I had a pretty good time this weekend. The getaway alone was badly needed, but to spend it among gamers, dorks, and creators was just great. I think I feel more at home at gaming events than when I went to anime cons, it’s hard to put my finger on why. But I did get into anime via games, sort of, so you could say I have more roots in games than that.

The first thing I did Sunday was squeeze into the throng at Nintendo’s booth to try out Star Fox Zero, and got a strong impression of… eh. I don’t totally hate the idea of tilting the gamepad for precision aiming, but then when you reach the boss, the camera locks onto it, and well, you see- a fighter jet tends to constantly move forward, which is a lot different than other games that try this because you’re usually controlling a character who is able to do things like side strafe, or just stop fucking moving for a second. You’re forced to use the first-person view on the tablet, which restricts your field of view but is about the only way to really tell what the hell you’re doing while occasionally glancing up to make sure nothing’s coming from your side. The only thing I can think of this accomplishing is making the fight look neater for other people in the room for you. It also reminds me uncomfortably of the first-person missile aiming they crammed into Metroid: Other M, and reminding people of Other M is probably unwise.

Tokyo Mirage Sessions: #FE was also on display alongside Kirby Gets A Robot and Monster Hunter Generations, though Capcom cheated a little by putting MonHun in their booth too. I’m on to you…

I didn’t really see as much stuff in the vendor floor that I just *had* to have this year. I got the Barbarossa card game out of a combination of morbid curiousity and wanting to prove to Dan that it really does exist. I was happy to finally play AEGIS for real with the makers. It was a little complex, but I imagine a few games in once you get a feel for the units, it becomes faster paced. I’ll probably share some links and stuff as their project enters the Kickstarter phase, so brace for the shilling. I gotta do what I do for that combining-robot fix.

All in all, I didn’t really test Irrgarten much after the first test run brought up a couple serious flaws and playing by myself in the room afterward I realized that turn order needs to be more of a thing since ‘do everything then tally the end result’ seemed to be harder to keep track of. I kind of instinctively want to remove a character who’s lost all their hit points even though they’re supposed to ‘exist’ til the end of the round. I’m thinking next revision I’m going to see about combining item cards and tokens into one entity so there’s less chits needed, and maybe it’s time to cave and incorporate dice since even though it’s technically more ‘pieces’ to the set, six sided dice aren’t especially rare or anything.

Oh, funny story to wrap this all up with. I got picked for a bag search on the way home, and sat off to the side looking at the x-ray trying to figure out what set it off. I had the charger to my older laptop, which is outdated and massive, my 3DS with charger,and the rest was basically t-shirts and other laundry save the uh, copy of Barbarossa I picked up.

“What’s this at the bottom anyway? Cards?”

Yyyyeah. So I was sitting off to the side of the TSA agent watching him run the sniffer all around the box of cards, then turned it over reading it rather intently. “It’s a gag gift,” I said.

“You’re ok, go ahead.”

So apparently, novelty playing card games are something to be careful about taking through airport security. Little protip for anyone else who decides to go on the road with a copy of Tanto Cuore or whatever stowed in their bag.

After class tonight, I’ll have some time to breathe and work on my own junk, so stay tuned the next few days, and if you’re not already, feel free to follow TheThreeTwo on Twitch or plain ThreeTwo on Picarto for my gaming/drawing streams.