PAX East: Derpin' along... (Day 1)

The first full day of PAX held a lot of surprises and challenges for me. The people of PAX surprised me the most. I expected a whole lot less than what I got. The people, especially the Indie Mega Booth people, are some of the nicest, most helpful human beings I've ever met. PAX East, to put it simply, is ABSOLUTELY AMAZING. We've been really lucky to be able to attend.

1. Mr. Nash lost his gaming virginity today when he sat down and played Dungeon of Elements, the game we debuted at PAX East. This may seem mundane, but it's actually an extremely amazing detail. See, Warren isn't a gamer, but he's primarily responsible for sending us to PAX East. The ICC sent three gaming companies from Lexington to PAX East and helped us be able to afford to attend. How cool is that? I don't know if I would have had the guts to tackle this on my own for our very first time. I'll say it a million times over the next year, "I love Lexington!"

2. A new gaming media company called Game Skinny took a moment to hear our story which then turned into an interesting angle on families and gaming, parenting and gaming, and women in games. It's nice to see the gaming media look into new angles. I'm pretty impressed with their angles, savvy questions, and ability to bring up interesting topics during their interviews. As always, I relish the chance to talk about Frogdice to anyone who will listen.

3. SWAG!!! I GOT SWAG!!! I'm way, way, way behind on swag because I really didn't have the chance to leave our booth at all except to do an interview or two. This is a good thing, but being the swag hag that I am, I can't help but be a little bit sad. I have to say, though, that the people at PopCap and Riot Games understood my absolute love for their games and slipped a fellow exhibitor some swag. I would have stood in the lines, but I couldn't do so. Thankfully, I got a few pieces for my girls, and that's really what I wanted.

4. To continue my swag story, a couple stopped by our booth. We got to talking about different games, and the discussion turned to LoL and PvZ, my two current favorite games. I was lamenting that I hadn't been able to check out what was going on at the Riot booth during the day or to get any swag, and they reached into their swag bag and gave me a Caitlyn cupcake. Now, I've never played Caitlyn. I've only laned with her a handful of times, but I will NEVER give up this cupcake. It means a ton to me that fellow gamers have so much heart and generosity. (It turns out that it's a Lulu cupcake from one of her skins, I think, so forget Caitlyn! I actually play Lulu a bit, and her polymorph/shield combo is awesome.)

5. I must have said about 400 times today that our oldest game, Threshold RPG, turns 17 this June. Every time I said it, it tickled my soul. It's so hard to imagine that we've known several of our players for this long. It's also hard to imagine that the world of Threshold has been continuously developed by us AND by the stories that our players tell for so many years. How absolutely amazing!

6. We sold over 100 copies of our game today and had countless people come to play. I'd say that at least half of the people who sat down to demo our new game and Tower of Elements were women. I'm pretty excited by the reception that Dungeon of Elements had, and I can't wait until it's released next month. Woo!

So, these are a few highlights of my first day ever at PAX East. Have I been a little bit too optimistic? The only negatives I can really think of for today was that I didn't have time to eat lunch and my feet feel like two hippos sat on each of them. Remember when I said I was going to party like I hadn't since college? Well, I never even made it to the party. Just scrape me off the floor and pour me in bed, please.