PAX East 2010 Final Day

Sunday was the best day. It's too bad that just as we got into the swing of things we had to wrap it all up. I started the day in the pitch your game idea panel, which was hilarious. The best idea and winner was iDrag, in which you use your iPhone as a way to connect with other players and then drag race. Probably illegal, but still has some hilarious potential.

Directly folling that panel was the Sunday PA Q&A which was really funny. There were a lot of words of thanks for setting up PAX East, several thank you's for the work done for Child's Play, and a lot of hilarious moments including a challenge for Mike and Jerry to arm wrestle. Mike won, but Jerry was quite worried that even in losing he may have damaged his gravy train's drawing implement. Maybe a tactical error, there.

After the panel I wandered around and got some merch. Went over to MC Frontalot's booth and said hey, got his new album Zero Day and a t-shirt, thanked him for the great show and went on my merry way. Picked up a PAX East shirt, had to do that of course.

The closing ceremony was later in the day, in which the final teams of Omeganauts battled for first place. Their trial was a relay of NES games, going in order from Super Mario Brothers to Rad Racer to Tetris and finally to Contra. The battle was tough and fraught with technical difficulties, ending in somewhat of a controversy, but it was entertaining nontheless. With a promise to meet back in one year, PAX came to a close.

We didn't want Sunday to end, so even after the actual event was over we gamed late into the night in the Boston Sheraton lobby. More Settlers of Cataan was played. We even tried to get Wil Wheaton to play with us, but he was pretty wiped out. I can't blame him. But even the fact that the conversation happened is the real reason for PAX -- getting together and acting like a real community. And I came away with the same feeling that Wil did. Gamers, as a group, are a welcoming bunch, and even though we're too often hanging out at home, when we get together, we're a close-knit group willing to put a lot of other things aside to accept other people and have fun.

Monday showed its face with rain and cold winds, the emotions of sadness at the end of the event made real in the very atmosphere. But we pressed on, ever westward, back home into the embrace of our loved ones. The promise remains -- let the accepting spirit of PAX live on in the days between in all that you do, act as Wil says and don't be a dick, until once again you can be welcomed home at another PAX.