Road to PAX AUS: Day -5

As much as I’ve talked about the commercial side of this whole gig in previous pieces, the part of me that is simply just excited to be attending PAX this year is really rising up inside. Along with plenty of other emotions. But we’ll get to that.

I think the biggest draw for me, even more so than the opportunity to check out as yet unreleased games, are the PAX Panels. While they range from extremely serious all the way to the downright silly, all panels have one thing in common: they bring a group of people with a shared passion and interest in a specific topic and pool them in one place. Regardless of what the focus is, each panel brings a feeling of camaraderie with it - these are my people, you may think. I know I have in the past.

The schedule has dropped, and there’s a metric ton of events across the three days that it is literally impossible to see all of. It’s a little anxiety inducing, but before Friday I will have meticulously gone through this schedule to help determine how I weave my way across the show floor each day. I’m already keen on Hyper Masculinity in Gaming and the Trans Masc Experience, and checking out one or both of the Indie Showcases on one of it’s viewings will be a key aim. From writing about games to writing for games: what's the journey? might be a bit a self indulgence as well. Fireside chat with Endo Takuma definitely piqued interest. Shout out to Jess and Alice for the What Kind of Year Has It Been? panel.

The PAX Aus App is probably going to be a lifesaver for tracking everything I want to do - you can make your own personal schedule and everything, which is pretty neat.

Of the flood of PR emails hitting the old inbox in the last two weeks, one regarding NZ CODE stood out as less about selling and more about developers. Housed at booth 1140 and continuing last article’s approach to seeing PAX Aus as a Oceanic event, NZ CODE is New Zealand’s national Centre of Digital Excellence for game development which helps lift up Aotearoa’s indie game scene. Very keen to check out the 20 or so different titles on display at this one.

One of these games is Beyond These Stars, which "joins the growing mini-genre of city-builders based on giant creatures”. I have to admit, the idea of playing a city builder on the back of space whale sounds bloody cool. This is from the team behind Before We Leave, a similar style game that I sadly haven’t had a chance to check out yet but was pretty well received, so keen to get my hands on this.

Yet another NZ CODE highlight is Fnife Games’ Small Town Emo, an LGBTQIA+ narrative focused game that is "a story-driven GameBoy adventure about an emo teen in 2007” which… while we look back on our high school selves and cringe quite often, this is like an extreme nostalgia critical hit for yours truly. Emo is already having a come back and Im here for it.

Grist is another eye catcher, with some extremely well stylized ascii art that stretches the capability of what you can do with simple characters. Extremely sci-fi in a lot of good ways.

Booth 42 is home to Memory’s Reach, a gorgeous looking space faring first person puzzle metroidvania that’s giving me slight Outer Wilds vibes crossed with something a bit more grounded. I do like a good puzzle.

This will be the last piece until PAX begins in earnest. Not 100% sure how the article release schedule will go during and after PAX, but please keep your eyes peeled for more. If you’ll be at PAX and you see me, say hi!