The elevator is playing the Curb Your Enthusiam theme right now. This hotel is so strange.
“Should we be acting super awkward while this song is playing?”
“Yeah, that’s the only thing that makes sense, I guess.”
Day Two is a go. Andrew is ahead of me and gets to the con floor before I do, but we bump into each other by pure coincidence at the entrance doors. He wants to play some co-op games but gets lunch first.
I play Qube 2 in the meantime, which feels a lot like Portal 2 with… uh, cubes. It’s also already available to buy! Also, I tried waiting in line for Decay of Logos, but an argument breaks out over some dude cutting in line and it gets mad awkward (even the dev looks embarassed).
Andrew is back so we play Rico, which is a co-op first-person SWAT simulator with a bit of bullet time and door kicking (it’s actually pretty fun).
What’s really fun is the Doorkickers: Action Squad spin-off that is also co-op. It’s a 2D side-scrolling shooter where you have to also kick in doors, shoot terrorists, and avoid shooting hostages (we killed a lot of them though). It reminds me of a side-scrolling Hotline: Miami in a way.
Andrew’s got a panel so more wandering. Let’s go for the Lightning Round!
- I finally give Church in the Darkness a try. It is much more stealth-oriented than I originally expected but the graphics seem really well-polished, and the voice acting is well done.
- The Shrouded Isle is back (the human sacrifice simulator).
- Below is also back. Andrew gave it a try but apparently it’s a little tedious for a con demo.
- I try out Far Cry 5 at the AMD exhibit and it feels surprisingly good. Maybe it’s the advanced hardware that makes it less repetitive!?
- I win that whack-a-mole game again, so I give the mousepad prize away to another dude.
No more walking! Need to sit. Time for Jackbox? I actually manage to get into a game of Bracketeering for once. It’s exhilarating – I actually got some claps for my answers. This is my dream. I am funny now.
Stevens crowd is in town for the con. I head down to board games to say hello. Caroline Amaba and George Blazeski are there. They’re packed liked sardines though, so I take a leak and promise to say hi later.
Speaking of which, I’ve got not one, not two, but three dinner plans tonight out of the blue. Andrew knows someone from his board game group, and I’ve got my Stevens friends meeting up at Harpoon Brewery later on. And not only that, Grace and Chris are in town for the con tomorrow and will be at Lamp Light Brewery!
So many options, so little time. I did promise the Stevens crew I’d chill though, so I’ll see you tomorrow, Grace and Chris. Also, hope your dinner went alright, Andrew.
Harpoon Brewery is pretty packed, and there’s a line to get in, so I made some friends while waiting. But it winds up being a very good night to catch up once everyone is there.
The elevator is playing the Star Wars “Cantina Theme” on the way up to the room. Wow.