Woo. It’s been a week of holiday, and unpacking things, and just general work. As such, this is going to be less of a play by play account, and more of a semi-lucid sequence of things that occurred at Unplugged.
So let’s get to it!
Indie Games Night Market
This was the second year of the Indie Games Night Market at PAX Unplugged. Last year, I snuck in and chatted with a bunch of folks about the process, and the games they had at the market. This year, though, I was behind the counter with Max Seidman helping him demo and sell the game Skyline. As a result, I didn’t have any time to actually buy or play games from the night market, so this is going to be a bit of an abbreviated section.
Things were much smoother this year, as the whole area been turned from last year’s queue space into a series of microbooths.
This solved some of the big problems from last year, but introduced a few of its own. Folks could queue up for some for the games they were most interested in, and anyone who showed up later still had a chance to browse.
The downside was that unless you were choosing to browse, I think it was harder for folks to see as much of the market as last year. Also, the non-sidescrolling structure meant that whenever a queue did form, I occasionally had to shout over folks’ heads to ask if anyone just there to buy Skyline instead of demoing it.
Still, a general improvement.
If you’re interested in the games, I’d suggest checking out Dan Thurot’s reviews on games from this years night market.
Additionally, the #IGNM hashtag on BlueSky has a bunch of folks sharing their pictures of the event, if you want a sense of the vibes. I’ll be honest, after setup and pitching the game for an hour and half, I didn’t have the presence of mind to take pictures.
First Look
I spent a lot more time this year than I usually do at First Look, up on the third floor. First Look is where PAX will bring in either newly released, or yet to be released games (usually form Essen), and have them available for play.
The first game we played was Magical Athlete. I liked this one. It’s a very simple roll and move, with a drafting component. Is it a high skill game? No. For me, the joy of the game is in watching everyone else lose it when Lady Luck turns against them. In what’s becoming a running theme of this writeup, I suggest Dan Thurot’s review if you want some more in depth info.
This was followed up by Take Time. It’s a co-operative card placing game, probably most similar to The Crew, and is all about inferences and hidden information. I’m not great at these sorts of games, but my friends who were seemed to be a little underwhelmed by it. Whether that’s mediocre gameplay, or the game’s complete lack of anything resembling a narrative, who can say.
Stem and Branch also goes kinda light on the narrative. It’s about raising the animals of the Eastern Zodiac, but really it’s about playing cards on a board to gain victory points. I didn’t parse the game’s actual strategy until pretty late into it, and spent most of it just making whatever move I could on my turn. It’s not bad, but it’s not incredible. The art for all of the Zodiac animals, however, is absolutely incredible. Loved that bit.
Slime Artist is Pictionary with play-dough, or perhaps silly putty. There is more to it than that, and perhaps a slightly different set of scoring incentives in that you want only one person at the table to recognize your creation. But if you don’t like sculpting or molding, you will not like this game. Fortunately my mother is an art teacher, and I have played with a lot of clay so I do like it.
Finally, there was Subliminal. I should note that I don’t really see words as being constructed from letters, so word games aren’t really my thing. Still, Subliminal isn’t really about spelling. It let me down anyway. I did not like Subliminal. The weird abstract art is the best thing about it, and everything else is pretty mid.
PAX Rising
I spent less time at PAX Rising then I would have liked to, but I do want to give a few quick shoutouts to some things I saw there.
First up, the Brightcast folks had a booth there, and were selling Brightcast! I love Brightcast, and while I missed the Brightcast tourney that was held at the event, I hold in my heart of hearts that I would have won if I’d played. Or at least not gotten knocked out in the first round. Also, they found my missing card box containing pretty much every promo I’d picked up that weekend when I left it near their booth, and got it back to me so that was hugely appreciated.
Next up was Krampusnacht, a game about playing as various dark versions of Santa Claus to capture children to sacrifice to the devil. This was one I played more for the vibes than the gameplay, as it’s a bit too “take that” for me. Still, the public domain art selection is incredible, I loved getting to see it.
Collectible Card Games
It wouldn’t be PAX without a new crop of CCGs, and this year was no exception. I’ll likely have more to say about Riftbound in a few weeks, so for now I’ll leave it out of my description. But as much as I hate to say it, I think it’s probably pretty good, if not hugely innovative. Instead, I’ll quickly cover the other two.
Cookie Run Braverse Trading Card Game is interesting, and yes, that is its full name. I don’t hate or love it, and found myself mostly bemused by the few rounds I played. To give credit where it’s due, it’s the first TCG in a while that I’ve seen that uses no external components to the deck, instead having what feels like a very interesting win condition in its break system. Thematically, I do not care about Cookie Run. I just don’t. Its weird combo of Pokemon and Magic’s resource systems was a bit hard for me to parse at first. After playing with its starter decks, I didn’t feel like the game offered much of note.
OverPower on the other hand is much more interesting. It falls much closer to Flesh and Blood, or Universus—games I have noted in the past I just don’t have a good time with. However, something about OverPower clicked for me. There’s no creatures or spells. Instead there’s a series of actions and reactions, of bluffs and responses. It’s fairly clever, and I found the demo game I played to be engrossing.
Button Shy Booth
I like Button Shy. They publish a bunch of wallet games, pretty much all consisting of 18 cards, a wallet, and rulebook. I’ve written about Skulls of Seldec from their catalogue before, and this year, I spent some time playing Phantasmic and Revolver Noir over at their booth.
First, Phantasmic. It’s a magical buffing/dueling game. It’s simple, quick, and fun despite the fact that I didn’t quite get how the up/down bid worked while I was playing it. Still, I’d like to play more.
Revolver Noir is a much slower thing. It’s a two player duel set in a mansion. It’s fun, but can feel like it drags a little bit, especially if neither you or your opponent are landing any shots, or connecting any traps. While I was at the booth, I heard from one of the folks running the booth that they’d met a group of folks who would play the game without the cards, and just memorized the rules.
AllPlay Booth
Finally, the AllPlay booth. I’m gonna be honest, I don’t have strong thoughts about AllPlay in general, but I did win both of the games I played, so it gets recounted.
First, Twinkle Twinkle. It’s a straightforward drafting/set collection game with the twist that the value of sets is determined by how your stars, planets, and other cosmic debris are placed on your board. The art is cute, the drafting is straight forward, and I have no real strong feelings about it on the whole. But I won!
Then, we played Kabuto Sumo. Kabuto Sumo has been a bit of a running joke between me and a friend for the last few years, as he apparently played a game of Kabuto Sumo that went on for two full hours without a winner, and since then has been convinced it was bad game. As a joke, I bought him a copy of the game for christmas last year. We have never once played it.
It took me less than 15 minutes to defeat him in the sequel, suggesting at least somewhat it’s a skill issue on his part. Or perhaps luck. But I prefer to think of it as skill.
Wrap-Up
This was a bit of a weird PAX for me. I spent a lot less time in the expo hall exploring, and lot less money, both in Reading Terminal and the show.
The whole thing was a little bit more of a blur than usual, and I couldn’t quite tell you why. Days went by quickly. I played a lot of Magic, chatted with folks, and generally tried to have a good time.
I think it was a good show. It’s possible my heart just wasn’t 100% in it.
