NCSoft’s PAX presence was devoted to showing off three major features in Guild Wars 2: the dynamic event system, personal story, and action-oriented combat. However, you can reduce these things still further to two guiding principles: keep the game moving and keep it personal. From these simple premises, NCsoft has made some staggering inferences.

I still have about a week’s worth of PAX impressions left to post, but I’d like to plug an Escapist article I wrote some weeks ago before it fades from memory. It discusses evolution as a useful model for understanding the relationship of tabletop games and videogames. Perhaps you’d be interested?

If you’ve stood in line for PAX during the last couple of years, you already know Evil Genius Designs, though you may not know their name. They develop the line games and write the terminal monologues that amuse PAXgoers during the 2-4 hour wait each day. Without them, nobody could vote to kill Aeris in a public forum or play a platformer with their 5000 closest friends. We happened to stumble across programmer Erica Sandbothe, literally the woman behind the curtain, preparing for the next performance. She was kind enough to walk us through the company’s backstory, a survey of the technology involved, and the principles of designing games for crowds.

Plane Weaver came from the same academic collaborations that produced Puzzle Bloom. It should come as no surprise, then, that the games have a similar feel, despite coming from completely different genres. It marks how much the culture of a game’s development plays a comparably significant role to its design. Soren Larsen-Lentz shed some light on that culture, along with isometric platforming, and the game’s unique interface.

It’s easy to be cynical about videogames. Naked pandering and soulless sequels can make you forget that there are genuinely enthusiastic developers out there. However, the Solace team will remind you if you ask them the right questions. Technical director and multifaceted programmer Robert Francis and co-producer and sound/game designer Daniel Rosas walked me through grief, music, and the meaning of names. It’s pretty heavy stuff for a shooter.

PAX 10 booths always hum with activity, but Super Meat Boy draws a crowd. For all three days the expo hall was open, there were never fewer than twenty people cheering the victories and commiserating the (far more frequent) failures of brave meat cubes. Luckily for the interview, Jordan Fehr managed to talk over the swelling audience to cover what’s changed since we last saw Super Meat Boy at the GDC, the social implications of sharing intellectual property, and the outcomes of crowd testing.

Leonard Paul worked on the sound effects and some of the music for Retro City Rampage, though that hardly limits the scope of his knowledge about the game. Instead, it adds technical depth today’s interview. We cover the game’s neo-retro style and what role that plays in modern gaming, the game’s inspirations, and a survey of the technology and techniques that give RCR that polished retro feel.

Calling Fowl Space a platformer is like calling Enviro-Bear 2000 a driving game: technically correct but it completely misses the point. You can actually get a much more accurate impression from the game’s PAX swag: a pair of official Fowl Space panties. Sometimes crass and always irreverent, Fowl Space is the kind of game that will have you checking over your shoulder in case someone sees you laughing. Project manager and lead programmer Evan Miller brought us up to speed on the game’s style choices and what to expect from the gameplay.

You may have noticed a shameful dearth of in situ photography on our PAX 10 interviews this year, and our memory card has been executed for its treachery. Nowhere is the loss felt more acutely than here, because the entire the entire development staff at Hegemony‘s booth was dressed in togas. Until we can find a replacement, you’ll just have to imagine lead programmer Rob McConnell delivering information on the game’s catchy zooming mechanic, its strides making strategy more accessible, and historical wargaming. You know, in a toga, which was awesome.

Alititude	Bastion	Fowl Space	Hegemony	Plane Weaver
Puzzle Bots	Retro City Rampage	Shibuya	Solace	Super Meat Boy

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