Day 1 - RTX 2015
07 Aug 2015
Today it begins, the crowds, the lines, and the general odor. Today was the first day of RTX and oh boy did I forget how much fun RTX was. Meeting people in lines, talking to the game devs, and just the general atmosphere of the entire convention is amazing. The one thing that I did notice was that there were a lot more merchandise sellers on the main show floor. Can’t complain though, was able to pick up some amazing stuff, such as the Superfight Red deck which entertained us for hours on end with some very funny off-color humor.
Most of the day was spent wandering around the main floor ogling the amazing stands and the wonderful games that were on display. There were not a lot of panels that interested us on the first day and unfortunately none of us were able to make the RWBY panel but luckily we were able to see the highlight.
The one panel that we were able to make was the Music in RvB 13, which was hosted by Nico Audy-Rowland, David Levy, and Miles Luna. Like last year, they start lines an hour before the panel itself starts. For about an hour I watched as many familiar faces such as Geoff Ramsay, John Risinger, Kerry Shawcross, Lindsay Jones, etc passed through and briefly talk to a few of us while they made their way to their own panels. About 10-15 minutes before the room cleared out from the previous panel, Nico showed up and talked with the crowd briefly before Miles walked through. The panel featured a lot of the scoring process of Red vs Blue, which is pretty much done via weekly skype meetings and a voice recording of Miles beatboxing a melody that he had in mind for a scene. Those little voice recordings became a repeating joke throughout the hour much to the dismay of Miles. They showed some of the scenes from season 13 without any sound engineering done to them and played it again with multiple tracks from different tempos, instruments, even overall feeling and emotion. It really showed how certain music (or lack thereof) can completely change the feeling of scene. The panel ended with a Q and A to which the audience had 20 different ways to ask the same question: how do you write music? For someone who plays and writes his own music, I thought it was a little infuriating that no one asked anything that branched out of the writing process. A couple people who were audio engineers themselves even asked the same generic question using bigger terminology. No one asked anything along the lines of advice, experiences, or even what their favorite pieces were. But overall it was a very enjoyable panel for musician like myself. ~Nick
After meeting back up and having one the best overpriced burgers at the hotel we then set exploring the main floor to play some games. The First game that we played and bought immediately after was We are Legion. A RTS game developed by Pwnee with bomb strikes, necromancers, and no unit cap. We look forward to playing the game more in the hotel room and when we get home. They also just launched their game today at RTX! Expect a full review later on. The next game I was able to play was Slain developed by Wolf Brew Games. The best way I could describe the game is if Castlevania and Darksouls had a 16 bit baby. The game is very methodical and it feels like you learn how to play the game better from your mistakes. Look forward to a first impressions later on after RTX. And finally we got our hands on Brawlhalla. A 4 player smash-like game developed by Blue Mammoth Games that seems extremely fun and hectic; the only disconcerting thing was that they already had a blond version of me.
We enjoyed our first day at RTX 2015 and look forward to the second day. We plan to spend most of the second day at panels so expect some discussion on those panels tomorrow!
~Jake