PAX 2014

We attended PAX again this year to demonstrate our games at the Mesa Mundi booth. We had a great time playing our games with the attendees and demonstrating Fire Platoon. The Mesa Mundi booth was larger this year and we had a bigger space and a much larger table.

PAX - Waiting for the first visitors

 

 

We were on a 60″ table using the new SensaTouch IR sensor and modular wooden table frame. It did mean that we were standing all weekend, but it was actually easier than sitting and leaving over to touch the coffee-table sized screen we were on last year.

From the time the hall opened at 10, till it closed at 6, we were always busy playing games. We mostly played Pair Soup because it is super easy and cooperative. People could walk up and join a game any time. By the end of the weekend we had played 160 games of Pair Soup. That adds up to about 13 hours! We were really glad to have the new tile sets.

There was an overhead walkway above us, and many people stopped at our booth saying that they had seen the game from above and had to try it out. We also played quite a bit of Fas’Jack, Dungeon Raiders, Got It and Yacht with people who stuck around for a second or third game.

We played several games of Fire Platoon and people seemed to enjoy it. People didn’t have trouble learning the game and controls and the tablets worked well. The WiFi was much better than last year, but it was still hard for some people to connect to the game.

PAX - Fire Platoon

 

The other quadrants of the booth were occupied by d20 Pro; a system for running a role playing game, another game table running a fast paced competitive game called WhackIt, and a demo of the modular table system.

PAX - Modular tables PAX - d20 Pro PAX - WhackIt PAX - DISC

 

There are lots more pictures of PAX and a few of Boston in my gallery.

 

Trip to New York

We took a trip to New York City to visit my brother and his new baby. We had a great time seeing them and touring the city. They have a nice apartment in Astoria and they were kind enough to let us stay with them for the week.

In addition to meeting my new niece, we also took the opportunity to get legally married. Colorado has separate-but-equal civil unions, but with DOMA struck down, we needed to get married in a state where it is truly legal for the federal government to treat us as married.

We also wanted to go to New York to visit a haunted house called Blackout. Unlike most haunted houses, at Blackout you go through the experience alone, the actors can touch you, you have to sign a waiver, and there is even a safe word. They call themselves a “haunted experience” and I wasn’t really as scared as I was disturbed.

I’ve posted pictures of our sight-seeing here: Gallery.

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Trip to Boston

We went to Boston to demonstrate our touch table games at the Mesa Mundi booth at PAX. We allowed a couple extra days so that we could do some sight seeing around the city. The highlight of the trip was PAX. PAX would have been pretty cool even if we weren’t vendors, but we got a lot of joy and satisfaction from watching people enjoying our games.

You can see all the photos here and I have a separate post for our PAX experience.

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PAX East

We are headed to PAX East in Boston to join Mesa Mundi’s booth and demonstrate some of MCG’s touch table software. Mesa Mundi is going to have several touch tables setup and our software will be running on one of them.

We are planning to show off the new mini-games, which are on sale now at Mesa Mundi’s site, along with Hansa Teutonica and a new game in development where players can control the action with a web browser on their phone.

D20Pro will also be on hand at Mesa Mundi’s booth to show off their role playing system. It should be an exciting weekend where we can see how people react to the touch tables and our games. Mesa Mundi has a short write up about PAX here.

Trip to Belgium and The Netherlands

We took a two week trip to Belgium and The Netherlands with my brother, his wife and my parents.

Since returning from the trip, I have spent a bunch of time going through pictures. I took  ~2200 pictures and trimmed it down to ~1750. I caption, geo-tag, people-tag and do some basic tuning for each picture. The pictures are finally available on this website here.

We stayed in four cities: Amsterdam, Delft, Bruges and Brussels. From there we did day trips to see: Hoge Veluwe, Haarlem, Enkhuizen, The Hague, Rotterdam, and Antwerp.

We primarily spent our time touring: going to museums, cathedrals, seeing the sites, etc.

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Southern Trip

We took a road trip through the south to visit friends. You can see all the pictures here. We had a good time and really enjoyed meeting N.R. and his family and visiting with Ian and Ingrid and meeting their daughters.

We traveled 4500 miles and tried to stop for a lot of roadside attractions. I wish that we could have spent more time with N.R. and Ingrid, but two weeks was already a long time to be on the road.

Here are some of the highlights:

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Trip to Las Vegas

We took a trip to Las Vegas with a friend to see the Star Trek convention. It was the 45th Anniversary and Leonard Nimoy’s last appearance. We also rented a car and went to the Hoover Dam and took the tour. We also went to an “Ice Bar” called Minus 5. The room was mostly made of ice and kept at -5 degrees C. They gave us coats and gloves when we went in. And the drink glasses were made of ice. The full set of pictures is here.