Mar 31st, 2010 3:00 PM
Sketch comedy troupe LoadingReadyRun.com was at PAX East and entertained the crowd not just with previews of their upcoming videos, but also by filming one during their panel. Way to hire unpaid extras, guys!
Graham Stark gives directions for an LLR video shot at PAX East.
Seriously, everyone at the show was awesome. They specified at the beginning of the Q&A session that questions were not to be answered by all seven panelists; as a result, each question was addressed in under 2.5 minutes, allowing everyone to get a chance to speak with the comics. I worried that my question about whether or not they've ever considered doing a RiffTrax would require a description of the medium, but naturally the team responsible for Unskippable is familiar with the latest iteration of Mystery Science Theater 3000, so far as Paul Saunders encouraging us to "keep passing the tapes!" I ended up sitting one seat removed from Paul during Sunday's Penny Arcade panel; he's lucky I wasn't better situated to inundate him with further questions.
If I was a bit starstruck, it's because LLR's members are gamers, comedians, and philanthropists. Graham Stark and Kathleen DeVere also offered advice the previous day on organizing a Child's Play fundraiser akin to their own Desert Bus for Hope. For them to lend their celebrity to such a noble cause speaks well of our entire demographic.
Their latest Unskippable, which usually reviews the latest gaming cinematics, is a great April Fool's take on Final Fantasy XIII:
Posted in News by Ken Gagne on Mar 30th, 2010 10:17 AM
Last weekend, Boston was the mecca for 60,000 gamers from around the world as we hosted Penny Arcade Expo East, the inaugural East Coast counterpart to Seattle's annual celebration of gaming in all its forms.
The three-day event included a spacious show floor for both renowned and independent publishers to show off their wares. Gamers could play recent and upcoming titles, from Rockstar's Red Dead Redemption to Aksys Games BIT.TRIP Runner. Dedicated rooms hosted tournaments of not just video and PC games such as Joust and Street Fighter IV, but also board and card games like Munchkin and Settlers of Catan. Hallways were littered with beanbags for gamers needing to rest or to engage other attendees in wireless handheld gameplay.
