MegaCon 2011 Field Report

MegaCon is in my opinion the biggest and best convention in Florida. I have gone every year for about six or seven years now, maybe even longer to be honest. The convention is pretty much all things nerd. There’s fantasy, Sci-Fi, steam-punk, goth, anime, hentai (too much yaoi if you ask me), comic books, cult movies, classic TV shows from the 80’s and pretty much anything else nerd-related that you can think of. Hundreds of people are in costume, while thousands pose with them. There is definitely a great opportunity for people-watching. You end up seeing a big mix of the good, the bad, and the ugly in terms of costumes, but everyone is having fun. I find it is also a great excuse for women to wear next to nothing in the vein of it being a costume. Hey, I’m not complaining.

There are tons of great panels going on too, a lot of these being ones that teach you how to make your own special effects and costumes. There are LARP events going on, 24 hour Anime rooms, there was a Robot Chicken panel with co-creator Matthew Senreich and writer/actor Zeb Wells with a fun Q&A session. Also, there were comic book writers teaching how to write comics.

Along with the great panels, MegaCon has some great guests. This year’s line up included William Shatner, Michael Dorn, Jonathan Frakes, and Marina Sirtis from Star Trek, of course. Probably the biggest name to grace MegaCon was Stan Lee! That’s right, Stan FREAKING Lee, creator of some of the best comic book characters in the known universe.

MegaCon just keeps getting better and better and I look forward to next year. As you watch the video below, You will see how much fun we had as we got to hang out with Cobra Commander. We also were allowed two very special interviews. One with Luigi, who you may unfortunately only know as Mario’s taller, more handsome brother. The other interview is with the little droid who saved the Galaxy, R2-D2. Check out the video below, and tell us what you think!

RoboChat Exclusive | And Yet It Moves Project Lead, Felix Bohatsch

And this is the world before things get abstract?

In the past couple of years, indie games have gained an unprecedented level of exposure. Taking advantage of the increased popularity and viability of console download networks, smaller developers have started to make a big splash amongst players and critics alike. Titles like World of Goo, Cave Story, Fat Princess, fl0w, Braid, and Limbo have all formed a landscape of games that redefine what it means to give players a deep and fulfilling experience. And later this month, when Austrian developer Broken Rules releases their highly anticipated WiiWare title And Yet it Moves, they’re sure not only to become a part of that landscape, but to flip it upside-down.

It’s kind of the journey from [being] stuck below earth […] travelling upwards until you […] expand your mind and find the tabula rasa […] to build on.

Set for release on August 23rd, And Yet it Moves is a self-proclaimed “physics-based puzzle platformer” in which players guide a stalwart stenciled sprite through a world formed of cardboard shapes and pictures, assembled in growingly abstract collage. On the surface, the game is an atmospheric platformer though a world full of psychadelic caves, fields, and jungles. But, there’s a twist. In order to make it from point-A to point-B, players will have to use the Wii Remote to turn the landscape around, forming previously non-existent paths and manipulating parts of their environment to their advantage.

I don’t like frustrating games, and [though] And Yet it Moves can be frustrating sometimes, the frustration […] comes from the fact that you couldn’t imagine what would happen when you rotated the world.

For this RoboChat, we were lucky enough to talk with Felix Bohatsch, co-founder of Broken Rules Studio, and Project Lead for And Yet it Moves. In addition to discussing the genesis of the title, and what can players can expect out of it, Felix was kind enough to share his perspective on everything from the growth of the indie scene, to what it means to be an indie developer, to his perspective on the concept of game length and game difficulty as obstacles to design.

And with that, dear, reader, we invite you to turn your world upside down, and give a listen the humble and pleasant Felix Bohatsch, of Broken Rules Studio.

RoboChat Exclusive Interview | And Yet it Moves Lead Game Designer, Felix Bohatsch by eel-eye

And Yet it Moves will be released on the WiiWare Channel of the Wii Shop on Monday, August 23rd, and will retail for 1,000 Wii points. The title is currently available for purchase on both the PC and Mac through the Steam download platform. For more information about And Yet it Moves, please visit the official website for the title.

In addition, for users of SoundCloud, feel free to leave a comment on the podcast itself, and help us experiment with our new socially focused audio integration!

RoboChat Exclusive | World of Tanks Lead Game Designer

RoboAwesome was very lucky to have the opportunity to talk with Wargaming.net’s own, and Lead Game Designer for World of Tanks, Sergey Burkatovskiy. We can’t thank Wargaming.net enough for their cooperation and friendliness. Please enjoy the interview and get ready for all the exciting things World of Tanks has to offer. I know I am excited!

RoboChat Exclusive Interview | Ben Paddon of “Game Journalists Are Incompetent Fuckwits”

Indignation drawn to scale

I can say without reservation that my RoboChat with Ben Paddon was the most pleasant, entertaining conversation I’ve ever had with someone who hates my guts – or at least the state of my desired profession.

For those not yet in the know, the growingly (in?)famous Paddon is the man behind the tumblr entitled “Game Journalists are Incompetent Fuckwits,” in which he spotlights and analyzes what he sees as the least professional offerings from the laziest “gamz jarnalists.” The ‘sins’ covered range from unsourced and ‘off-topic’ articles, to misleading titles, to pieces of ‘non-news’ cast as headlines, and while Paddon’s list of offenders is ever expanding, it’s often the blogosphere’s biggest players (Kotaku, Destructoid, etc.) who make the most frequent appearances under Ben’s microscope of misanthropy.

Since the blog’s creation in February, Paddon’s daily updates have slowly but surely caused quite the stir among friends and enemies alike, with both anonymous tipsters and wounded journalists visiting GJAIF’s tumblr, twitter, and facebook to exchange words of support and condemnation for the current state of the profession. With this in mind, we here at RA could think of no better way to flatter our way out being mentioned on the tumblr bring you guys insight into the growingly popular website than to talk to the man behind the madness.

So this past weekend, I pestered Ben into submission went ahead and made Ben an offer he couldn’t refuse, and secured a half an hour of his time, which turned into well over an hour of engaging discussion. Throughout, we touched on everything from what games journalism is, and why, to Ben’s vision of an ideal site, to the permanent scarring we both endured at the hands of Rise of the Robots.

And with that, dear, reader, we invite you to give a listen to the (extremely intelligent) rantings and ravings of Mr. Ben Paddon, courtesy of RoboAwesome.com. For those of the iTunes persuasion, links are below, but for all us normies, feel free to give a listen right here on-site!

P.S. Ben: I tagged this as not-news. Way ahead of you.

[podcast]http://www.roboawesome.com/podcast/GameJournoInterview_07072010.mp3[/podcast]

RoboChat Exclusive Interview | Chris Gyselinck of Nexon America talks Vindictus

During the hustle and flow of E3, RoboAwesome’s Patrick Cowles had a few moments to chat with Chris Gyselinck, the assistant producer of Nexon America’s free-to-play MMO Vindictus.  Entering private beta at the end of the month, Vindictus is an innovative MMO with a fully destructible environment that mixes the thrills of action-adventures into the MMO universe.

RoboCast 007 – Interview with Team Meat

For RoboCast 007 Carl and I sat down with Edmund McMillen and Tommy Refenes; the diabolical minds behind the upcoming and independently developed Super Meat Boy. We discussed a variety of things, ranging from retro games, how to survive as an independent game maker, diabetes, and the 2010 census.

Below is an excerpt from our chat:

(Super Meat Boy is) the magic of that whole feeling – of getting a game, and just sort of playing it and discovering it and not having it presented to you via cut scenes and dialogue and all the stupid (stuff) that’s in games now that doesn’t actually equate to game play or anything meaningful. It’s like when you discovered if you shoot the Metal Blade at Metal Man it kills him in one shot. It’s just like that wonderment of when video games were fresh and new and didn’t cost 30 million dollars to make. As a personal experience it’s very much like that, and that’s what we strived to make with the game.

Listen to the interview right on the website by clicking here! Additionally, be sure to send in all reader mail to podcast@roboawesome.com to be read out on RoboCast 008.

[podcast]http://www.archive.org/download/Robocast007-InterviewWithTeamMeat/RoboCast_007_20100522.mp3[/podcast]

For more information on Super Meat Boy, check out the Team Meat blog, or follow them on Twitter.

Josh Olson of High Voltage Software Talks Conduit 2

RoboAwesome interview with Josh Olson of HVS.

The sequel to 2009’s award-winning shooter, The Conduit, is upon us. I recently had the great opportunity to ask Josh Olson — Producer of Conduit 2 — some questions regarding the highly anticipated Wii exclusive shooter. Read on to get the latest scoop on Conduit 2, but be warned: there is talk of the mighty sasquatch and a photo too awesome for the average human eye to behold.

Alex Neuse of Gaijin Games Discusses Bit.Trip RUNNER

First you controlled a paddle, then a laser shooting “core”, and after that, an ever-expanding globular mass.  Game designer Alex Neuse discusses the innovative Bit.Trip series with us, and the upcoming Bit.Trip RUNNER title in which players will finally control Commander Video himself.

Interview | Pt.1 Interview with Scott Steinberg

Recently I had the opportunity to sit down with Scott Steinberg and talk about viral media marketing of games. But you might be wondering, who is this Scott guy? Scott Steinberg is CMO and publisher of  DigitalTrends.com and managing director of Embassy Multimedia Consultants, which counsels game industry publishers, developers and investors worldwide. In addition Scott has written three books, Video Game Marketing and PR , The Video Game Style and Reference Manual ,  Get Rich Playing Games; he has been a correspondent for technology and videogames for over 400 outlets worldwide, including playboy, rolling stone, and the NY Times. In part one of this two part Robocast interview Scott talks to us about what viral media marketing is, its history in game marketing, and how marketing companies have taken a roll in viral media marketing of games.

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[podcast]http://roboawesome.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/RoboCast-001-Interview-with-Scott-Steinberg-Pt-1.mp3[/podcast]