#I’d still love to discuss weird indie video games with you in dms!

[maevesweirdart]

i’m incredibly lonely and i have no idea what you look/present like, so i can’t say i’m not interested tbh 🥺👉🏻👈🏻

[aurimeanswind]

PAX Beyond Us—Sunday Chats (3-13-17)

I’m sitting in my hotel room in a post-PAX East 2017 world, and here we are, at the end of a rewarding and exhausting weekend.

Let’s talk about it.

Kinda Funny Panel

First up it’s worth discussing my appearance on the Kinda Funny panel at PAX East this last year. You can go watch that video somewhere. Hopefully this video embed works and you can see my segment.

https://t.co/SPpB3MVxPH (embed didn’t work)

It was weirdly a dream come true, even if my dream wasn’t to necessarily talk about my sex life to a massive audience of 650 people in person and then thousands more on the wider internet, but here we are. This was my first panel appearance at all. I’ve asked questions on previous panels, but I’ve never been pulled up on stage. I had had dinner with Greg the night before and he (seemingly) joked about bringing me up and talking about the last time I had had sex, but then immediately after the panel hit the ground running he called me up and that sinking feeling set in.

It was goddamn terrifying as you can imagine. I was gripping my beer pretty tightly, but a massive thanks to Greg for bringing me up on stage. Apparently I did okay, which I hope so? I’ve never spoken in front of that many people ever, so I was definitely nervous, but Tim and Nick are easy and good company, and a big thanks to them as well for being so sweet and so great to me with good advice to live by. I got to talk about a tough time in my life, and I wanted to get that out there. 

So now you know. Things are still hard, I’m still pretty lonely sometimes, but I’m trying to live my life and be happy everyday. That’s all I can do.

PAX East

The big news is my team and I at PAX East out there doing work and killing it. A massive and imeasurable thank you to my team and all the work they’re doing out here. It’s Logan, Danny, AND Jarrett’s first PAX, and they out here doing work.

I love these folks so much, and much like I’ve said before, it’s an honor and a privilege to be able to work with them and put out content with these legends of my heart.

I also want to shoutout all the amazing people I have gotten to meet and see. Dustin, from Adventure Mode, a podcast I was on recently, and loved. Dustin is the bomb and I adore him. His friend Ben, who once was a part of That Gamer Hub, and now is out there with his own non-gaming projects, who is amazing as well. Then all my friends like Michael Martin, Trevor Starkey, Ally Mushka, Frank Bozzani, etc. Tons of amazing people, and meeting new people like Gen from Square Enix as well, and tons of indie developers, all were incredibly nice to me and showed me the great kindness of humoring my small site and what we can do and talk about.

I love PAX East, it’s my favorite show, and though there were some ups and downs as far as uncomfortable and dramatic situations at this most recent one, leading me to be quite upset, that in no way outweighed the amazing time and amazing work that my team and I put in to make this one of IrrationalPassions.com’s strongest PAX Easts ever.

Thank you all. I couldn’t do this work without you, writer and reader alike.

What’s On Tap

All I’ve Been Playing is The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild

This game. Is. Amazing.

It’s easily one of my favorite games of all time. Probably in the top 3, editing out The Last of Us, which is a crazy thing coming from someone who never though that Zelda could evoke this feeling in me again.

There is so much to say about it. I’ve played maybe 60 hours now and I have a lot of thoughts and feelings, but it’s hard to put them to paper.

I’m chipping away at an eventual review of it, something that can really nail down the variety of feelings that the game brought out of me, but suffice to say, it’s truly amazing. 

I can’t stop thinking about this thing. Playing it on the plane in Handheld Mode made time fly in a way it never has before with me. This game is awesome.

Questions

You two are so cute, and I love it, but thank you both for your hard work. I’d say that I can only be by any means “sexy” or “fantastic” because I have incredible folks supporting and encouraging me.

I am right handed, personally, but I have weird ambidextrous tendencies. Like using my fork primarily in my left hand (which I guess is classy-normal?) or wearing my watch on my right, and dominant, wrist. I don’t know, I’ve never thought about it too much.

My older brother is left handed and I’ve always fantasizes about being left handed because I believed it would make me better at drawing and art. Maybe, maybe not.

Honestly, I’ve been better. I had to go through some things this weekend that really upset me. Nothing I’d really like to get into here, since it involves things I’d rather not put on blast or put out to the public, but the stress of running a team during the show, making sure people got to appointments on time, and getting everything done that we needed to get done, along with this personal drama, really messed me up.

I just had a very fun night drinking amongst friends, and I’d say most of my PAX was relaxing and fun like that, but it was far more stressful than it is normally. Regardless, I’m tired, exhausted, and even drained, but very satisfied.

They’ve been pretty incredible. Almost unbelievably. Like I said to the question above, some really unfortunate things came in later to kind of ruin a lot of PAX for me, and make me super upset, but I’ve been generally great. Nervous, but great.

I can only ever be thankful to the folks that helped get me here: my friends, my team, and the hard work of everyone around me.

Hahaha, that’s a good one! I don’t think I’d ever get one. We’ll see.

I would love to have a panel on JRPGs, niche games, experiences and how to justify subjectivity in games, embrace it, and change your verbiage to make it a less aggressive conversation always. 

But none of those ideas will ever happen so don’t you worry <3

All I want to do is sleep for 12 hours and then play as much Zelda Breath of the Wild as I possibly can in a single day. 

Man that would hit the spot. Maybe get a frozen pizza in that time too.

Having the team here was absolutely amazing. Obviously, not all of us. Jurge, Nabeshin, and Scott weren’t here, plus the other more ancillary members of the team, but it’s been super incredible having the full, four person team around again.

As for the next PAX? Well, the next PAX East I’m obviously very excited for. It’s my favorite show and I think it may always be, until I can hopefully see E3/Gamescom/TGS and know for myself.

But the next PAX I am going to attend is probably going to be PAX West, and I’m pretty excited at getting the team back together and really rocking that show too. But we’ll see.

This shit is honesty why I get up in the morning sometimes. Putting the love of the craft into practices are some of my favorite and most treasured moments. I love PAX East because it was the first show I ever worked as press, and I’ve always worked it as press, and I think I always work for it.

We have a ton of previous going up because my team is amazing, we all work hard, not just me, and we all get that feeling from this as well, I think.

I love it. It’s exhausting, killer, and draining, but it keeps me moving ever-forward.

Greg Miller really made my PAX this year, which is weird since him and I are all buddy buddy. But getting to spend time with him and get drinks together, be on the panel with him, meet his girlfriend (finally) has all been super cool. I love that dude.

Above all else, it’s been spending time with my team. It was my first time meeting Logan Wilkinson and I LOVE that dude. He’s simply the best. Has been working SO hard at PAX too, he’s a machine.

My favorite game I saw is probably a three-way tie between Flint Hook, in its near-final form, Chasm in what feels like a near-final form, Sundered after a massive upgrade form PSX, and HOB after an even bigger upgrade from last year’s PAX East.

All great games I’ve seen before, but seeing them grow has been absolutely stellar.

Ahhh I am way too tired for this forever and aways.

To hit these all at once: my favorite games (in absolutely no particular order) were: Hob, Flint Hook, and Sundered, like I mentioned above, with the other two probably being ARMS and SteamWorld Dig 2. Nintendo had some super strong Switch titles, and both of those additional ones really just made me love my hardware even more.

Specific days to send stuff is hard. DM me and we can talk about it.

It’s hard for me to give feedback on writing especially since I have writers of my own I need to help. I’d say start asking around for folks, and hit me up when I let you know I’m more free because then I can give you actual, useful answers.

Keep working Ivan. You got this.

For me it’s honestly usually Friday. It’s that press privilege talking, but the Press hour, the Press Badge-only hour for only Friday and only between 9am and 10am, is where ti’s at. It’s the best way to reacquaint myself with the show floor, see the one or two things I need to see, and then get back to my appointments. I love it, and it only happens on Friday.

Shoutouts

A just big and massive shoutout to Irrational Passions’ team. Danny, Logan, Jarret, and Tony all killed it. They put in the work, we played a ton of games, and saw a bunch of stuff. Even our friend Griffin, who was staying with us, put in some work on our behalf, and I appreciate that. 

I love those dudes, and they worked so hard for this weekend. Many, MANY thanks.

I am slowly losing consciousness as I write this. It’s a bit lighter in detail than I would want it to be, but I need to sleep. I have a flight to catch very, very soon, so off to sleep I go. I love you all, I am so fuckign tired, but so rewarded.

Never let the good outweigh the bad. Remember that only you know how you feel, not anyone else who thinks they do, and you do you.

Keep it real.