Been posting a flurry of things about some of the games I saw this year at PAX 2014. This isn't about any game specifically, but a place to dump all the pictures I took. They didn't all turn out as works of art, but they do highlight some of the cooler things I saw. One thing the pictures don't capture is how insane and crowded PAX Prime is. The crowds being the prime reason why I can really only handle the event for one day.

That said, it was fun attending and there really isn't anything quite like it. Click through my imgur album below and also realize the order of photos is reversed.

http://imgur.com/a/CdsO2

Risk of Rain is a great indie side scrolling rogue-like that features some really amazing visuals and gameplay. Saturday at PAX Prime my friends in the Portland Indie game community wanted to play a new version of the game and I went with them. They were showing off a build of the game they have yet to release featuring a new character, the Chef. The Chef is a Bender-esque robot that features a special ability that shoots out a bunch of cleavers in every direction. It looks like a cool addition to the game and everyone that played it seemed to really enjoy it.

I talked to some of the Risk of Rain developers about possible Linux and Mac ports as well as supporting the game in full gamepad mode(currently you need to have a mouse beside you to play it on your couch). Apparently my wildest dreams are coming true in that the huge update they were showing off at PAX would not only contain a Linux & Mac port but also full gamepad support. Risk of Rain is written in Game Maker and they decided to port it to the latest version. Apparently this allowed them to enhance the game and make it run a bit faster and bring these new features to the game.

I attended PAX Prime this year on Saturday and perused a ton of new Indie games. One game that caught my attention was Super Meat Boy Forever. I was alerted to it by Travis and saw it at the Indie Megabooth. I watched a few people play it and immediately realized how great this game will be. When I first heard that Team Meat was working on a possible mobile Meat Boy game I didn't think it would work. After watching Super Meat Boy Forever and playing it, I can say that unless they change the game from what I played to make it worse, this game will be great.

In a world of really lame endless runners, Super Meat Boy Forever propels the genre forward by creating richer gameplay. Meat Boy runs forward and you can do a few things by tapping. Tapping on the right hand side of the screen causes Meat Boy to jump and tapping on the left causes him to crouch. Whereas I didn't see anyone use the crouch, I can imagine it coming in useful at certain points. If Meat Boy comes in contact with a wall he automagically starts walking the other direction. If you tap the jump button after he jumps into a walk it causes a wall jump in the opposite direction. These really simple controls make for a really rich platformer that felt like a proper Meat Boy game.

Where as it wasn't me playing the game, I snapped the above YouTube footage at PAX and it shows off a bit of the gameplay. Super Meat Boy Forever isn't an endless runner but it features randomly generated levels and will ship with an endless mode to it. That said, according to Team Meat, Super Meat Boy Forever will feature a full story, 6 levels and double the boss fights of the original. But don't take my word for it, you can read the announcement yourself.

http://supermeatboy.com/158/Announcing_Super_Meat_Boy_Forever_/#b

What's included in patch 2.1.0? In short: Seasons, Greater Rifts, Leaderboards, The Cesspools, Treasure Rooms & balancing. Oh and...

"An additional Stash Tab is now available for all players with Reaper of Souls."

Awesome.

Read about all of the features of the Diablo III 2.1.0

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/blog/15487814/patch-210-now-live-8-26-2014

Blizzard seems to really be enhancing the game for hardcore Diablo players to give them even more content than before. With the changes, are you planning on heading back to Sanctuary? As a special bonus to help get players back this week, Blizzard mentioned that..

"To celebrate the arrival of this major content update, all players who log into Diablo III this week on Windows or Mac will not only receive a +100% bonus to Gold Find, but all Treasure Goblin spawns in the game have been doubled! (As with our previous buff, please note that the Gold Find bonus will stack multiplicatively with existing bonuses including those provided by items and Paragon points.)"

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/blog/15487813

GOG.com just launched an interesting new feature: DRM free films. Starting with a few movies like "Indie Game: The Movie", "Minecraft: The Story of Mojang", "Gamer Age" & "The Startup Kids." If you head over to GOG right now you can download two films for free "TPB AFK: The Pirate Bay Away From Keyboard" and "The Art of Playing."

Movies, coupled with Linux support and the upcoming GOG Galaxy, GOG is really becoming a first class digital game service. I hope the DRM free films movement takes off and we see more great content come to it.

http://www.gog.com/movies

I mean, this is about as off-topic as it gets.

I wonder what the story is for this video.

When I grew up I heard that Dungeons and Dragons was an evil game that was created by Satan as a gateway to the occult. The idea was that if you played it your mind would be invaded by evil and that evil would take root in your soul such that you might one day worship Satan or vote for a liberal president.

These kinds of videos remind me that some people still think odd things about the world. When I cast a spell in Skyrim or make Mario shoot a fireball, I don't spend time trying to figure it out in real life(mainly because it's impossible). I would love to live in a world where magic was real so I could be the oldest student at Hogwarts(or it's United States sister school). I imagine if magic were real many people would learn it and it would become quite common place. Why wash your dishes when learning an incantation would do it for you? I would love to live in a world where magic was some kind of real, but until then we will all just have to pretend.

**EDIT Apparently I was a bit wrong as a study was done that shows kids watching Harry Potter have become Satanists. Even I can be wrong sometimes, sorry everyone, consider this a formal apology.

http://www.theonion.com/articles/harry-potter-books-spark-rise-in-satanism-among-ch,2413/

After it's initial debut on XBox 360 and XBox One, Super Time Force is coming to PC on Steam August 25th. The Steam release is not only adding "Ultra" to the name but is getting a ton of new content.

"STFU brings all the insane time-travel action of Super Time Force to PC along with brand new bonus content including: 50 new Helladeck challenge levels, inter-dimensional Ultra Force powers and 3 super-awesome, super-secret new characters! STFU is the ultimate in personal computing time travel technology!"

Take a trip through the history of one of the most iconic weapons in video games, the double-barreled shotgun. After hitting the scene in Doom II the double-barreled shotgun has been used in tons of shooters. It's a great gun, but in shooters of late the reload time has been a bit higher than i'd prefer. That said, there isn't anything i'd rather have at the Zompocalypse.

If it wasn't for PC Gaming the video game industry wouldn't be nearly as cool. One part of PC Gaming I am in awe of is the rigs some people have. Like a souped up show car, some PC setups are amazing to behold. Since being a wee lad I have been involved with PC Gaming and a huge part of my current love of it comes from LAN parties. After the proliferation of ultra-fast Internet and online play some may have the impression LAN parties might be old hat. After attending PDXLAN 2014 I can tell you that LAN parties aren't going anywhere and for good reason, they are awesome. After contacting Matt Conwell I was able to attend this year and was impressed with the PC builds I was able to behold. Don't take my word for it, check out the imgur album I created of the event and rigs in action. Apologies if I missed anyones setup, there was so much to take in.

http://imgur.com/a/PET9v#0

I want to thank PDXLAN for letting me hangout with them and Matt Conwell for answering my questions about one of the coolest geek events in Portland.

jdodson: PDXLAN has passionate community around it. From it’s early years to what it is now, how do you look at how things have evolved?

Matt Conwell: I am proud the way the community has evolved. From early on in 2004 we started doing charity-minded activities. The community really latched on to that and has taken it further than I could ever have imagined. What surprises me most about the community is the range of attendees that we have. Our average age is 32 years old - much higher than other LAN Parties. Most people hear "gamers" and they think teens and college age. Our jobs are all over the board. From microprocessor engineers to stay at home moms - our community is diverse.

The decade of running an event has given my wife and me a way to positively grow a community and shape it into what it is today. Our sponsors often comment about just how unique PDXLAN is.

jdodson: Any games come to mind that have dominated PDXLAN this year?

Matt Conwell: Really - gaming isn't just one game anymore. Typically there is a game in each genre that dominates. In the MOBA space it is League of Legends. In the FPS space it is Battlefield 4. The RTS space is still dominated by Starcraft 2, and the MMO space is dominated by World of Warcraft. At PDXLAN there is always someone playing the game you like - the hard part is finding them. :)

jdodson: We talked a bit about the network setup for this years PDXLAN. I wonder if you could describe it for everyone?

Matt Conwell: Our network has gone through many iterations over the past 12 years. Currently we use a 1GB fiber connection from Xfinity as our internet backbone. We use a class B range as a bridge of a class C will just mess up in game browsers. From the Internet gateway we go to the core switch (Cisco 48 Port GB w/management). From the core we go via 1GB to each table of 24 people. Each table switch is a DLink 24+2 managed switch. (24 ports x 100MB / 2 ports x 1GB)

We haven't upgraded the network to full GB for a reason. Most tables pull 250mb/s consistent. Spikes take it up to about double that. It would take 10 users at full 100mb to saturate the line to the core. If we were able to give everyone GB without upgrading the line to the core, one person could saturate the line. A lot of file sharing takes place. While we could drop WFS at the core and kill file sharing - we've elected to just keep it a 1:10 ratio. There is talk about upgrading to a 10GB core and 1GB to the attendee with 10GB lines to the core - but no staff member has won the lotto yet. :)

Two other cool things about the network are SNORT and Captive Portal. We run SNORT on the PfSense box to drop and ban internal IP addresses from the gateway found to be torrenting. We don't want the LAN's bandwidth soaked up downloading all those Linux ISO's. We also run captive portal at the LAN. When an attendee arrives they input their personal password when their browser first loads to gain access to the Internet. That password ties their DHCP IP address to their name, and seat number.

jdodson: As I was touring the event I noticed a lot of beefy PC’s and displays. All these rigs come with some hefty power requirements, how do you manage to not blow a circuit breaker every hour?

Matt Conwell: We have the same power setup that we did 12 years ago. We put 6 computers on a 20 Amp circuit. Over the past decade we've lost CRT's and gained more efficient LCD or OLED monitors that take 1/4 of the power. Additionally processing power per watt has greatly improved. Systems today take the same power - but they just do a whole lot more with it.

We do have restrictions in place. We ask that attendees not have a power supply of over 650W per seat. If they need more, buy two seats. In reality all we care about is the constant draw of a power supply. Most systems don't use a constant draw of 600W - and if they do... they can afford two seats :)

jdodson: Certain types of traditional media outlets have some very negative views of gaming culture as being hyper violent and in some ways a contributing factor in events like school shootings. How do you look at these kinds of negative stereotypes about gaming culture?

Matt Conwell: In the 1950's it was music. In the 1970's and 80's it was Television. In the 1990's it was movies. Today, people blame games. One reason we do so much for charity is to gain awareness that gamers make a huge difference in the world. The PC-gaming market is an enigma in the marketing world because there are so many types of people in the demographic. Salary range is $0-infinity, Age range is 6 to 95. Education level is Kindergarten to PhD. Geographic location is Earth. Over 80% of people are considered "gamers" by the media. To the media a gamer is anyone that plays a phone, tablet, console, or PC Game. As a clinical Psychologist once put it to me: "It is more clinically relevant if a person does not play a video game, than if they do." Food for thought.

jdodson: For you, what game hooked you into the LAN scene originally?

Matt Conwell: My first "LAN" was a two person LAN in 1996 with my roommate playing Warcraft 2. From there it went to Starcraft in 1998 and CounterStrike in 1999. My first real LAN was in 1999 in the George Fox Computer Science Lab. CounterStrike may have affected my grades at the time....

jdodson: What games have you been playing lately?

Matt Conwell: I have really been loving Minecraft. If you like logic and Legos, stay away from this game. Other games I currently play are Diablo 3, Starcraft 2, Plants vs. Zombies Garden Warfare (a FPS version of PvZ), and I dabble in World of Warcraft from time to time. Games that stand out to me over the last decade are "Sid Meir Railroads!" and "Orcs Must Die!" - two PC games that are amazing - but got little press at the time.

jdodson: LAN events have changed over the years and as such I remember when Counter-Strike 1.6 required a constant connection to Steam. This was a major hassle for many LAN events at the time as fast Internet connections were not as common. Curious how the shift in technology has impacted PDXLAN over the years?

Matt Conwell: Oh man. When Steam came out and started forcing online only play - it was a headache. At the time we load balanced 10 cable modems into an aggregate Internet connection. Because of this a packet could leave one modem, and then the response could come back in another. It was weird. We dealt with it mainly by increasing the Internet connection (So thankful for Comcast!).

I think game developers have to start doing more of this as a result of the rampant piracy that is out there. It's sometimes hard to deal with technically - but from a business perspective I get it.

jdodson: What was the last movie you saw? Do you recommend it?

Matt Conwell: Lucy. I'd give it a B- as it had a good premise and Scarlett Jo-Hansen, but the last part of the movie got strange. In my household movies are rated as "Theater" "Rental" or "Meh" - this moive gains a "Rental" from my wife and I.

jdodson: You recently completed your first year of PDXAGE a tabletop gaming event in Portland. Curious how the event went and if your approached changed from PDXLAN?

Matt Conwell: The event went better than expected. Starting off in a new space is hard - getting the word out about the event is the hardest. PDXAGE stands for "Portland Analog Gaming Event" where as PDXLAN is Portland LAN.

PDXAGE leveraged the experience we had in PDXLAN for sure - but it also helped us build out some mad scheduling skills. I really have seen the increase in table top gaming the past few years - I think this event has a lot of potential. It's also a heck of a lot easier to set up than PDXLAN in terms of Power and Networking :)

http://www.pdxlan.net/
http://www.pdxage.com/