A Love Letter

Let me preface this by saying: I don't hate big conventions. They're fun, and you generally get to see and meet more people. If you prefer larger conventions, I'm not trying to tell you that you're wrong. They have benefits, but this is pretty much a love letter to the "perfect" small convention.

I prefer smaller conventions. Part of the reason might be that they're so hard to get right. If too few people attend, it's five dorks playing D&D in a hotel lobby. There's also the chance that it'll die off due to lack of attendance (Anime Reactor.) The amount of attendees needs to match the venue almost exactly. If the convention overfills its space (as a result of being too greedy/ambitious), the convention is a disaster. Fire hazards, annoyed attendees, hour-long waits to use the bathroom, etc.

So, the logical conclusion would be to just expand, right? You can purchase a larger hotel space, or rent out surrounding hotels for extra space. That mindset will eventually force it to evolve into a large convention, and lose a bit of its soul.

"Why wouldn't more people be a good thing?" It's not about the instantaneous friendships. It's about the gradual, more natural ones. Let's say you have an engaging conversation with someone while waiting in line. You forget to take down their contact information. (Pretend Facebook doesn't exist, for argument's sake.) The following year, you have a much greater chance of remembering (and finding) that person again, for a second chance. There's a sense of community that you don't get at large conventions.

When you meet someone at a smaller convention, you can safely assume they're very passionate about whatever the theme of the convention is. For every one of those people attending a large convention, there's five people behind them that are just there to drink in an area where they normally can't. They've seen an episode or two of DBZ when they were growing up, but they ultimately don't give a shit. They would go to a knitting convention if it meant public intoxication.

Larger cons have to become very strict with rules and regulations. You can't allow everyone to carry around 7' buster swords. You can't reasonably feed everyone at the convention with complimentary food. You have to strike up unfavorable deals with those who own the space. You can't hold any sign whatsoever, even if it's not soliciting anything. (This is much easier than arguing semantics with everyone who has a sign.) The list goes on and on.
Guests are a pretty big part of conventions. Large cons have to provide "huge" guests, so that the list satisfies the most amount of people. Unfortunately, this boils down to voice actors and the J-Pop equivalent to Nickelback. It doesn't matter if they're good or entertaining, just that they're popular.

A bit of an aside about voice actors: I know that it's neat seeing the face behind your favorite characters, but you're getting about a half-minute of entertainment out of that guest. "Remember when I did the voice for that guy? Man, that was great. Check this out, I'm gonna do the voice. Ha! Well, see you guys in the autograph line!" They're not known for their own personality, they're known for the character they read the lines for.

Again, I don't hate large conventions. They're just not quite as magical as a smaller convention. Anime Central 2013 was a lot of fun this year, but Anime Midwest blew it out of the water. It felt like ACen of years past, before it got overwhelmed by the popularity.

Spelunky (XBLA)

Spelunky is a ridiculously difficult roguelike platformer. You can (and will) die over and over, in a matter of seconds. If that doesn't sound like your kind of thing, you're not going to like this game.

When you start an Adventure in Spelunky, you're given the following: Four hit points, four bombs, four ropes, a whip, and an odd sense of fear. That is all you have to survive the sixteen torturous levels ahead of you. Only sixteen? Trust me, that's plenty.

The sixteen levels, you see, are randomly generated.  This isn't Super Meat Boy.  You can't memorize the level layouts and perfect your runs.  All you can do is memorize the engine, and learn the rules of it.  To refresh my memory, I did a quick run:

I choose my humanized Super Meat Boy, and venture into the caves.  I immediately pick up a nearby clay pot, just in-case there are any arrow traps lying in wait.  A bat flies down towards me.  I throw the clay pot.  This plan of attack was successful, sort of.  The pot broke, and the spider inside fell on me for -1 hit point.  Three to go.

I'm much more careful now.  I've made it three levels deeper, to the jungle.  This is where it starts to get a bit more difficult.  Halfway through the first level, I see a damsel.  Damsels will give you +1 HP if you can take them to the exit.  I make it to the bottom of the current level, damsel in hand, and see a bit of a problem.  Two bats, three spiders, and quite a few spike traps.  Having been in this situation before, I do what any logical person would:  I whip the damsel at everything.  The "damsel" (it's a dog.) crashes through every enemy in my path, and lands fairly close to the exit.  The damsel then proceeds to walk off the nearest ledge and onto a spike trap.

The next level has a shopkeeper.  I buy a Compass and Climbing Gloves.  The compass will show me which direction the exit is in, and the climbing gloves will allow me to scale any vertical wall.  This is turning out to be a pretty good run.  I'm getting a little cocky.  I mis-judge a jump, and take some fall damage.  No big deal, it's only -1 HP.  While I'm stunned from the fall, a spider lands on me.  I now only have one HP standing between me and the dreaded re-rolling of the dungeon.  Time to be careful again.  I pick up another clay pot, just in case.

Near the bottom of the level, there's a pool of water in my way, with a piranha in it.  I toss my weaponized pottery at the piranha, and everything seems like it's working out. The spider that was inside of the clay pot then proceeds to jump out of the water and murder me.  I'm now back at square one, in the caves.  Imagine if someone hit the Reset button on your NES.  That's about the same amount of progress you get to carry over for your next play-through.  (Read:  Not a god damn thing.)

Despite having an achievement for beating the game in eight minutes, there's a lot of depth to this game.  That shopkeeper that I mentioned before?  I dropped a bomb in his store once, just to see what would happen.  He killed me with a shotgun before the bomb even hit the ground.

Technically this game has multi-player, but it's not really what you'll be doing most of the time.  The deathmatch is awkward at best, and the "co-op" is anything but.  It's kind of fun to jump around levels with some friends, but nigh-impossible to legitimately co-operate.  Even if you do manage it, the game doesn't save any progress you made.  (You can unlock shortcuts to the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th worlds by meeting certain conditions.  Certain bullshit conditions.  Fuck you, Tunnel Man.)

I'm not sure if it's Stockholm Syndrome, but I love this game.  The randomly generated levels keep everything fresh, and it's fun to learn the rules of the engine.  There's a certain amount of comfort knowing that the asshole Tiki-Men fall just as easily to the spikes as I do.  That the arrow-traps don't hate me, they just want to shoot the closest thing available to them.

This sound like fun to you?  Try the demo, on Xbox Live Marketplace.  Or, better yet:  Just play the original PC version, for free.

While I work on creating real content:



A ROM-hack that looks playable?!  My word.

Rockman 4: Minus Infinity

PREVIEW:  Gonna write some nonsense about Spelunky and Ys: The Oath in Felghana relatively soon.

I know you're all excited.