PAX East 2025: Wow, kinda big, right?

I am having a great time, except that it’s cold and rainy here at the Boston sea coast, and I picked up my boyfriend’s cold, and I put my back out last week and am still feeling it, but you know, aside from that.

PAX — Penny Arcade Expo — was the brainchild of the creators of the Penny Arcade web comic, Jerry “Tycho” Hopkins and Mike “Gabe” Krahulik, who started a convention only for gamers in their native Washington before growing it worldwide. Though it first came to Boston in 2010, this is the first time I’ve gone.

This isn’t the first gaming-focused convention I’ve gone to. We went to Origins last year, DragonCon a few years before that. Our own local convention, Connecticon, has a tabletop event each year. We haven’t gone to that. We did go to CaptainCon this past February, a smaller convention in Rhode Island focused primarily on tabletop RPGs and miniatures gaming. I think we have some experience with them.

Of them all, PAX East is the largest. There is SO much going on.

We missed Jonathan Coulton at Origins last year; his concert was sold out before we could get our tickets. He was here with frequent collaborators Paul & Storm and he played a greatest hits selection — Millionaire Girlfriend, Skullcrusher Mountain, Re: Your Brains, Code Monkey, Mister Fancypants (which was very fancy indeed), Still Alive and a few others. He and Paul & Storm held a Q&A this afternoon where they explained just how much fun the Joco Cruise would be, while admitting that it’s been sold out until 2027, I think. So, maybe later.

I was lucky enough to meet Brian of Burgee Media, the developer of Erenshor. Incredibly nice guy in person. He’d rented out the corner of another booth and it was kind of hard to find him, but we did manage it, and I have the business card to prove it. I took a picture, but it was kinda crappy so just using that screenshot as a placeholder. He had the game running on a couple of screens and the people trying it out seemed to like it.

I’d met the developer of card-slash-board game Planet Hexx at CaptainCon in February, and was a little surprised that he didn’t have any of the game for sale with him. The game is pretty simple; each player is given a Mad Libs-style game board that you fill by playing cards to build a wacky space map through which you move to earn currency to buy cards, etc. It’s fun and fast-paced, and the winner gets to read the silly story they made.

The dev said he would be at PAX East, I said I would, too, and it was one of my first stops. He put my picture on his web page, so I feel I am owed his picture on mine.

Hey, when did games become political? Ripped from the headlines, in Buy the Vote, the players are billionaires willing to throw cash around to get themselves elected president. Through nine rounds, states are dealt (more states each round) and every player places blind bids for the state or states they want to buy. If no bids on a state or the top bids are ties, the state goes until the next round. Swing states let you steal the latest state some other player has bought, so it pays to be strategic and get those swing states so you can finally steal California, just like you always wanted.

So many games coming out are using the Super Nintendo-era pixel graphics. It isn’t retro any longer; it’s a resurrected style that has settled in for the long haul.

Some other games I looked at:

Nekomancer of Nowhere — you are a cat who is a necromancer, and you’re headed through a haunted tomb swapping between the worlds of the living and the dead in order to pass obstacles and defeat ghosts (by returning them to life). Spells are drawn with the mouse; it’s a cute combination of a puzzle game and action game.

Sage Stones — a dice rolling, stone placement game where your goal is to place all your stones on a board by rolling three three-sided dice and putting it in the appropriate column. If your pieces surround an enemy or enemies, those pieces get removed. It’s a fairly simple game. The board were hand crafter and gorgeous with laser-etched wood hand painted to work as a wall ornament when you weren’t playing. They were also selling leather scroll versions for somewhat less money.

Gigasword — puzzle platformer where you wield a comically oversized sword with many uses. Sometimes, the gigasword is just too much sword to fit where you need to go, and so you’ll have to be clever and solve puzzles to be reunited with your heavy, heavy sword.

Cat Secretary — you play a homeless cat who finds herself a home in a company and spend your nights investigating the desks of your co-workers (knocking stuff over, scratching the chairs, etc) and solving their problems just as a good secretary should. And maybe, just maybe, stop a dastardly plot from unfolding. You’ve got nine lives. What better way to use them than in devotion to a company that only pays you in kibble?

I’m just scratching the surface, here. There is SO MUCH going on. I scored Quest 64 for the Analogue 3D, should that ever come out and a bunch of other stuff.

So. Much.

Can’t wait to see what it’l be like next year.

Warmer, I hope.