Author: Mikaela Maxwell

I never really considered myself a gamer. Then I put 100 hours into Stardew Valley... so I guess I kinda am now! I'm excited to be here learning all about this geek culture and finding out what drives all these passionate people!

SDCC 2019: ‘Stan Lee’s Alliances: A Trick of Light’ Author, Co-Creators Talk Creating A Universe, Working With Stan, And More!

by Mikaela Maxwell

I’ve always been a huge reader, but as life shifts and changes, and commuting takes up more of my day, I found myself not making as much time for it. Then I discovered Audible, and it changed my world! In the couple of years since joining Audible I have listened to almost 50 different titles! A lot while commuting, but also while cleaning, gardening, getting ready in the AM… you get the picture. So naturally my interest was piqued when, shortly before commencing my first SDCC trip, I received an invitation to have an experience and do an interview with the creators of a new Audible Original, Stan Lee’s Alliances: A Trick of Light!

Photo Credit: Audible

Not only was this an Audible project, but it was also one of the final collaborative projects from the illustrious Stan Lee, in a totally new universe, with totally new characters, created for a totally new format! Needless to say, my interest was extremely piqued. That being said I almost didn’t jump at this opportunity because I didn’t know if I was a good choice for the job. It’s not like it would be my first interview (I interviewed my face off at last years PAX West) but this project just felt so precious and special, and like it needed to be handled with such respect and skill. I wasn’t sure if I could do it justice. However with much support and encouragement from my Geekscape mentor (AKA Derek!), I decided to say yes to this amazing opportunity!

Photo Credit: Me

On Thursday, July 18th, the first Full day of SDCC, I was able to head into the A Trick of Light activation. This was a super neat experience, and I wish everyone was able to try it out. The activation allows you to experience excerpts from the story, narrated by the incredible Yara Shahidi, accompanied by captivating lighting sequences and effects. There are no characters or scenes laid out in front of you, you are required to create the image of the characters through your imagination, but the way light is used inside the activation creates an atmosphere that plunges you directly into the story alongside the characters.

Photo Credit: Audible

The activation kicks off by having you experience the storm that changes the life of one the main characters; through lights, and mirrors, and narration you feel immersed into this character’s experience. You are then lead into, as Ryan so eloquently described, a light labyrinth. Here you find yourself turning corners and coming to dead ends, where there is a cone of sound around you, allowing you to have a private-feeling experience of the narration, while being mesmerized by an accompanying lighting sequence. As you go to leave, you are lead down a hallway, accompanied by Stan Lee’s voice, and I doubt I was the only one to tear up at this point in the experience!

Photo Credit: Jerod Harris/Getty Images for Audible
Photo Credit: Audible
Photo Credit: Audible

Saturday hit and that meant it was time for the interview! This was meant to be a round table interview, which means that a group of interviewers sits down (in this case at a literally round table) with the people to be interviewed, and take turns asking questions. My expectation was this would be beneficially because other people would have really smart questions that I would get to hear the answers to, and that it would be extra stressful because I would be feeling self conscious in front of peers. I was very wrong.

As it turned out, during the time slot that I was there, it was myself and one other interviewer, Josias Arebalo with The Comic Syndicate, accompanied by co-creators Luke Lieberman and Ryan Silbert, as well as co-writer Kat Rosenfield. Turns out I needn’t have been nervous at all! Everyone was very nice, and the interview went off without a hitch. Together we asked a few good questions, and more importantly heard a lot of really great explanations about how this project was developed, the process of making it come to life, and how important and exciting it is to have developed it for the Audible platform.

Photo Credit: Jerod Harris/Getty Images for Audible

So please take a read and enjoy getting inside the head of these incredibly creative and talented humans!

Josias Arebalo: All right guys, we are here reporting from San Diego Comic-Con 2019. We’re here with some very special guests from Stan Lee’s Alliances: A Trick of Light. Please feel free to introduce yourselves.

Luke Lieberman: Luke Lieberman. I’m one of the co-creators.

Kat Rosenfield: Kat Rosenfield, author.

Ryan Silbert: Ryan Silbert, co-creator.

JA: And we have another very special guest.

Mikaela Maxwell: I’m Mikaela Maxwell, I’m with Geekscape.

JA: If you guys could please just break down exactly what this experience is and how it came about. Start off with a little bit of everything, that way our listeners can get a better background.

KR: I think we should talk about the book first. This is an Audible Original. One of the most innovative, and one of the last collaborations that Stan [Lee] completed in his lifetime. It’s a totally immersive experience and it’s the story of, I’m gonna keep broad strokes here, two young people who have gifts and whose connection with each other is so powerful that it could save the world or it could destroy it.

JA: Awesome premise already! Since it is one of Stan’s last projects he was working on, how did it grow from there? How did it come about and what was the collaboration process?

LL: I met Stan in the year 2000 when I was a film student at NYU. At that point Stan was very excited about the Internet and what it could mean for us as a tool to communicate ideas, and for people to communicate with each other. Cut to about a decade and a half later, Stan was my mentor so I knew him throughout, but you cut to a decade a decade and a half later and he became much more keenly aware of how that tool was being misused and how the Internet had become a tool for division. Manipulating people’s perception and manipulating people, and how the anonymity of the Internet was causing us to dehumanize each other. This story is very much about finding real connections in a, you know, virtual space. The idea of A Trick Of Light is that all of these digital realities, virtual realities, augmented realities, and just what you see on your phone or on your screen every day, that’s not real. That’s A Trick Of Light.

RS: Just the brass tacks of it: this was a multi year process of working and world building, creating many characters and many story threads, and the foundations of what became Alliances. Then, once the choice was made to introduce the story through A Trick of Light, bringing it out as an Audible Original was something very exciting for all of us, especially Stan, because it allowed us to tell this story and introduce this universe in a really immersive way. These are characters developed for audio, and it allows you then to have a very personal connection and, co-authored with Kat here, it brings you inside the journey of Cameron, Nia, Juaquo and Zoll, and all of the other characters, in a way that really no other format allows. So that’s what was really special for us in terms of how we decided to release the project.

RS: Now in terms of where we’re sitting right now, we are at SDCC at what was a mind blowing experience for the three of us because we walked in here, and it is a completely dark room [with] basically a light labyrinth that brings you inside of the story in a way that I have never, ever, experienced. Truly I wish all the listeners could come step into Fourth Avenue and walk through the A Trick of Light installation because it is mind blowing!

KR: This activation really encapsulates perfectly how gripping it is to be told a story in audio. So many of the other spaces at Comic-Con rely on visual spectacle, in here it’s really just about the story; and it’s about the voice of Yara Shahidi, our incredible narrator.

JA: The writing process for this, how long did it take?

LL: As Ryan was saying, the world building started years ago. We were just building out characters and story threads, and when Stan decided that he wanted to introduce this universe through a long form narrative, then Audible became an opportunity. First of all for Stan I think just working the audio medium it was something he hadn’t done a million times and at that point in his career that got him excited.

RS: Yeah.

KR: He’d never done it, it was completely new!

LL: Right. Exactly. Finding a new storytelling medium for Stan Lee in his 90s…

MM: What an incredible opportunity!

LL: That’s when we took this this universe that was created, and the characters, and started to focus them into a single narrative, which is A Trick of Light, the story that introduces you to the characters in the universe.

RS: The foundations of the Alliances universe come from the question that Stan asks in the intro which is: ‘What is more real? The world we’re born into or the one we create for ourselves?’. You know as fans you wait your whole life to hear Stan ask that ‘what if’ question. Cause we’ve read all of that work, and to hear that it unlocked so many opportunities and potential, to develop Alliances, to introduce Cameron and Nia through Trick of Light. That question is is so meaningful to all three of us and Stan.

JA: How big is the space we are in right now? [For the A Trick of Light SDCC Activation]

LL: Well there is this room, which is where you’re first introduced to it, then there’s a hallway that takes you to a larger space, and then there’s a hallway with Stan’s audio that brings you out.

RS: For listeners [or readers] you walk in and it says here ‘The Great Beyond’, and that’s where you experience the beginnings of the journey of the story. Right, and you go into the great beyond…

LL: The great beyond lies within.

RS: ‘The great beyond lies within’, which is from the book. Each space is developed and each little experiences develop from a piece of the narrative. There are massive audio modules that allow you to focus in on Yara’s terrific performance and the terrific writing of Stan and Kat, and really walk out of this experience with a different understanding of the story in a way.

KR: I just want to add on, because we haven’t actually made this explicit yet, what you’re doing in this activation is that you’re experiencing our main character Cameron’s transformation from an ordinary person into something a little bit superhuman.

LL: Cameron 2.0.

KR: Yeah, Cameron 2.0.

JA: I know you’ve been working on the project for years, but for the activation in general how long did it take to put something like this together?

RS: We don’t know.

LL: We are the wrong people to ask!

RS: We create the world, there are geniuses here that create this world. I think what’s really moving about this installation, not only as people who have worked on the project for so many years, is Stan has such an amazing connection with fans. We’re sitting at this table because he built the fan community basically brick by brick prior to the 60s and then into the 60s with the Marvel Age. You know, through soapboxes and through his talks on campus, and then came connections, and then came the Internet. Prior to that was sending letters around from penpals, through the fan pages. Here it’s great because you get to experience the Stan Lee story with fans. Then on the way out Stan, is no longer with us, but he is present. As you exit the intro plays and it’s very very moving. For us during this part of the experience we really miss him, because this is what he really enjoyed so much, he was a long [time] mentor of Luke’s, and you know this is really special activation experience.

KR: He feels present in this moment, not just because you hear his voice as you leave this experience, but you just see how excited everyone is to share in this story, and we’re so excited, and it really just feels like he’s kind of here.

LL: Also actually when you leave and you’re hearing his voice it just remind me of how excited he was to work. This was a project he was excited about, and you sort of hear it. And Stan’s excitement is contagious, it’s infectious, and it gets all of his collaborators excited, it gets you motivated.

MM: So Alliances is a universe, does that mean there will be other things to come of this?

KR: Well for the moment we are very focused on the release of the Audible Original, we’ve been working on this for a long time and couldn’t talk about it for the longest time because it was all under cloak and dagger and it was super secretive. So you know, we’ll say that universes tend to expand and it would be a little weird if this one didn’t. But right now we’re very focused on A Trick of Light and just getting the fan community excited to be part of this journey and to get in with these characters.

MM: Do you think that this particular Audible Original could expand into VR or something? Because walking through this experience I could totally see sitting at home in like a VR world kind of experiencing the light and sound and stuff all at once.

KR: That is a cool idea.

RS: I think one of the things that’s so beautiful about audio is that, I believe and we all believe because we’re working in it, it is like the most immersive experience. There’s a lot of spectacle to virtual reality, but when it comes down to it 52% of your experience in a film, probably more but let’s just go with 52% percent, is the sound. You forget it because it becomes part of the story, it becomes part of the backdrop, but it is so important. So I think the most immersive way to experience the story would be through audio.

KR: I will say we we have a print edition coming out in September. So you know there’s a lot of raw material here that I think can function really well in any number of mediums.

LL: When we were talking about how [Stan] was excited about the opportunity to do something he hadn’t done before, which was an Audible story, one of the things that got him excited was the idea that his fans would collaborate with him and that they would visualize the story, and that they could be the [Jack] Kirby or the [Steve] Ditko and they would create their own versions of the characters. We didn’t really overly describe the characters because we wanted everyone to be able to sort of visualize their own version of Cameron and Juaquo and Nia… and Zoll… and Six [and another character that I could not make out on the audio]

KR: You just named off every single character!

RS: You just named off every character!

KR: We never talk about Barry, the old man.

LL: Yeah we really should, he is like one of my favourite characters.

MM: Just out of curiosity I feel like I’m noticing a trend of technology and humans kind of intermingling in a way that they haven’t previously, in comics and movies and stuff like that. Do you have any ideas on why that is, why that’s happening at this point in time.

KR: I think it’s happening in real life! [Said simultaneously with one of the guys, to peels of laughter from everybody]

KR: What this story is really reflective of is what it’s like to live right now, in a world where technology influences our lives, where it’s our primary medium for connecting with and communicating with each other. Sometimes it’s even our exclusive medium for knowing somebody. So I think that this story is another way, a different angle, to explore the anxieties and the questions and the concerns that arise from already living in an age where technology is so much a part of our lives. It’s already a part of our identities, you know, you shape this self online. So I think it flows very naturally from something that’s actually happening.

LL: We’re not experts in technology, we’re not scientists or anything, but we did a lot of research to just kind of see where things were at, and what was coming and what was around the corner, to sort of inform the storytelling.

RS: With A Trick of Light, as Luke was saying, we did do real world research, we went up to Cornell, Stanford, the Human Interaction Lab where the Oculus was created and were informed by a lot of the real [technology] that the fantastical was developed off of. But all of Stan’s stories, and I think this is why his stories tend to stand the test of time, they are mythologically based, they’re character based, but they also are set in a world that’s familiar to ours. With [Fantastic Four] or with the Hulk, these are amazing characters that can develop and be set in different kinds of context, but where they were set originally were and things that felt very real like: Spidey swings down Sixth Avenue, Hulk is dealing with the nuclear age. We hadn’t been to space at the point at which Reed Richards [of Fantastic Four] went up there [to space]; Kirby and Stan rendered that from their imagination. So great storytellers, I do think on trend, will notice and be able to set great stories and great characters inside of things that feel familiar to us. And I think that’s something that in this story Kat and Stan achieved.

JA: You know any goal starts with an idea. I’m gonna ask you guys and odd question, but it might be different for each of you as far as the answer goes. What was the most difficult thing about the project to get it to where it is now. Did you find a certain stage where it was like we’re not getting this, or part of the script, or was it more the technological aspects?

LL: The nice thing is that we have a very very experienced storyteller to kind of help. We had a Gandalf guiding us through the path, and it was a team sport. So you know, if you’re bumping up against something maybe Kat has a solution or maybe Ryan has an idea you can throw out. That I think was the benefit of the collaborative process.

KR: Yeah, I will say that when I came on board I expected it to be so much harder than it was. You know I’m coming from a background of writing novels and in my experience that’s always been a very lonely solitary thing. You spend two years just rattling around in your head trying to create something, it’s just you and hopefully you emerge at the end, back into the sun with a manuscript that’s in decent shape. Getting three more brains into the mix I thought would be difficult, you know, to kind of create that mesh. I was like oh my God how is this going to work are you going to be able to see the seems in this narrative where each person contributed something, but it’s not like that at all.

RS: The hardest thing that I bump up against is just getting creeped out every time a certain sequence happens in the Audible Original. I can’t help but hear it and be like ooh super spooky.

KR: What creeps you out?

RS: Well I don’t know, no spoilers here.

LL: Have you met Six? [All laughing]

KR: I have I lived inside his head. [laughing]

RS: Yeah. Creeps me out.

LL: Have you met Zoll?

RS: What do you mean, that happens on Sixth Avenue every day!

JA: For our listeners and audience can you let us know where we can find you, and if you are working on anything that we can get on board with?

LL: I have a mini series out now called Red Sonja: Birth of a She Devil. I also control the Red Sonja franchise so I’m sure you know everything else that’s being done on the publishing side for us!

To learn more about these crazy talented people you can find them on social media at:

Luke Lieberman: @TheRealRedSonja on Twitter

Kat Rosenfield: @KatRosenfield on both Twitter and Instagram

Ryan Silbert: @RyanSilbert on Twitter

And if you are looking for a new listen, or want to get in on the newest Stan Lee endeavour, I highly recommend heading over to Audible right now to get started on Stan Lee’s Alliances: A Trick of Light!

Photo Credit: Audible

Mikaela’s Journey to SDCC 2019: Part VI

by Mikaela Maxwell

Sunday, Sunday, Sunday! (I really hope you are hearing that announcers voice when saying Sunday 3 times in your head!) I hadn’t actually scheduled anything for Sunday, so I kinda figured it would just be a day of wandering the floor, lookin around, and not really having anything to write about. Welp, I was wrong.

Sunday did start off pretty chill, having a coffee in the lobby of the hotel so I could catch up on writing and not be distracted by wanting to hang with our posse. When I did decide to mosey over to the convention centre it was well past the early morning crush of standing in line for an hour to just get in the building. As I casually strolled in, I immediately started coming across the most amazing cosplay. I easily hung out in the lobby for a couple hours just snapping pics of all these amazing outfits. So keep an eye on our Instagram @geekscapeforever over the next couple months to see what I found, and here are a few of my favourites!

@fellowhermit As Faun from Pans Labyrinth
@claire.e.rose As Eleven from Stranger Things season 3
@cosplaymom99 as Carl Fredricksen from Up
@magnetomystique as Mystique from X-men

Once I’d had my fill of cosplay and Derek tracked me down, we decided to check out the harbour side area of the convention centre, to grab a street meat and enjoy the salty windy air, before it was time to go to the FX area to experience the newest American Horror Story activation. This visit with FX was a last minute gig for us so it hadn’t really been on my radar, but I am sooo glad I got to experience it. Hard to say what my top experience was, but this definitely falls into my top 3!

The FX set up was pretty sweet. It was all on the lawn between a hotel and the back of the convention centre, in these big white irregularly shaped structures that kind of formed a circular central area. In addition to American Horror Story they had an It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia sunscreen station, which I didn’t use soon enough 🥵, an Archer oxygen bar, a Mayans temporary tattoo trailer, a Fox swing station, and a What We Do in the Shadows vampire house.

We sampled some flavoured oxygen, which allowed you to switch between various fruity smells for you to enjoy through the nasal prongs pumping O2 into your face. That was a weird experience! Derek wasn’t able to tell the difference at all and said it just smelled like plastic, so we’ve decided in addition to his colour blindness, he also has oxygen smell blindness.

We then headed into the American Horror Story: 1984 area, where you and 6 other people walk into a camp councillor’s office as the new recruits, and are greeted by the friendliest and most enthusiastic camp running guy you’ve ever met! The room is set up as the perfect picture of what I imagine a camp office would be in the 80’s, with a CB radio, a rolodex filled with marked business cards, a dart board on the wall and some mounted canoe paddles. Within moments, you start to hear another camp councillor over the radio panicking that something has gone horribly wrong out there in the woods.

The friendly old man leaves to solve the problem and we are left with a bubbly ditzy terrified camp councillor, sporting the perfectly crimped hair (in a side pony) and bubblegum pink lipstick. Shortly after we all run out into the woods, which is legit terrifying, it’s so hard to see anything, there are trees everywhere and I wanted to hold onto the stranger in front of me so I wouldn’t get lost in the forest (it’s mind boggling to me that they can create an atmosphere that feels so real and creepy that I was legit scared of getting separated from our group)!

Joe Scarnici/Getty Images for FX

As we are rounding a corner to get into the shelter of a cabin, a man with a balaclava emerged from the bushes and started heading our way. I don’t remember the last time I was so legitimately scared by something that I knew logically was all a ruse!? I’m pretty sure I tried to push past people so that I could be further away from him.

Once in the cabin we had to search for a key, and then were instructed to hide in a closet which turned into a long hallway, while the scary tall man continued to stalk toward us. As we ran down the hallway hands were coming out near the ground and grabbing onto our legs. Once at the end of the hall we managed to close a door and lock ourselves in another room as the masked man almost reached us. At which time lights flashed and a chain saw began to cut through the wall.

Turns out the lights flashing was actually a photo being taken, which managed to capture the back of my head as I both turned away from the lights to avoid what ever terror that was about, while nervously inspecting the closed door behind me sure that the masked man was about to burst in!

I can not give this activation enough praise! It was absolutely immersive, I was on edge (or terrified) the entire time and convinced that I was deep in some creepy camp woods. This experience has me well ready to get back into watching AHS when 1984 premieres this September .

Once we finally escaped from that horror, and took a minute to recovery and laugh our faces off, we headed over to the What We Do in the Shadows installation.

For Shadows you go through an elaborate door and enter into the living space of two Vampires. The space consists of dark Victorian era decorations, making up a bar area and two little living areas, with a photo opportunity in one corner. I’m not sure if the two Vampires in this place were actual characters from the show, but either way they were right on point with the shows humour! They were improvising like nobodies business with such amazing dry humour, working off of each other, as well as the visitors. Just standing around watching them bicker at each other was perfect! Once again I have another show to put on the list as a must watch!

We got out of FX shortly before their activation shut down for the day at 2pm, and finally it was time for me to try to walk the convention floor!

Almost as soon as we got in the building I wanted to escape. My previous experience of conventions has taught me that the final day of the show is usually a lot more chill than the rest of them. Oh how very wrong I was. We headed into artist alley, and I swear I couldn’t actually see any artists or their art cause there were so many freaking people!

We did manage to walk most of the show floor, but I really didn’t feel like I saw that much, and it definitely wasn’t very enjoyable. It’s so stressful trying to even move, and if you want to stop and look at something or god forbid change directions, well you better be ready for a trampling!

I managed to find my way back to Daniel Danger’s booth, where I got to meet the artist himself. He was so lovely and open, sharing with the people in the booth the meaning behind some of the quotes on his prints and what the art represents to him. He was willing to talk about mental health and some of the struggles he has faced. It was so amazing and refreshing to meet someone you admire, and have them be so kind, honest, and vulnerable. Honestly he is so talented and I am such a fan he had the opportunity to be snooty and above it all, but was the most approachable stranger I met all weekend.

Daniel Danger and I, with a backdrop of his amazing work!

After much deliberation I picked a print for my self and went on my way. About ten minutes later while searching for a gift for Derek’s dad I realized Danger had done a print of Batman standing on top of a Blockbuster building and it would be the perfect gift for Derek’s dad. His dad is into comics and super heroes, and pretty much every conversation I’ve ever heard Derek and his dad have has started with ‘So have you seen (insert movie title here) yet?’, plus we are both huge fans of Danger, so this seemed like it would be the perfect meaningful gift.

“i’m sorry again for everything i’ve been”
By Daniel Danger on Instagram @tinymediaempire

We rushed back to the booth only to find that the spot where these prints had been was now filled by something else. Knowing there had only been 2 left I was sure we had missed our opportunity, but upon asking discovered they were sitting underneath the new print, PHEW! We asked him to write a note to Derek’s dad to which he agreed and then proceeded to write the most hilarious little love note from father to son. I’m stoked. What a great experience, and lovely gift. Maybe sometimes it is ok to meet your heroes 🙂 (Now we just have to cross our fingers that it makes it home on the plane!)

Shortly after that, SDCC 2019 came to an end. Our posse gathered at the Geekscape booth and took a final group shot before immediately heading to Old Spaghetti Factory for a much anticipated (by Matt and Derek) final meal! After which we broke down the booth, said goodbye to Gui and headed to the hotel for a much needed hot tubbin! What a time!

#GeekscapeForever. (Sorry Matt, I had to use the lifeless ventriloquist dummy photo, cause it’s just too good!)

Overall I had an amazing time at my first SDCC! The activations were amazing, everything felt like a spectacle, the floor was huge, the variety insane, the literal amount of different entertainment and products to consume were absolutely baffling. Some of these things were a double edged sword which left me with a little FOMO, such as being so I busy I didn’t end up getting to any panels, the crowds made wandering the floor less enjoyable, and getting your hands on many of the exclusive exciting SDCC products next to impossible. But the incredible experience of getting to see premieres while seated next to their stars, being immersed in the worlds of various tv shows, meeting new and interesting people, eating yummy food, and getting to meet and spend time with the Geekscape team, all of these far outweighed the drawbacks.

Thanks for following along with my journey. Keep an eye on the site for more in depth looks at a few of the things we got up to while at SDCC. And remember to follow @geekscapeforever on Instagram to catch some of the sweet cosplay we saw on this crazy journey!

Xoxo Mika!

Mikaela’s Journey to SDCC 2019: Part V

by Mikaela Maxwell

Saturday actually had a pretty chill start to the day, I don’t think any of these crazy early risers that I was sharing a room with were really crackin’ until almost 7am. What a treat! It also started with groggily acknowledging the new additions to our Geekscape SDCC 2019 team: Steven and Kate. What a weird situation to stumble over people in the middle of the night and then meet them for the first time by waking up practically right next to them first thing in the morning.

My first scheduled appointment was a round table interview at 11am, so I had a slow easy start, waiting for everyone else to do their bathroom things and head out for the day. I headed out to my interview around 10:30, and realized as I was walking over that I was not nearly as nervous as I thought I would be, and I felt like I had totally no idea what to expect or if I was prepared. So I secretly stopped just around the corner from my destination to do some rapid Googling in hopes of feeling a little more confident!

Continuing my journey, I was working under the impression it would be myself and approximately 5 other press people along with 3 creators having either a discussion or taking turns asking questions. In one way I was happy to be with other people as they may have more insightful questions than I have, but more nervous cause now there are even more people paying attention when I talk.

When I arrived I asked the first person waiting in line if they were there for the round table, and he responded that he was, and pointed me toward the 2 PR people to check in. Everyone was super friendly and the 4 of us stood around chatting for a few minutes. I immediately discovered that this gentleman and I were going to be the only interviewers at the table, which left me feeling extra nervous! It quickly came out that this was my first round table (because I have no poker face), and I was asked if I was nervous, to which I replied yes very! Honestly though I’m glad I was straight up about it, all 3 of them were very reassuring and the gent who was heading in with me was all about that team work and offered to share his audio with me if mine crapped out. (Which ironically was the exact scenario of my first ever recorded interview about a year ago!)

Walking into the space we were introduced to co-writer Kat Rosenfield, and co-creators Luke Lieberman and Ryan Silbert. They were very friendly and obviously very passionate about this project. It was interesting to hear their thoughts on how this came about. We talked a lot about how audio is the most immersive way to experience a story, which is so true, and was totally enhanced during this activation by the various lighting spectacles within the space. I won’t go too in depth here,but will be posting the whole interview in the days to come!

Photo Credit: Jerod Harris/Getty Images for Audible

After the nerves of interviewing had been released I realized I was staaarving, and I need to catch up on some writing! So I head back to the hotel and and did just that while I waited for Derek to be available for lunch. It was nice to catch a quiet moment in air conditioning, with good wifi, away from all the chaos.

For lunch we decided to head to the BBQ place right across the street from our hotel: Kansas City Barbeque, which seems to be just on the periphery of the con craziness. It also happens to be well known as the iconic ‘sleazy bar’ scene from Top Gun. Now I have never actually seen Top Gun (shhhh don’t tell anyone) but I can usually tell when it’s being referenced, and I understand people are huge fans! So it was pretty neat to see all the paraphernalia and people so excited about this place. It was pretty entertaining too, it had that local pub vibe, the bar crowded with people drinking jugs of beer and telling jokes and singing songs, while a fan stacked with tons of bras whirled over their heads. And to top off the already great experience the food was super delish too!

Our next stop was the Borderlands Museum of Mayhem, presented by Nerdist. I always forget what Borderlands is, and once reminded I realize I actually quite like the game. I especially appreciate the art style and the way in which it lends itself to wicked awesome cosplay! I’ve only played it a couple times, but each time it’s been really fun with our good friends Mike and Laura, who live far away from us and it gets to feel like we are just hanging out in the same room. Video games are kinda neat how they can connect people from so far away and give you a space and activity to share experiences together. Technology is insane.

The line up for the Borderlands Museum wasn’t too bad, they were handing out really neat prints and fun masks while you waited. And we stumbled across OG Geekscape writer Joshua Jackson and his wife Megan, so it was nice to get to meet them in real life! The outside was decorated really cool with big Borderlands style painting in the windows, and a big statue of the robot assistant guy from the game. But as soon as you got inside it was even more amazing!

Where the Picard museum was very precise, proper, subdued, and felt like a real museum, this felt more like a super neat art show. There were huge statues of characters, and different Borderlands art pieces in so many different mediums, from a huge wall tapestry, to 3D paintings, and regular paintings, and pieces hanging from the ceiling. They also had 2 barber stations where people could get the Borderlands logo shaved into their fade. There was a bar, and a face painting station, as well as a green screen with props where you could create your own Borderlands GIF. It was actually super freaking neat and I’m really glad we made it happen.

When we were through with Borderlands we headed out to find food for Matt. Matt had been manning the booth all week, and was getting sick of eating from the same food places for days on end, so I had promised him we would bring him a meal from somewhere off site! We found the place called Berkeley Pizza, and I wished I didn’t have so much delish BBQ in my belly cause this deep dish looked soooo good. We grabbed a couple pieces for our boi and headed toward the convention centre. Only getting distracted one time by a quick piece of Panda Express chicken (where we also snagged Matt a pair of Panda ears!) before making it into the con with the rest of the convention crush!

After chillin at the booth for a few minutes I decided it was time to do the job I thought I had actually come here to do, and headed out to take some cosplay photos! It’s been interesting finding my role here with Geekscape. I do some writing, I do some podcasting, and I do a lot of social media. Usually social media looks like posting cosplay photos to Instagram, which I thought would be my main focus once landing at SDCC, however that hasn’t seemed to be the case. I’ve had interviews, taken part in experiences, and have been posting a lot of other stuff on our social media. Turns out when you are here participating in the experience (remember it’s my first time at SDCC) it’s a lot easier to stay on top of posting what is happening in the moment, instead of trying to post things randomly sent to you by the rest of the team while simultaneously cramming food in your face on your lunch break at work!

@jennalynnmeowri

I had heard many things about the cosplay at SDCC and it is actually quite amazing! I think I’ve been spoiled because the cosplay at ECCC is also very high caliber, but I’m at least equally impressed by what I’ve seen here! I also haven’t spent that much time at the convention centre this week (how in the eff did that happen!?) so I think I haven’t seen as much of it as I thought I would! I did see a guy dressed as a giant transformer, and a stranger dressed as Wonder Woman give him a water bottle cause he was having a struggle, so my heart was pretty full from that!

Once I realized my battery was almost dead and the convention would be closing for the day, I headed back to the floor to wander for a few minutes. I found some books to bring home to my nieces, and marvelled over beautiful art. I even stumbled across Daniel Danger’s booth! Daniel Danger (check him out here) is an artist that I absolutely love. We have several of his prints hung up at home, all of which we got our hands on through hard earned waits at the Mondo booth (hard earned by Derek over the last few years). I didn’t realize he would have his own booth here, and that it could possibly be so danged accessible! I literally just walked right up to the empty booth and started talking with the guys there. The artist himself had just left to wander the floor a bit, but the fella I was talking to had lots of info and actually had time to talk to me about the process and what not. It was really neat, and I’m a little concerned I will end up there again Sunday to buy more things!

When the convention closed some of the Geekscape posse went to horror panels, some went to the Old Spaghetti Factory, and Derek and I headed over to the Carnival Row Premiere.

Derek and I having a great little night out at the Carnival Row premiere !

Unlike The Boys premiere, we had press passes to this one, so we didn’t have to wait in line for hours. I had also learned my lesson about the sun going down and getting cold so I had brought a sweater.

As soon as we got in we snagged some great seats right in the centre of the second row, scored ourselves a graciously provided blanket, and grabbed some food and drink. There was once again an awesome DJ, Daisy O’Dell, and neat characters running around and/or dancing. I was particularly excited for this premiere as Orlando Bloom stars in this show, and 13 year old Mikaela was super jazzed on the possibility of being in the same space as him!

As the time was coming for the showing to start, four mascot characters showed up in the audience, surrounded by all of the official media crew. Needless to say we were pretty certain Orlando and the rest of the main cast were right there in those suits. They danced in the aisles and walked right past us to the front of the stage. Derek was pushing me to try to get a selfie with the purple hippo who I had decided was definitely Orlando, but I just couldn’t do it.

Cara Delevingne & Orlando Bloom

Fan girling is just too danged awkward and the whole situation did not feel conducive to it! I was still pretty thrilled to be there doing what we were doing. Even more so, when the mascots lined up less than ten feet in front of us and revealed themselves to be the stars of the show!

Once the show started, after Orlando and friends had taken their seats 20 feet to the right of us, I was mesmerized. The show is set in a society wrought with racism between humans and fairies and other creatures, and feels super relevant in today’s political climate (well, actually in every climate, cause history shows that humans have a real struggle with ever accepting other humans that are different than them). The characters are fierce and relatable, and you just wanna learn more about them. Amazon Prime seems to be hitting it out of the park, both with their SDCC presence, and their actual shows. I was immediately swept up in this show, and can’t wait to see the rest of the season, which begins to air August 30th!

This time when we got back to the hotel everyone was still awake, so they got to hear my excitement about Orlando, and the guys were none too impressed. Kate however was there to share in my excitement thank goodness (as was my BFF Nicole who I had texted immediately!) I crashed pretty hard and am looking forward to whatever the final day, Sunday, throws my way!

I can not believe we are going into the final day. I feel like there is so much happening. So much I haven’t done and seen, and no way to experience all the things. It’s amazing how ever single person here is having such a hugely different experience, but all sharing in the same geeky fandom! What a time!

Mikaela’s Journey to SDCC 2019: Part IV

by Mikaela Maxwell

Friday! Friday felt like the first reeeally big day of the convention. I managed to go to bed freaking early the night before, and sleep in until after 7am, so that was a win! By the time I was up and getting ready most of the guys had already ventured out into the world. Jonathan was at the Cosplay 5K, and Matt and Gui has headed to the convention centre. I didn’t have to be anywhere until after 9am, and had no desire to wait in the chaotic line to enter the convention centre. Derek was hoping to grab the sweet Metal Gear Mondo print, so he ventured into the line, unfortunately to no avail as by the time his spot in the line was entering the convention floor, all the doors had been opened and people were entering willy nilly anyways. So no sweet Mondo for us today.

It seems like it’s generally impossible to be able to get the exclusives offered at SDCC, as you either need to be randomly chosen, or you try to get in a line that is capped before you were even in the convention centre. The one silver lining to this is we have probably saved a whole pile of money!

Once I left the hotel room I scooted by the convention centre to see if I would have a better shot of organically just walking through the doors once they were all opened. I didn’t. So after hovering for a few minutes, and watching people be outraged that they had to stand in line with the masses, I moseyed on to my first appointment: HBO’s Watchmen experience.

So. Many. People.

I had stopped by Watchmen the day before and was told to come back the next morning during press preview hour. The person who I had initially talked to explained it in a way that left me thinking they were letting 30 people in at the top of each hour. That was totally inaccurate. In actuality the whole experience lasted about 2-3 minutes, so I don’t know where I had concocted my ideas about timing.

The activation was actually pretty freaking cool. It was really tiny, about the size of an elevator, and had doors that slide open to let you in. When you enter you stand in front of a screen which instructs you to move around the booth in order to calibrate the camera to your body.

Once calibrated, your own Dr. Manhattan transformation begins. You watch on screen as your body is electrified and then as your skeleton rebuilds into Dr. Manhattan. Through this process as you move around in real life you move around on the screen in whatever form you happen to be in. In my particular experience however I definitely was a wee bit confused and mostly just sooo still waiting for things to happen. It wasn’t until close to the end that I realized that I coulda been moving around a whole lot more! It was still pretty neat though and regardless of my own slowness, I’m glad I was able to get in there!

Following my transformation into Dr. Manhattan I met up with a grumpy, disappointed (about no Mondo), and very hungry Derek. We decided to head a little bit further away from all the action to find a restaurant that would be a little bit less crowded and hopefully not too expensive. We stumbled across a Mexican place that was suuuper delish! I had no idea what I was ordering but ended up with a sandwich full of yummy seafood.

Post food we had a much less grumpy Derek who was up for some activity! Word on the street was the line up for the Picard Museum wasn’t too insane so we decided to head that way, it also turned out that the lone was on a side walk that was totally shaded *the dreeeam*.

I am definitely not a Trekkie, and have never really been exposed to much Star Trek, I mean I know what it is And I know the Jean-Luc Picard is a played by Patrick Stewart, but other than that I got nothing. It was however still a really cool exhibit. It actually felt like a legit museum exhibition, with glass cases displaying different paraphernalia, and a little write up on the wall about the significance of each particular piece. Even as a none Trekkie I found it pretty interesting. It kinda made me wanna get into it with the upcoming show! (And it definitely got Derek invested, so I imagine I’ll at least watch some of it!)

By the time we got through the Picard Museum I was having a pee-mergency! We had been planning on heading over to the Detroit: Become Human fan meet up at a little pub we had been to a few nights before, and decided to expedite our stroll over there so I could have a pee ASAP.

While in the washroom I received a message that Bryan Dechart, who is the ‘voice actor’ for the character Connor in the game, had just walked into the place. (!!!!) I walked out into the pub and went to turn a corner immediately recognizing Bryan and a mystery girl sitting at a table getting prepped for fans to come in. Pretty danged exciting, I then used all of my will power, and knowledge of my awkwardness, to leave them alone and get back into the line up.

Once we got in we waited in line to meet them and grab signatures. If you’ve ever read my ‘I don’t know how to play video games’ articles, you’ll know that I am a BIG fan of Detroit: Become Human. I played the game all the way through a while back in a very short period of time, and then had to go back and play through the last few chapters a second time so I could get an ending where I didn’t accidentally kill Kara. I was secretly hoping that the super handsome Jesse Williams would be there, but was definitely not disappointed when we discovered the also super handsome Bryan Dechart was there! I feel so bad cause I’m not totally sure who the female actor was, but someone in line thought she was likely the main girl from the Eden Sex Club in the game. Regardless they were both super friendly, chatted with us for a minute, Bryan talked about how even his mom had played the game all the way through and done really well at it, and they took a selfie with us!

Next up we headed back to the convention centre, I to our Geekscape booth and Derek to the FunkoxSDCC booth for our one and only opportunity at getting SDCC exclusives. I was shocked and delighted to find out the Darryl McDaniels was at our booth selling and signing his DMC graphic novels. I was very confused when I walked up to the booth to find a huge crowd around it, and delighted when I figured out why! He even freestyled about hanging out at the Geekscape booth, such fun! He is supposed to come back to the booth Saturday so it’ll be fun to see what he gets up to next!

A little while later I met up with Derek again and we headed over to the Gaslamp district to catch the SYFY drum line. I had no idea what to expect from this but it was actually super fun! This group of drummers and general music makers and dancers took over the street playing drum line versions of popular music, while creating an awesome dance party. Then they invited members of the crowd up to do trivia competitions, hosted by Orlando Jones. It was super fun and so freaking random. SYFY is doing a really great job of creating a presence and a street party vibe both with this, as well as their trivia trolleys and karaoke bus.

We took a breather at the the hotel for a couple hours in the afternoon to catch up on writing and recharge both our batteries and ourselves. Then got ready to go out for the evening.

Due to Derek’s thoroughly preparedness we had scored general admission tickets to The Boys premiere party, where the first two episodes would be shown to an audience for the first time. This would be my first premiere party type situation and I was pretty danged I excited for it. However because it was generally admission, even though we technically had tickets it would still be a first come first serve thing. So, although the parted started sometime after 7pm, Derek assured me we needed to be in line before 5pm. Although I would usually roll my eyes and whine about this, I decided to be a good sport and go along with his plan. When we walked up to the Amazon Prime Video Experience activation I was immediately grateful for Derek’s habit of getting to places ridiculously early, as already there was a line up forming and chaos was about to ensue.

As we were standing near the entrance to the line up we over heard conversation between staff members discussing how many people would be let in and who would be controlling the line up etc.. Derek was luckily able to download the tickets onto his phone so we could prove we were legit and get into the line ASAP. When we got into the line at 4:45 it turned out there were approximately 150-200 people ahead of us already! We stood there for over 2.5 hours and made friends with the people in front of us, who turned out to also be Canadians, from Winnipeg! Initially I thought I would melt, and was so grateful for the umbrellas covering the line. Then the sun ducked behind the trees and immediately I wished I had brought a sweater! Luckily I didn’t have to be cold for too long as they had graciously provided blankets for the viewing, which took place in the open space of the Prime Video Experience area.

Caught this sweet Ghost Bustin’ ride while waiting in line, so… worth it!

The Amazon activation was the first one we had gone to during Wednesday’s press preview, and it has been my favourite one so far (although Pennyworth’s set up was wicked awesome too). So it was neat to see the open space transformed for the party.

The central structure was being used as the DJ booth, as well as another short The Boys performance, There were bars and food stands for people to enjoy, the open area had been filled with rows of seats for the screening, and The Boys activation was still being run for party goers to experience. Shortly before they began airing the first episode the stars of the show all filed into the activation area, and I really hope they got to experience it they was we all do, as I imagine it would be pretty trippy. It was very Meta as some would say.

Right before the show began there was an introduction by Eric Kripke, and all the cast was brought to the front of the stage for applause and pictures. It was all very exciting and pretty cool to be a part of. I was a little disappointed I didn’t get to rub shoulders with anyone big and famous (as far as I know), and especially disappointed that Seth Rogan (who is part of the providing team) wasn’t on site (as far as I know), but really those were just little things in the big scheme and the experience in all was absolutely super rad!

It was also an effective marketing strategy, cause I definitely want to see more of the show now! It’s such a neat premise to consider what it would mean if super heroes weren’t all happy sunshine and following all the rules. There were lots of laughs and a few shock and awe moments. I think it went over pretty well and I wouldn’t be surprised if it takes off!

We got back to the hotel around 11pm to a room full of sleeping people, and after trying not to wake anyone while stumbling around in the dark, I passed the eff out!

Mikaela’s Journey to SDCC 2019: Part III

by Mikaela Maxwell

Thursday started once again with a danged early morning! This time I was prepared though, my alarm was set for 7 so being woken at 6:30 was no bigs!

As I got ready I listened to Stan Lee’s A Trick of Light, both in preparation for the activation I was about to attend, and because I started it Wednesday and am already so into it! While standing in line I was definitely wishing I had made room in my tiny little fanny pack for some air pods so I could be listening while I wait!

Walking into the experience is like walking into one of those mirror mazes you find at a carnival, where you just hope that you don’t accidentally smash your face into a mirror. Quickly the dark room lit up with a storm scene taking over all of the surfaces and surrounding you with incredible audiovisuals. While simultaneously listening to narration directly from the book that sets the scene for you.

From there I walked into a dark room full of bright red light strings that created barriers and walkways that you had to navigate. There were a few areas where you’d stand under a cone type thing and different portions of the book would play, accompanied by various lighting effects.

After this room you are ushered down a hallway, with Stan Lee’s voice accompanying you out as he describes the concept of the book and asks the question: ‘What is more real? The world we are born into, or one we create for ourselves?’.

All in all it was a pretty neat experience and I am stoked to get through the book so I can hear how the story progresses! And while in line waiting for it to open I chatted with one of the other people in line and was so proud of myself for basically networking!

When I had planned out Thursday it felt very full and had me rushing from place to place to place, with my next scheduled stop to be at the mondo booth so I could nab a spot in line for the It poster to drop at noon, with a signing by the artist Daniel Danger (who’s art is hanging on many of our walls at home). However as plans generally do, this one fell apart. As we were walking, towards the Audible experience for me and the convention centre for Derek, first thing in the morning Mondo dropped the bomb that they’ve decided to change their line process. Where as I thought I could line up around 11 for the 12 print drop, it turned out that you actually had to get there first thing in the am and line up to get a ticket which gives you a time slot to come pick up your print. Luckily Derek was on his way to the WWE/Mattel panel, so instead of heading straight to that room he detoured to Mondo and picked up the ticket right off the bat (and still managed to have sweet wwe seats!).

In addition to planning on hitting Mondo I had budgeted my time for coming out of the Stan Lee/Audible event at 11am. So when I didn’t have to go to Mondo and I got out of Audible at 930, I didn’t really know what to do with myself. I hadn’t planned on having free time until after my 2pm interview, so I felt a little floundery!

I ended up deciding to avoid the convention centre and instead just wander around the outside activations and see what was up now that they were all up and running. Everything has huge lines and lots of people (though as I learned later in the day it was still actually pretty chill, and I didn’t know what ‘lots of people’ really meant!).

I walked over to the Petco Interactive Zone, mostly because I knew there was a bad ass giant unicorn there!! As I walked over I was handed a few things and quickly regretted my plan to not bring a backpack, though I would have been such a sweaty Betty with a bag on my back cause it was hot AF… which left me feeling awkward because I knew I didn’t have enough danged sunscreen on!

Regardless the Petco Interactive Zone was pretty danged neat. Ripley Beleive It or Not had a crazy car show set up, featuring a vehicle shaped like a stiletto, a motorbike mad of bone, a wooden Ferrari, a fire truck shaped coffin and many more. There were a few other set ups in the area: Giant Unicorn by Pepsi, Giant shark by Shark week, Range Rovers people could sing in for Carpool Kareoke, amongst a few others.

I headed over to check out the HBO Watchmen activation, but decided to come back the next day for press preview. At this point I was hot and tired and didn’t have any appointments, but desperately needed to pee. So I headed over to the opening of the Panda Express Pop-Up, celebrating their new Sichuan Hot Chiken and Pep-Pep the Sichuan Wonderpepper. It was actually totally fun, everyone in there was so excited and yelling and dancing, great atmosphere! And the chicken was suuuuper yummy. Apparently this chicken is only around for a limited time so head out to your local Panda Express to grab some! (We don’t have Panda Express in Canada. So don’t listen to me if you’re up there in the great white north… well listen to me, but not about Panda Express!)

After that I met up with Derek at the Prime Video Experience again, see the thing is there was a secret way to get comic books, and we didn’t figure that out the first time around. So we went back in hopes of finding this. Through Twitter we knew there was something about a phone number, which we found. Upon calling the phone number we were instructed to find a comic in a box on the grounds, which we found. The comic told us to find a code on a license plate, which we found. And then when we gave that code to the right people we were given a card to come back for comics at 3:30pm. This filled me with regret cause had we found it the day before we probably woulda been able to go right in, but as it stood I had places to be around that time, so unfortunately we were unable to grab The Boys comic book… but I’m still super into it so if I really want more than the tv show I can just buy the book!

After amazon I dropped Derek at the hotel, had a snack, and ventured over to the convention centre to do an interview with the Impact Theory people about the Neon Future comic book. Which you will be able to read about more in the future.

After amazon and interviews Derek and I met up and wandered The floor a bit, then over to the Detective Pikachu Acrivation, where you walk into what looks like a train car and is a representation of Ryme City. It was pretty neat with many things built out of bright yellow fun fur, and lots of Detective Pikachu paraphernalia. My favourite room though was the last one, which had bright yellow fun fur lining all the walls and a giant Pikachu there for you to pose with! I am very grateful to the people who let us come in to take a look as it was a very last minute decision and a super neat experience.

After this we wandered around the Gaslamp district and I realized my early morning shenanigans had mislead me completely, as now it was actually busy, where as before although there was plenty of people around, it was not ‘busy’ at all.

After a little wandering we stopped and had another round of Pep-Pep chicken from Panda Express. Then paused for a little while to have a desperately needed beverage and catch up on writing a bit. Then it was time to head to the Pennyworth party.

This was my first specific press invite ‘party’ with drinks and hours d’oeuvres and famous people. Although to be fair I’m not really that great at knowing who famous people are, I did actually know who one of these actors is. Her name is Paloma Faith, she is a British singer, and I saw her ten years ago at a burlesque show in East London. It was the final performance of this particular burlesque troupe so they had a bunch of invited performance guests and there were a few hundred patrons spread out over a couple floors and I was so proud of myself for going out to something I was interested in by myself while living in a different city and not knowing anyone. And although I remember the whole show as fantastic, Paloma Faith was the one person from it whom I followed their career and listen to her music on the regular.

So imagine my excitement when I was actually invited to a party that she would be attending. Whoweee. I’m not usually a fan girl about much, but I was excited to be in the same place at the same time.

The party was held in the same place as the activation, and I imagine it was much of the same stuff, except we were served drink and food. There was a singer, and photo ops, and different rooms set up to resemble settings from the show. There was even a room set up as a torture room, where police sat you in an electrical chair and pretended to beat you while the photo booth took pictures. It was super neat. And after a couple drinks I steeled my nerves and approached Paloma. At the time she was petting a dog so naturally I got distracted by that and focused on the dog until she had actually walked away. But a few minutes later I found her again, and informed her of our ten year history, by which she was non too impressed. But oh well, she was polite and kind and I guess we will just have to become best friends some other way, some other day.

After the party I was thoroughly wiped. And so instead of heading to dinner with the rest of the boys, I sent Derek on his way to have fun with his friends and headed over to the hotel room to focus on writing and hopefully Crash suuuuper early. As I am finishing this up we are heading toward 9:00 pm and I am very hopefully that I will actually get a decent nights sleep!

Mikaela’s Journey to SDCC 2019: Part II

by Mikaela Maxwell

Wednesday morning was scheduled (for me) to be a sweet sweet day of sleeping in, and I guess if you compare me to everyone else in the room technically I did get to sleep in… until 6:15 AM!!?!

Grump-kaela was none too impressed about the early hour, but still happy to have a relaxed lounging morning, with time for hair and makeup and listening to the new Audible Original A Trick of Light created by Stan Lee.

I will be attending the A Trick of Light activation Thursday, and a round table press discussion on Saturday, so don’t worry you’ll be filled in on all the deets about that one in the near future! But I’ll tell you now from the wee bit I’ve listened to, it’s gonna be interesting A.F. !

Just as Matt, Derek, and I finally decided to leave the sweet sweet comfort of our cold hotel room, Jon and Gui showed back up! (Both were gone by the time I opened my eyes at the late hour of 6:15!) Gui discovered you could actually open our hotel room window way way up on the 28th floor, and figured he could probably catch a bird from there. However his fear of seagulls was quickly made apparent as one swooped by and he slammed the window shut. This seagull was relentless though. The bird literally perched directly on our window sill and stared us down. I wanted to open the window and feed it… everyone else wisely protested, and Gui guarded the window with his life. It was pretty entertaining though!

Shortly after Matt, Derek and I ventured out and I decided to put my brave pants on and face a newly discovered fear of breaking my face via electric scooter.

Last year Derek raved about getting to scoot around all over the place with his buddy Matt. Last night Derek tried to get me to ride one of them and I quickly realized I did not trust my coordination enough to not die, and opted instead to pathetically half jog beside him as he scooted to the grocery store.

With much support and encouragement I managed to hop on my first scooter ride! And it was equal parts terrifying and fun. Basically as soon as I got on I turned into a frozen terrified statue, but managed to not fall off, so… win 🤷‍♀️

We got to wander around and see a bunch of the activations in their final stages of set up, and I’m blown away by the amount of presence here. I’m not the best at references, but so many things that even I am aware of are here! From Seinfeld, The Good Place, Superstore, Brooklyn Nine Nine, South Park and on and on!

Around lunch time Derek and I parted ways with Matt to head over the the Amazon Prime Video Experience, featuring activations for The Expanse, The Boys, and Carnival Row. This was my first official SDCC activation experience, and I think it may have tricked me with its ease! We waited in line for about 15 minutes before it opened, and in the time we’re treated to big umbrellas for shade, and offered cold water bottles. In a very short amount of time we were allowed in and provided with a wicked experience.

Upon entering the site you are given special coins and mini churros! There is a giant, beautiful, reflective, colourful structure in the middle surrounded by AstroTurf, covered tables, a large screen with shaded couches which I’m assuming will be for when they show the premieres later this week. As well there are three separate and very different areas that allow you to enter and have an incredibly immersive experience based on each of the featured shows.

We started off by heading into the experience for The Expanse. After again waiting in line for what I assume is a very short amount of time in SDCC reality, sliding doors opened to let us into some sort of Space transportation. We were quickly informed that we‘re on a UN mission to figure out what this attack had been about (I’ve never seen the show, so I’m a little fuzzy on the details), before the doors open at the opposite end and we walk out into a space-tastic wasteland. Quickly our group was split up and we are guided by space people to interrogate/help (?) other space people who have been captured by other space people. It’s a real moral conundrum cause you don’t know whose in the right and suddenly a dispute explodes between different factions and you’re quickly whisked back out into reality. So. Freaking. Cool!

After that we headed over to The Boys activation area. Again we were quickly ushered… well yelled at to quickly get in here! Our group quickly filed into an electronics store that had its front window smashed in by a car, that was currently sat with smoke billowing out of the hood, half in/half out of the storefront. We were quickly informed that we were joining a group of people fighting against the destruction and pain caused in the wake of super heroes doing hero work. We quickly discovered that one of the group members worked at this store and is now missing, so we had to find clues to where he went and what had happened here. Our group had to rummage around this destroyed store and I managed to find two of the clues we were looking for! The whole scene ended with someone who had been planted in our group being murdered by one of the characters and us running out of the store.

I love immersive theatre, and this was so much fun! What a neat way to get people jazzed on a new show. Initially when hearing about this show I was intrigued simply because Seth Rogen is an executive producer (and I’m a big fan of that guy!), but now I’m extra invested and can’t wait for it to air!

After that we went and grabbed a branded and delish (and free!) Carl’s Jr. burger and watched a super neat performance based on The Boys play out on the central shiny structure. Check out our instagram for sneak peeks into these experiences!

After that we waited in an actual line that took actual time, like maybe 30-45min, which is still short by SDCC standards for the Carnival Row experience. After this sooo long of wait (teehee) we sadly were not let into the experience because the cards we were given showed that we were creatures and they didn’t have any more room for creatures, only humans. So I popped a squat and got comfy to wait another 15 minutes.

In the time we waited in line we actually got to see another performance on the central structure, this time a scene from the universe of Carnival Row where fairies were being hunted down by some sort of police and were sadly beaten down.

Once we did actually get let into the Carnivval Row we were immediately treated to some race/class discrimination. Because we had drawn ‘creature’ cards we were allowed in, but were treated poorly, being yelled at to hurry, to not take pictures of the characters, to stand in single file and not move etc., where as when the ‘humans’ were let in they were encouraged to take pictures, told to spread out and get comfy, generally treated respectfully etc.!

After a few moments we were guided into a market where fairies or creatures (I’m not totally sure) were selling their wares. One of them came up to Derek and I and asked if we wanted some love potion, and then proceeded to spray us with this ‘love potion’, so we just love each other now! Then the police people who had let us in game in and were getting mad about stuff so we were ushered into the next area, which was set up as a little cabaret type club room. It was super effing neat.

The cabaret room had a stage rotating through performers, with a fairy type person singing beautifully, and another doing a strip tease type thing, and then the singer again. At this point one of the characters came up and started talking to me, asking where I was from and telling me about where they’d come from and how this space was meant to be a safe space for every species etc.. literally during this conversation a character ran in terrified and asking to be hidden, followed quickly by the police people searching for her and trying to get her. During this we were quickly ushered through the next door and submerged back into muggy reality!

After finishing up at the Amazon Prime Video Experience Derek and I rushed over to the abandoned Horton Plaza to check out the FYE shop, and buy a couple more Stranger Things shirts (because I can’t stop won’t stop loving my fave show Stranger Things). And then popped over to grab a bite to eat and a couple cold beverages before the show floor opened for the evening.

Going into the preview night I knew my first stop would be the Mondo booth… what a didn’t know was that it would be my only stop!

I struggled to figure out exactly how to get into the convention centre, which I had kind of expected after hearing Derek’s stories every year about every employee giving a different answer to the same questions. However as it ended up I entered the centre around row 3000, and needed to rapidly get to the Mondo booth located in row 400. I speed walked as hard as I could without jogging, and still ended up arriving at a line that went all the way from the booth in row 400, and ended near row 900. And this booth only ‘ended’ because it had been capped and there was a courageous Mondo-man, in a bad ass pink jacket, fending people away from the end of the line.

Everyone was being instructed to go away and check back in an 30 minutes, then in an hour, then eventually told that there was no way the Mondo line up would be opening again this night. You’d think that would mean the end of the line and everyone walks away. Turns out that is not how this business works. Right off the bat I decided to hover around the end of the line, figuring that was easier than coming back in 30 Minutes with no clue what was happening. I noticed a few other people milling about so I approached a couple dudes to find out if they were also waiting for the Mondo line. Turned out they were, and we quickly became best line buddies! Well I guess technically we weren’t in the line, but you know what I mean! Turns out Stephen does this on the regular in order to grab those sweet SDCC exclusives, so I was reassured that I was taking the right approach. So were apparently a billion other people.

Flash forward a couple hours later to a hover-hoard of probably a hundred people, and a multitude of bewildered security guards trying (unsuccessfully) to get everyone to scatter away from the Mondo line instead of clogging the congested aisle. The line had dwindled to almost nothing and our glorious Pink Jacket Prophet gathered us around him to share the secret that we would in fact have a shot at getting into the Mondo line! Our hovering paid off when PJP was searching through the crowd for the hardcore hoverers and picked Stephen (and by extension me, due to our newly forged best bud status). So long story short by 8:30 I was standing in front of the Mondo booth, sharing my nervous excitement with the excited for me Mondo employee, as I tried desperately to make sure I didn’t forget which very important things I had just waited almost 3 hours for! I ended up being to get the limited edition (just 125) Batman poster that I had my heart set on, and I felt like I friggin earned it!

After Mondo I awkwardly waddled over to our booth, trying desperately to dodge the sea of people, and managed to get that sweet sweet poster tucked away in the safety of a poster tube! I also found a Derek there, and we took the opportunity to use the last few minutes of opening night to go grab some cricket bars, in celebration of the new Snowpiercer show! Also fun fact, somehow crickets are related to shellfish so if you are allergic to shellfish don’t be trying to get in on that! (Isn’t evolution freaking crazy!?)

When the show floor closed we scooped Matt and Jon and hurried, as fast as our sore tired feet could take us, over to Lolita’s for some tacos!

Everyone had basically collapsed by the time dinner was done and it was all we could do to drag our sorry asses outta there and back to the hotel room. The amount of tired and sore happening in my body definitely made the thought of scootering waaay less scary, and we managed to scoot about 2/3 of the way home!

Now it’s midnight, I’m exhausted, and I’m gonna stop talking. Thursday is gonna be my busiest day and I am tired just thinking about it… but I’m also so stoked about all the neat stuff I’m gonna see and do! Talk to you soon!

Mikaela’s Journey To SDCC 2019: Part I

by Mikaela Maxwell

It’s been a few years now of watching Derek prep for SDCC, helping to pack up his belongings, and hiding secret love notes for him to find throughout his week away.

Derek and Matt getting some scoots in at SDCC 2018

The past couple of years, I’ve begun to dip my toe in the Geekscape waters… well, more like wade in all the way to my lady bits! I’ve been playing some games, doing some writing, jumping on podcasts, and most importantly turning our @GeekscapeForever insta into a cosplay dream scene. Last year I was able to funnel the on-site Geekscapist’s experiences at SDCC onto our Instagram page from afar.

Sweet cosplay spotted at SDCC 2018

But this year is a game changer. This year I’m diving in head first!

This year Mikaela is on scene at SDCC, taking it all in for the first time ever, and documenting every step of the way for the world to watch on @GeekscapeForever.

I am so incredibly excited… and nervous… and stoked about all the incredible things that are about to happen!

My journey started with a 2 AM wake up call from Derek, after sleeping a grand total of 3.5 hours, and a trek out to the airport with a Grumpasaurus Rex at my side! (Apparently Derek got even less sleep than I did, zero hours, and was not up to his usual perky standards!)

So excited to be taking off on our adventure, who needs a full night’s sleep!?

Despite our lack of sleep and moderate ability to function, we arrived at the airport and got off the ground without a hitch! I was once again reminded of how lucky we are to live on the west coast, watching a ferry float by as we began our flight toward Seattle. And on the next flight we got to fly right next to a mountain top poking through the clouds, so freaking beautiful! I have to remember how freaking fortunate we are to be on this amazing adventure when we are standing in yet another line a couple days from now!

Maybe Mt. Rainier?

On our flight from Seattle we listened to the pre-SDCC 2019 edition of the Geekscape podcast, and oh man was it ever funny, and not SDCC related at all! I don’t think I’ve ever laughed out loud so much while jammed into a giant flying air sausage with a bunch of other humans. It was also super cute to watch Derek get increasingly excited as we simultaneously got closer to San Diego and got closer to him seeing his friends after so long. I’m excited to see Jonathan again, to meet the rest of this posse that Derek loves so much, and to experience this amazing event that has such a huge impact on his life!

It’s funny – I’ve been so focused on prepping for doing the work we’ve come here to do, and figuring out what I want to check out, who I want meet, visiting people etc., that it never really hit me that we were actually just going on a sweet adventure to another part of the world as well! That is until we walked out of the airport and up to a sidewalk lined with freaking palm trees! Oh Hiiii California, we are in you!! So now I’m just getting extra excited. What a freaking adventure this week is gonna be!

San Diego is pretty amazing as soon as you step off the plane

We arrived at our hotel, which is basically 2 doors down from the convention centre and I felt like a small town poor girl showing up at a super fancy place where I didn’t belong, but was so thrilled to be there! Our hotel has amazing views of all the activities that are being put assembled around the convention centre and it’s pretty freaking great! And to top off the hotel experience somehow Jonathan, Matt, and Derek and I somehow all managed to arrive, from all over the place, there within minutes of each other!?

As quickly as we assembled, we peaced outta the hotel room and headed over to the convention centre to put together the booth. First though we had to stop off at ROCKIN BAJA For the infamous mango salsa! Honestly, it totally lived up to its hype and I would eat it any day! While there we also met up with Gui, another Geekscapist! This is my first time meeting Gui and Matt and I can see why Derek loves these people. These are truly his people, and all three of them are lovely!

The boys in their happy place… now where’s that mango salsa!?

After eating we truly went to set up the booth. Walking into the convention centre was pretty insane. I’ve been to a few different conventions now, though none of them at this scale, and I’ve never been behind the scenes on it before. It was super neat to walk into the chaos of hundreds of giant booths being madly assembled in a rush to be ready for Wednesday. It’s so crazy to have the curtain pulled back and see that all of this comes together just like anything else, with hard work and man power.

Setting up our booth was fun, I got to figure out how to put up the back drop, and meet a couple friends of Matt’s who came to help out. At one point we realized that the table cloth had been forgotten in LA. But then Gui and I came up with the great idea of covering the entire table in Geekscape post cards and the table top ended up looking soooo badass. So if you’re around come on by and check it out at booth 3919, just don’t set anything down on it cause you’ll never be able to find it again 😂

Oh… what booth is this again!?

After getting the booth half set up, sweating sooo much, and deciding the rest could be done tomorrow, we split up and Derek went to track down a sweet Stranger Things Soundtrack cassette tape At the FYE shop. Meanwhile Jon, Gui, and I finished the sweet table top and headed out to meet up with everyone else for dinner. We ended up at the Coin-Op Game Room for dins and drinks and loud conversation. Then split off again to do a couple errands before rendezvousing back at the hotel. What a freaking day.

It’s been a pretty crazy, unbelievable, overwhelming day. My heart feels full and my body feels tired and we haven’t even started yet!? And I am so ready to see what tomorrow brings!

Our Favourite Cosplay From Emerald City Comic-Con 2019!

by Mikaela Maxwell

Cosplay is always my favourite thing about a convention, and this year’s Emerald City Comic Con absolutely did not disappoint! It doesn’t hurt that ECCC is home of the Western Championships Of Cosplay, which means that on Saturday lots of people are out in literally their finest outfits. I spent most of my weekend hanging around the outside courtyard area of the convention centre, in awe as so many amazing creations floated by. It was pretty neat to talk to people and take pictures of their costumes, only to see them a few hours later on stage competing in the cosplay competition. I am always baffled by the creativity and skill that goes into creating these masterpieces. It is quite amazing to see how people take a concept that is often designed for animation or movie magic, and somehow manage to create a physical version of it that is functional enough for them to walk around the convention, while still being true to form enough that people actually recognize who they are!

Here, I have compiled a few of my favourites from this year. This list is by no means exhaustive, and is not in any particular order. I could have added one million more but had to be a little reasonable, so keep an eye out on the @GeekscapeForever Instagram page for more! I am so grateful to all of the people who graciously took the time to stop and pose and share their information with me, so please take a scroll through and marvel at some ECCC cosplay gems! 

Mandalorean Medic
Mandalorean Medic by @Kolhokan
Steampunk Ursula by @thelanie27
Green Goblin, who competed in Saturday nights Western Championships Of Cosplay, by @vitaminjaydoherty, and Spiderman by @Vtk23
@Autumnreigncosplay as the Jester from Critical Role
@thetattoodprincess as a magnificent Princess Aurora
@Essi.Cosplay as Sigrun Mercy
@gam3rbarbie as Pink Mercy
Mortal Combat’s Scorpion by @Eshelman.leatherworks
@Keirasera as Astrid from How to Train Your Dragon
@Nerdalertcosplay as Lord Zedd from Power Rangers
@corvidaecosplay as The Emerald City! So Clever!
@Imagicite_cosplay and @chandler.darling as the Queen of Hearts and Mad Hatter
@Telesto_cosplay as Queen Amidala, who competed in Saturday night’s Western Championships Of Cosplay
@corsi_morning_woodworking as an epic Snorlax
@Hattamarch as White Diamond from Steven Universe
@downen_creative_studios in her Athena inspired costume!
@Bhcosplay in his Skyrim Dragon Bone Armour
@emma_bumblebee and @zekeg15 as the cutest Ariel and Eric
@owa_dowa dressed her kid up as a super creepy Georgie… and we are loving it!
Punk Merida by @chandler.darling
Unique dragon design created by @ladyduvessa
@tirameowsucosplay put an excellent feminine twist on The Witcher’s Geralt
@brittanyblackhp shone as Belle
Amazing Gray Fox from Metal Gear by @Diegator007
Spectacular Ariel by @chelsey_gentry
@thatonecosplayergirl as an epic Rey!

Thanks for checking out the cosplay I spotted at ECCC 2019! Keep an eye on @GeekscapeForever for even more Cosplay from various conventions, and stay tuned for all the epic cosplay that we discover at SDCC 2019 in July!

Featured image Princess Celestia by millyxcraft

Mikaela’s Emerald City Comic-Con 2019 Recap: Friday

by Mikaela Maxwell

I finished off day one (read about it here) with a full tummy and a playthrough of a couple of sweet tabletop games. As I crawled into bed and waited for Derek to finish being so responsible and editing all of the Geekscape things, I decided to crack open my new graphic novel Rosalynd and give it a go. To my surprise I devoured it. The art style is incredible, and if I knew more about that sort of thing I could probably describe it, but I don’t, so you’ll just have to take my word for it. The story also captured me immediately and I was drawn right in. After a long day and a good dose of exhaustion I literally could not put it down and finished it in one sitting. I am currently sitting here contemplating just how to adjust my budget so I can go and pick up the Stephan Franck books that I had already decided I wouldn’t be interested in.

After finishing my book I promptly passed the eff out. I woke up this morning to Derek returning from the shower, throwing his underwear at me, and yelling BAKUGAN BRAWL!!! When I read this back that kinda makes him sounds like a total dick, but actually it was pretty hilarious and on point considering BAKUGAN BRAWL has pretty much been our mantra for the last two days.

We slowly organized ourselves to leave the Airbnb (and its sweet old man pug) to head over to Courtney’s Aunt’s place, who is so graciously putting us up for the rest of the weekend in the loveliest apartment. Walking into this new place to stay was a breath of fresh air and a reminder of how incredibly fortunate we are to be doing what we are doing. Sometimes the universe really does deliver in amazing ways, and I need a little reminder to look around and appreciate what’s being handed to me. The craziest thing about this whole process was the amount of chill embodied by Derek. Anyone who has done anything with Derek will know that ‘early is on time, and on time is late’, so when he was in no rush to be anywhere on time I quickly came to the conclusion that some sort of body snatching situation has happened… the jury is still out.

What a beautiful view.

On our way out to the con we quickly realized that actually we were starving. So we popped around the corner to a little French cafe. This actually turned out to be super delicious — I had some sort of flakey pastry filled with spinach and tomatoes and olives… basically just a whole pile of yumminess! And the woman in there serving us was so incredibly happy, warm and lovely. She was a positive ray of sunshine and a perfect start to the day!

This thing was amazing.

Upon arriving to ECCC you have to take a bunch of escalators to get to the main show floor on the 4th floor. Before we made it that far I got distracted by a sewing machine display! Singer is sponsoring the cosplay competition on Saturday night and has a few machines on display out side of the cosplay repair room. I’ve recently gotten into quilting and embroidery, and so this piqued my interest! I few weeks ago I made a WWE pillow for Derek’s birthday present and spent at least 15 hours on just the embroidery part (totes worth it though, It turned out great, he was surprised, and and I’m super proud of it!). That being said it, was quite amazing to me to watch a machine embroidering detailed pictures in such a short period of time and without needing to be controlled by a person at all! They also had this amazing foot that literally does the gathering for you!!??! Which after gathering a whole bunch of fabric to create the pink Eleven dress from Stranger Things, I have a whole new appreciation for!

The Daniel Bryan championship styled pillow that I made Derek for his birthday.

As we got closer to the action I realized that today was going to be a busier day, and I was excited. Every time we go to a convention the thing I am most stoked on is all the amazing cosplay. I love taking photos and talking to people about their outfits. Yesterday felt like just a little taster of what was to come today and I was so stoked for it. However today as I walked around seeing so many people’s incredible costumes I recognized myself becoming increasingly anxious about the thought of interacting with people. I am a (probably not unusual) combination of outgoing and incredibly shy. Usually it takes me a few tries to get into the swing of approaching people for their photos, but today I just couldn’t get over my anxiety and never really found my stride. I still talked to people and took lots of cosplay photos, but it felt stressful and awkward and I didn’t enjoy it nearly as much as I usually do. I’m really hoping that tomorrow will be a different story, but If not that’s ok, I’ll still do what I came here to do, but I really want to get that joyful spark out of it.

Yes, this super cute dog was dressesd as Simba, and yes, I did love it.

After wandering outside for a bit we decided to hit the show floor again. Word on the street was the Harper-Collins booth would be giving out a free book if you mentioned the secret password ‘doughnut’. So I approached the booth and asked one of the guys if they happened to have any doughnuts left, cause I heard you could get a doughnut there. To which he replied ‘Oh really? I didn’t know we had doughnuts! I must have missed them!’. I walked away feeling unsure if he knew what I was talking about, or if he thought I was legit asking for sugary treats, or if Derek was doing the whole thing to trick me for his own entertainment. Either way no free books were to be had today.

We then split up and I made my way over to a panel called ’Step Up Your Cosplay Photography’, featuring a few cosplay photographers and cosplayers from the Seattle area. It was interesting, and refreshing to be reminded that this is a hobby that anyone can get into at any time. They talked a lot about different ways to network with other cosplayers/photographers (mostly social media), as well as different strategies for optimizing photos (mostly scout out your location and do a little research about the character so you know how to pose), both parties need to set boundaries and expectations (around when photos will be delivered, posting to social media, poses you’re not comfortable with etc). The biggest take away was definitely communication, communication and more communication. Oh, also don’t be a jerk to people and they probably won’t be a jerk to you! Take away the cosplay framework and it was just generally good life advice!

Pretty quickly after the panel Derek, Courtney, Jake and I all met up, acknowledged that we were hitting a wall and decided to forage for food a couple blocks from the chaos of the convention. Last time we were in Seattle Courtney introduced us to Din Tai Fung, supplier of the most delicious soup dumplings, and we have been fantasizing about it ever since. So when we realized how attainable these dumplings were, we made it happen, and oh man it did not disappoint! If you ever get the chance I highly recommend visit this restaurant, and if you can bring a menu expert with you I definitely support that!

After refuelling I felt like I might be able to take on ECCC again and we headed back that way. Immediately I got distracted by so much cosplay. I took a picture of a wicked Darth Vader, and proceeded to make a real ass outta myself as I asked him for his instagram handle and misunderstood his Vader mask accent one million times before he gave up and handed me a card. It was awkward. I felt dumb. But really it is so hard to understand Vader!

Sorry, Vadey.

When we finally got moving again we made our way back to Artist Alley and finally got to check out a good chunk of it. Oh man there are so many things I want! It is unbelievable how talented people are, and so cool that so many different types of art by so many different people are all crowded into one lil area, just so we get to enjoy the fruits of their labour! It always amazes me when you walk by a booth and see someone working on a commission, I don’t know how they do it with so many distractions around, and still manage to create such incredible beauty.

I grabbed a set of four beautiful greeting cards, and a postcard sized print of Rey from Star Wars done in a Alphonse Mucha style. There were so many other things that I wanted to bring home with me, but I am trying to restrain myself a wee bit… for now anyways!

At this point Derek and Jake had gone off to watch a bunch of Alien shorts, and Courtney and I were left to our own devices. Usually when walking around cons with Derek I am the chatty one, but it was a marvel to see Courtney connect with people at almost every booth we stopped at. She is a big fan of Studio Ghibli, and sports a couple of awesome Ghibli tattoos, which opened up a lot of conversations with people as it seems many artists like to do varied and beautiful Ghibli renditions. After this weekend I’ve decided I need to get it together and watch some of this business! I wanna find my favourite one so I can get all the cute arts!

We walked Artist Alley until the convention shut down for the day, then Courtney and I sat in the atrium and watched people wind down and head out while we waited for the boys. It was super nice to see all the cosplayers chatting and connecting as they no longer needed to pose for passers by and had time to compare notes on the day’s experiences.

After a quick and cheap Lyft back to the apartment we got to kick our feet up and relax for a little while before heading down to the sweet sweet hot tub and pool! This was quickly followed up by a delivery of Buffalo Wild Wings and my realization that I had run outta fun time and need to get cracking on my writing!

That’s a lot of boxes.

I am exhausted, and content. I am feeling super fortunate and so full of gratitude. I am very much looking forward to whatever tomorrow has to throw at us!

Be sure to look for a frequent stream of cosplay photos on our Instagram, @Geekscapeforever!

Mikaela’s Emerald City Comic-Con 2019 Recap – Thursday

by Mikaela Maxwell

This year marks my second Emerald City Comic-Con (ECCC), my first repeat con, and my fourth total convention… So at this point I have enough experience to be so stoked, and to anticipate high levels of exhaustion, but am still naive enough to be totally blown away and overwhelmed by the experience. It’s a pretty good place to be, and I feel pretty danged lucky to be living this life right about now.

Our ECCC trip started early this morning when we rolled our tired butts outta bed to get on the road and make it to Seattle for a soft ten. Derek did the driving, Jake held it down in the back seat, and I napped on and off… did I mention how lucky I am?! What a dream! Once we were settled into our AirBnb (which had the cutest freaking Pug in the yard) we made our way to the convention centre. We easily made our way in and were surprised at how freaking chill it is! It turns out that Thursday is the best day for avoiding crowds! Last year I was in school and had to rush down after class on Friday just to get a couple of days in, but this year we get to do the whole four days, and I’m hoping that we will be able to go on the first day every time we do anything ever, because it is so slow and relaxed, the perfect way to start a convention!

We found our way to the main floor and were immediately swept up into a game of Bakugan. I had never heard of it before, but apparently they were around in the early 2000’s and are making a comeback. It was legit a lot of fun, mostly because you get to play with these little plastic creatures that roll up into balls and then explode and dictate what happens that turn! It’s also a card game, which I had an easier time getting on board with since I have become an avid player of Keyforge: Call of the Archons! Because it was such a chill day I was lucky to have one of the employee guys at my side helping me figure out what to do for most of the game, which was suuuper helpful. Man, I wish I could just have an expert at my side answering my questions for all of life’s tasks! I ended up with a surprise win too which was a real thrill, and I thoroughly enjoyed rubbing it in Derek’s face!

The Bakugan guys asked if we would like to join a tournament which I immediately said no to, and in turn immediately regretted when we heard a roar of excitement go up from the crowd and watched two people step into a caged ring with a table in it to commence the tourney! It was a pretty awesome spectacle to watch all this people screaming and yelling about Bakugan Brawls as this guys battled. It was super fun even to just watch!

Yeah, Derek really wants to pick it up now…

After this we decided to just explore the main show floor. I figured this would be a great day to do it as there wasn’t 4,000,000 people in the place. Turns out even without the crowds we did not make it through one whole floor before we had to call it a day, I was flabbergasted. However I thoroughly enjoyed feeling un-rushed and just pausing to look at whatever struck our interest.

For the first time I went out of my way to grab something from the convention’s specific merchandise booth. I am a huge Stranger Things fan and this year ECCC will be hosting some of the Stranger Things cast, and there is an ECCC exclusive cover for the first edition of the Stranger Things comic. I was super anxious about getting a copy of the comic before they ran out so I made us take a pit stop to grab it part way through the day. I am so friggin excited about it, and am totally gonna frame it to display in our house. It’s also kinda poetic, since at the first convention I ever went to (Fan Expo Vancouver a few years back) one of the most special things I bought was a comic with a commissioned cover where the artist drew a classic Eleven from Stranger Things (I also made Derek an epic Eleven halloween costume, so I might be a bit of a fan!)

Such a cool cover!

We continued to walk around, looking at comics, games, art, and spending way to much time reading the back of so many amazing looking books. I ended up buying myself a book, Blackfish City by Sam J. Miller, but it was sooo hard to choose! There was a lady with red hair, who’s name I wish I knew so I could give her internet props right here, at the Harper-Collins booth who literally knew sooo much about every book and was so helpful and informative, and I can’t wait to start the book I picked! I also got a free book with my purchase, and a Neil Gaiman bag which is pretty much the bomb, especially since I am on a real Neil Gaiman kick right now (If you haven’t read The Ocean at the End of the Lane stop right now and go find it. So. Good…. Also Neverwhere and The Graveyard Book are stellar stories by this great man!)

We got sucked into a booth by a man holding out his hand and saying something that I didn’t quite understand. I mostly just felt awkward and shook his hand, but then he asked if we read comics, and when I said we mostly didn’t he decided that his might be the one for us. I know this sounds pushy and off putting but it was actually great, he instructed us to open the series he was selling and see if it spoke to us. Immediately I knew that it wasn’t my style, even though I would have liked it to be, I just wasn’t drawn in by it, which he totally picked up on and was not offended by. He then opened up another book for us and immediately I was invested. The book is called Rosalynd, and it’s a graphic novel written in a diary style from the perspective of a young girl who will grow up to be a vampire hunter. Between the three of us I’m pretty sure it became blaring obvious that I didn’t want to put this book down. Without even consulting me Derek asked to purchase it and the gent who were were talking to, who happened to be both author and illustrator, promptly signed it for me! I’m stoked! As we walked away Derek informed me that this person, Stephan Franck, was a supervising animator on The Iron Giant. I was floored, and extra stoked!

In my wanderings today I found so many different things that I want to read. It was really hard to not buy everything, and even harder to have all these conversations with people who are so proudly discussing with you their heart’s work, and then having to make the decision to walk away even though you are so interested, just not rich enough for all the things. I am glad I have the rest of the weekend to decide on some of the things I feel torn over not buying. There was a really interesting erotic graphic novel that I was super stoked on, and I’m pretty sure if I’m still thinking about it by Sunday it is going to be coming home with me! I’m also hoping to bring home at least one print, although I found a whole bunch today that I really like, and we haven’t even ATTEMPTED Artist Alley yet, so wish me luck in narrowing it down to just one! Last year there were a couple of prints I snagged that I totally love and have proudly displayed on our kitchen wall, it was pretty cool to see the same artists having booths here this year.

We also stumbled across Laika’s The Missing Link characters, which was super cool! We had some Monster Energy Java samples, found a both repping Pet Semetery, that literally had nothing but a few employee who were googling just what the heck Pet Semetary was and handing out little branded flashlights… it was a bit odd.

Once we decided to make our way out we quickly hopped into the Jelly Belly BeanBoozled booth to take the gross flavoured vs good flavoured Jelly Belly challenge. I literally ate 3 jelly beans that were supposed to be either dirty dishwasher or birthday cake and they all tasted the exact same amount of sugary sweetness and not gross at all… I’m pretty sure I was just enjoying the dirty dishwasher flavour *hangs head in shame*

In case you can’t handle your bean.

We then took a Lyft over to a Japanese grocery store, which was super neat (and where we bought a peach-flavoured Coca-Cola), where we met our friends and then headed back to our AirBnb. Now, remember how I talked about feeling lucky? Picture this: our friends literally went grocery shopping (and more importantly beverage shopping) for all of us today, and after arriving at home they made dinner for us while we worked on writing. How freaking amazing is that?!

All in all this day has been pretty freaking amazing. I feel so happy and absolutely fortunate to be able to enjoy this experience, and so frigging grateful to the people around me who have helped make this day super lovely. Special shout out to Derek for not only introducing me to this magical geeky life, but for also taking every opportunity to encourage me and spoil me as much as he can. I can’t to wait to see what the rest of this weekend brings!

Such a neat sight, at such a cool convention centre!

PAX West 2018: ‘Bee Simulator’, ‘Party Golf’, and ‘Leisure Suit Larry’ Made For An Eclectic Mix Of Experiences!

by Mikaela Maxwell

Sunday felt like my busiest day at this year’s PAX West. I had completed a couple of interviews (look for them on the Geekscape Games audio feed in the coming days) and game demos on Saturday (I get in depth with Damnview: Built From Nothing here), attended the Bethesda Gameplay Days event (which Derek wrote about here), attended a panel about casual cosplay make up, and we recorded a nearly two-hour long podcast, it was a non-stop day! But Sunday was booked to be busy on a whole different level, I found myself staring at my calendar and realizing I would struggle to even find time to pee! Never the less, I was stoked because I was set to start my day off with a bang… or should I say a BUZZZZZ!

Bee Simulator

I’m not really sure why, but in the days leading up to PAX West, Bee Simulator had become my most anticipated game – maybe it has something to do with knowing that Bees are so very important and yet it is proving difficult for us to modify our behaviour in a way that stops them from dying. Because I was so excited,  waking up bright and early on Sunday morning after a late night of podcasting was no problem at all. I found Bee Simulator on the 6th floor in the Indie Games Poland booth which was hosting a number of independent game developers. There were already a couple people there demoing the game and getting pretty into it, so I was excited pretty stoked when it was my turn.

I had a chance to chat with Lukasz Rosinski, founder of Varsav Game Studios, and the man who came up with the idea for Bee Simulator. It turns out that a couple of years ago Lukasz was reading a book about bees to his young daughter, and realized the lives of bees would make an awesome video game. The goal of creating Bee Simulator was to make a chill-out game that children and parents could play easily together, while facilitating understanding about bees lives and how they are endangered by humans. They came up with a way to turn the lives of bees into an arcade style game that has many elements of simulation and education. There are so many educational elements, but it simply doesn’t feel like an educational game. I quickly noticed that all of the little points in a regular game, usually during a loading screen, where you’re learning tips about gameplay, in this game you’re instead learning tips about bee life that are also helpful for playing the game.

Although the game is designed to play with children, it’s also designed to be challenging for adults. They have managed this by creating two different sets of mechanics for game play, one that’s a little more straight forward and puts more emphasis on speed and fun than on accuracy, and another that’s more challenging by requiring more accuracy, and requires more specific gathering strategies etc… Basically, the mechanics are simpler for kids (or Mikaela’s), but will be more complex for adults. For example, on the more challenging setting you need to collect the pollen in the right colour order in order to make the music play correctly and obtain the achievement, or go through smaller rings and come closer to natural enemies of bees such as frogs, wasps, and humans.

There are three different gameplay modes: a single player campaign, a cooperative mode that has you working together or having little competitions such as racing/dancing/collecting pollen, and a free flight mode that allows you to go back after finishing the game in order to find and unlock all of the achievements. Turns out bees use dancing as a way of leading other bees to the hottest pollen pick up spots! Who even knew there was so much to know about bees!? Well if you are like me and had no idea, and also like learning without realizing you’re learning, this game is for you, the amount of bee facts I picked up from this half hour demo are more than all of the other bee facts I have ever known. Bees are fascinating!

The world of bees in this game is designed after a huge expanse of Central Park for New York, which is about 1/3 of Central Park, but from the bee perspective you are playing in this is enormous. You also get a detailed inside hive perspective from the 5 roomed hive within a tree (that’s at risk of being cut down by senseless humans!). You start out in the hive, and one of the first things I noticed was the richness of the colours and textures and the beauty of the light pouring into the tree. The beauty of the game setting continues as you leave the hive and enter the big bad world of Central Park with dazzling colours and HUGE plants/animals/people!

The mechanics of this game seem pretty straightforward. I would likely be more comfortable starting with the ‘kids’ mode as it would allow me to fully play without being totally frustrated by trying to make things work, whereas more pro gamers would likely enjoy the challenges of the ‘adult’ mode. By visiting the queen be you receive quests, and can also receive side quests from other characters. The tasks you need to do are interesting and complex. For example: Bees are required to go out and pick up pollen, then need to bring it back to the hive, which makes you heavier and slower. However, like in real life if a bee needs more energy to pick up more speed to get back to the hive they may eat some of the pollen they have collected. It also tracks the amount of pollen you pick up throughout the game and you are required to pick up the amount an average bee will pick up during their life in order to finish the game.

This game isn’t designed to be stressful, dangerous, or fast paced. It is designed to create a chill environment that allows the player to relax and wind down while engaging in something interesting, either with their family or friends, or by themselves. The music throughout this game is perfect for creating that zen atmosphere. The composer for the sound track was none other than Mikołaj Stroiński, who was created the soundtrack for games such as The Witcher and The Vanishing of Ethan Carter. You’ll also notice the graphics in this game are absolutely beautiful, AND it turns out the graphics team is comprised totally of women! I thought this was pretty neat as the video game industry has traditionally been a pretty male dominated field.

I learned soooo much about bees just during this demo, but you learn all this and more while you are playing, because these become things you need to know to be successful in the game. It is such a neat concept, as literally every game you pick up you have to learn something in order to play it well, why not make it something that actually applies to an important part of the world around you… BEES! There are so many more interesting details about this game, so make sure to take a listen to the interview I had with Lukasz on the Geekscape Games audio feed in the coming days! Bee Simulator flies onto Xbox One, Steam, PS4, and Switch later this year!

Party Golf / Wandering

Once I finished bee simulating I had a little bit of time to kill before my next appointment, so I decided to check out the 6th floor a little bit. I made it all of about 3 booths in before I became totally distracted by bright light and neon colours. I stopped at the Giant Margarita booth, promoting their games Party Golf and the newer Party Crashers to check out what was going on. By this I mean I slowly crept forward, repeatedly saying I didn’t have time to get into it, until finally I was playing Party Golf until they had to cut me off cause it was someone else turn. After which I immediately went and found Derek and brought him over to show him the next party game we have to buy.

I don’t have a huge amount of proper info to give about this game as I didn’t have time to stick around and talk to the developer about it or anything, but what I can tell you is that it is suuuuper fun and engaging… and it really had nothing to do with golf. Basically you control a golfball and your goal is to get it into the hole, the person who does it first is the winner. The game is available on Steam, PS4, and Switch, and is headed to Xbox One soon. It’s predominantly played couch-coop style in groups of up to 8 people.

You have the option to play randomly generated levels, not knowing what each landscape is going to look like, which was fine by me cause it was just super fun and simple and quick to play. You also have the option to customize each round that you play with over 300 customizable features. For example, the game I was playing at first was normal, then there were mines in the sky that exploded you in different directions on impact, then the bounce of our balls was drastically decreased which added a whole new level of challenge. We also played a mode where the goal was to bounce each other off of the screen, so naturally I was immediately out on most of those levels, but that was ok cause once you were out you could still mess with other people! Great fun!

When Derek and I came back we got the chance to demo Party Crashers in a topdown handheld switch style. This was basically a racing game, but similar to Party Golf, there are a bajillion different ways in which it can be modified to change the challenges. I have never so immediately been so good at a game, I was lapping everyone like it was nobodies business! Then the demo guy started trying to give Derek some instruction on how to get himself out of the corner… this was when I realized that I was not infact the brown car whizzing around the track, but instead the white car that was going in the wrong direction from the start line and stuck in a corner so badly that I was just handed a new controller to play as a different car… facepalm.

However, user errors aside, both games were super fun. With simple and aesthetically pleasing graphics, using lots of neon bright colours, and fun music to go along with it. I can see how they would be a hit at any party, and I can’t wait to play them at home with friends and lots of yelling!

After the Giant Margarita booth Derek and I had to rush over to an appointment at the Question booth to demo their new co-op horror game The Blackout Club. I won’t go into too much detail here as Derek wrote about the game right here; however, the game looks super neat. The premise is that adults are sleep walking at night in this small town that is cut off from the outside world and the teens in the town are trying to figure out what in the hell is going on, while trying in the daytime to get their parents, teachers, neighbours, really any adult to just believe that this is even happening. All the while they are at risk of being caught by The Shape, which could happen at anytime, as you won’t know it’s there until you close your eyes! Immediately, like literally less than a minute into the freaking tutorial for this game I was super freaked out! I can’t wait to play this one either. Be sure to check out the Geekscape Games feed to find our audio interview with Question co-founder Stephen Alexander in the coming days.

I ended up abandoning Derek at The Blackout Club so he could wait to get in on a group playing session, while I headed over to my appointment with Corey Clark of Balanced Media Technology. Balanced Media Technology is an amazing company that is harnessing the computing power of the gaming community to do data analysis for the medical field. Actually it is way more complicated than that and I am still working to wrap my head around it, but here is a little explanation from their website:

BALANCED Media | Technology is purpose driven to globally improve health, empower industry innovation, and assist problem solving through cross-disciplinary collaboration using gaming and computer science. BALANCED connects communities of developers, researchers, foundations, and industry in cross disciplinary collaboration allowing them to create tools and techniques never before available.

It was one of the most interesting and impactful things I came across this weekend at PAX West, and totally opened my eyes to the intersection between gaming/computing and the medical field. I will be uploading the audio interview I had with Corey, as well as writing an article about what I learned, so keep an eye out on the site in the near future for these!

Leisure Suit Larry: Wet Dreams Don’t Dry

After having this amazing heartfelt, in-depth dicussion about power of technology in the medical field, I made my way over to the Theodore Hotel to meet with the team for Leisure Suit Larry: Wet Dreams Don’t Dry… I think the title speaks for itself pretty well, and I’m sure you can imagine it was a bit of a mindfuck to go from one subject to the next. That being said, if I hadn’t just been crying about the story of a kid curing his brain cancer with the empowering help of video games, I probably would have gotten into the Leisure Suit Larry mindset a little easier! But I managed to get caught up in the hilarity of this ridiculous game by the end of the demo.

The first of the Leisure Suit Larry games came onto the scene in 1987, with many more to follow, and the latest iteration, Leisure Suit Larry: Wet Dreams Don’t Dry, is coming from developer CrazyBunch out of Germany. This game has the 1987 Larry Laffer waking up in 2018, with no idea how or why he is there, and really we never get into that, that’s not the point. Instead we get to see the cringe worthy Larry try to work his magic (or lack there of) on the ladies of the 21st century. Its is truly laughable. I don’t know what dating was like in the 80’s, but it certainly did not involve Tinder or Instagram and all of the foibles that come with every 21st century person having a phone glued to their face! Larry quickly becomes aquatinted with ‘Timber’, ‘Instacrap’, and ‘FarceBook’ as he tries to get to the woman of his dreams!

Honestly, I can see how this game would not appeal to many people as it is crass and cheesy and full of so many sexual innuendos… But I can also see how the ridiculous humour would totally appeal to those who aren’t a stick in the mud, or who have a fond little soft spot in their heart from the previous Larry games. I fall right into the middle there, I am totally into the raunchiness of this game, and until this point was 100% unaware that any version of Larry had ever existed (Sorry Jonathan)! I love that this game doesn’t take itself seriously, and goes out of its way to make fun of its hero at every possible turn. It does a great job of turning so many aspects of society that we so blindly accept into a freaking joke, allowing you to reflect on our own reality as totally ridiculous!

The art is fun and bubbly, the characters are hand drawn, and if you pay attention there are so many references hidden throughout the game. One of my favourite examples of this is when Larry goes to take a prototype phone he has found back to the companies headquarters and walks up to a large building that is clearly a giant phalus that sports a fountain right on top, providing us with a visual that any 14 year old boy would appreciate (along with most of my family I’m sure). This building has a rainbow fruit symbol on it, that is clearly supposed to mimic an Apple logo, but also very clearly supposed to mimic a vulva, especially when the elevator doors in the same shape open to let Larry enter. At one point Larry goes into a sex shop that has so many (barely) hidden images even the people who have worked on this game are still discovering little things here and there that they had neglected to notice until now.

The gameplay seems pretty straight forward – it’s a point and click game and seems as though it will indicate all the possible things you can explore as you work your way through this non linear story line. The main goal of the game is for Larry to increase his Timber score through dating various women, until it reaches 90% so he can date the super fine character Faith. There are puzzles throughout and lots to explore. This game has been designed by a group of millenials who aren’t afraid to poke fun at themselves, and honestly I can’t wait to give it a real shot! There are so many hidden gems buried within this game, I really can’t wait to see whats in store! Leisure Suit Larry: Wet Dreams Don’t Dry releases November 7th.

PAX West 2018: Mikaela Is Already Addicted To ‘Damnview: Built From Nothing’

by Mikaela Maxwell

My second day of PAX began by heading to the Grand Hyatt to meet Juan De La Torre, Edu Verz, and Fernando Ortega of Brainwash Gang and Sindiecate Arts, the creators of Damnview: Built From Nothing, to demo and talk about the intriguing-sounding title. I found them hunkered down in the lobby on some couches, setting up to play on a computer with an Xbox controller. It was so totally casual, and not crowded or loud, which was a great departure from the rest of the PAX set up. I arrived a few minutes early, so I tucked myself away in a corner to quickly watch a gameplay trailer, as I hadn’t had much to go on to prepare for the interview (which you’ll be able to hear on Geekscape Games this coming week). Immediately, I was struck by two things: “oh god what have I signed myself up for, this doesn’t look like a game I would ever be drawn to,” and “wow this looks really interesting and I’m so glad I have signed up to find out more about it.”

Going into this meeting, I didn’t really know what to expect, I had just enough information to be hooked in, without enough to anticipate anything. The description I got of this game was: “I can’t share the name just yet as it’s unannounced, but the game is a simulation sandbox world examining occidental culture and its different social classes – conceptually it’s easy to relate it to Stardew Valley, where a set of systems put together the overall gameplay experience, except it reflects our western capitalistic society and its effect on our human spirit.”

I basically read this and thought: I LOVE Stardew Valley, plus capitalism IS awful… so YES! I am so in. In fact I’m pretty sure that was my exact emailed response. 

Upon meeting up with the guys we immediately watched the trailer again, this time with sound on, and what a difference that makes! The music accompanying the trailer is hauntingly beautiful and spells out a wonderful story. I am still wondering if the story at the beginning of the trailer is a symbol of the possibilities and random chance of life/the game, or if it is actually a storyline that is present within the game. As they explained the game things got a little bit clearer and I got more and more invested… Oh my goodness I can not wait to play this game in full! 

The style of characters in Damnview is pretty great. The landscape is drab and gritty, giving you the impression of a defunct society. It is done in an 8-bit style, but smoothed out a little to be more accessible to a wider audience. The characters are anthropomorphized animals, all different kinds, and from what I saw this seems like a great choice! Something about playing a game that can sometimes feel depressingly similar to real life is made much more enjoyable when you are a moose. Its funny that I, and obviously many other people, love to play games where you are basically living this characters life and going through the day to day tasks required to hold down a job, eat food, have a place to sleep. This game has all of those things and more, there are a wide variety of ways in which you can play the game, and goals you can choose to work towards. What you are doing really depends on what it is you are trying to accomplish and you get to choose what that is. It all just depends what kind of lifestyle you want your character to lead, what you want to put effort into,  and what kinds of challenges you wants them to face. 

Damnview: Built From Nothing takes life simulation to the next level. Every single thing you do has a legit consequence that impacts your game play. Accidentally crash your car, cool you have to pay for repairs now.  Late for work because you crashed your car, cool you’re fired now. Lost your job, cool you can’t afford to pay rent, guess you better find a good street spot to sleep now. Can’t catch a break and wanna get off the street, maybe you sell a little bit of weed, make a little bit of money. That feels pretty good, don’t need to sleep on the street any more, maybe you sell more drugs and with that strategy manage to move up in the world. Just hope you don’t get caught cause then you’re going to jail. End up in jail, welp now you gotta figure out how to work that system. Are you gonna smuggle stuff in and get ahead in prison, or are you gonna play by the rules in hopes of getting out earlier? 

On the other hand, you stay and work all the hours at work, cool you get a promotion, maybe you buy the laundromat, now you can move up in the world and maybe someday you can buy yourself a nice house and a nice car…. Literally the options are endless! Amazing. 

I got to watch Edu, one of the creators, play the game throughout our interview, which was great! He made driving look really easy, he got through his daily tasks quickly and went about his day fairly nonchalantly. If you want to hear the interview that we did during this you will have to keep an eye out for our up coming Geekscape Games podcast in which we will be compiling all of our audio interviews with the developers we spoke to over PAX weekend.

After finishing our interview I asked for a chance to play. I prefaced this by letting them know that I’m not so good at the video games, but actually as soon as I started playing it felt pretty easy and natural to navigate. The character I was playing worked in a laundromat, so I got into picking the clothes, putting them in the washer, making sure to separate colours/blacks/whites (which made my heart so happy as this is a constant battle in my household), choosing the right heat setting, etc etc. So it actually became quite involved to do this laundry, and customers were piling up, and as soon as I stopped getting any direction I messed up all the loads of laundry, and likely lost the guy a bunch of customers. 

Once I had thoroughly messed that up I was about ready to change gears, and headed out to the street to drive the car around. Driving was super intuitive, with straightforward controls that made sense, although may take some getting used to. One thing that really stood out for me is that you have to drive properly! I mean I failed miserably at this, but in the game there are consequences for your driving ability. So you need to make sure you are stopping at stop signs and using your turn signals! I joked that playing this game, people would learn to drive a little better in real life too… probably not though. You also have to think things through and put in some practice time to work toward a goal, for example if you are going to be robbing a bank, well you better be a good driver before you do that, otherwise you are never going to get away with it. 

This game is definitely situated in a capitalist, consumer driven society, and although your character is not necessarily born into a particular class, you definitely find your place within the class structure and deal with the daily consequences of that. One acute and very realistic example of this is the stamina bar. As you do tasks and spend time being awake your stamina bar will deplete. If you are working a well paying job then you will be able to afford higher quality food and your stamina bar will go up quickly. However if you are working an entry level job, you will only be able to afford junk food, which won’t raise your stamina as much and you will have to do all of your work with less energy to get you through the day. Gah! The struggle is REAL!

Basically I am so stoked for this game, and if you have enjoyed playing Stardew Valley type games and have any amount of social consciousness, I think there is a very good chance you could enjoy it too! 

So keep a look out for it next year on PS4 and PC. And if you want to hear me talk about Damnview even more, you can hear me talk about the game on this episode of the Geekscape Games Podcast.

PAX West 2018: Mikaela’s First Day At PAX West Started Off With A Bang!

by Mikaela Maxwell

My first day at PAX West 2018 started off with a bang! 

Well, actually the day started with Myself, Derek, and Jake rolling into Seattle to meet Courtney at one in the morning just aching for sleep. We managed to attempt to sleep for a while, Courtney and I did alright, Jake and Derek not so much. Then woke at the crack of 0630 (ugh…) and attempted to start our day, knowing we wanted to leave at 0730 so we could get our badges early and get cracking. Well, we woke up at 0630, but definitely didn’t leave on time as an exhausted Derek had to take a work call, and then proceeded to become a barfzilla. By the time we left we had to hustle to get our badges and then I literally had to run away from our little posse as I was ten minutes away from being late for my first ever PAX game demo and interview. I have no idea how, but I made it with about a minute to spare, and immediately dove into my first gaming experience of PAX West 2018.

The Gardens Between

The Gardens Between was absolutely beautiful from the get-go which is part of why I wanted to play it in the first place. It kind of feels like you are wandering through a magical wonderland and the landscape around you is made up of clues that tell you the story of the characters you are playing. The story was super cute, I didn’t know going in what the story was going to be but it looks like it’s about young best friends who live right next-door to each other. I only got to play a few levels, but it definitely seems as though there is a bit of a sorrowful atmosphere, leading you to find beauty while navigating through loss and change (this however could totally be me projecting my own assumptions onto the game).

Immediately upon sitting down I began to ask questions about the game, and was informed that I should play the game first and let it speak for itself as it’s designed to be pretty immersive, then we could talk about it. I’m glad I went in feeling mostly blind, I felt like a blank slate ready to soak up everything this story had to tell me. I would say great success on the immersive front; as soon as I started playing I totally was not distracted by where I was  and what was going on around me. I was caught up in the story that was being told through the beautiful art and music, without any words, and very literally interaction between myself and the characters.

In the demo you get to walk through about three levels and it wasn’t until the second level that I realized I had no real concept of what was going on around me and was totally caught up in what I was doing. From the outside I didn’t expected it to feel so engaging without being able to actually control the characters at all. Instead of having any ability to control interactions between the characters and their surroundings, instead you are only controlling the flow of time. You are going forward and backward in time, which moves the characters forward and backward in the landscape, which has an impact on the outcomes of the few things that need to be changed to progress. You are just are kind of going forward and backward time and that’s all you have. However, you get totally caught up in trying to figure out what is trying to be accomplished. It’s a super interesting way of telling the story, and I  don’t think I have every actually really seen anything like this before. 

After playing the demo I had the opportunity to interview Matt Clark, programmer, executive producer and co-founder of Voxel Agents; bringing us the magic that is The Gardens Between.

It was a great interview about what inspired the creation of this beautiful game, and the challenges faced in creating it… However, you will never get to hear it… because apparently I didn’t hit record.

As it turns out, the flashing red light means the recorder is picking up sound. Solid red light means recorder is recording that sound it is picking up. Who knew. Well probably everyone. Everyone except the flustered nervous Mikaela who, along with Matt, had actually basically just killed it on her first audio recording interview… oh well. Lesson learned. 

So I will sum up, albeit poorly, what stood out for me. 

One of the things highlighted by Matt was that one of the more challenging aspects of making this game was designing a game that went forward and backward in time as its main mechanic. It’s not like a first person shooter where there are already a whole bunch of different ways to do that, they actually had to create the basics for the way this game works. Now he used the technical lingo that many of you would certainly understand, but that I was thankful to have recorded knowing that I would have needed him to break it down way more if I was going to have to explain it myself… 

Another interesting tidbit that stuck with me was their inspiration for this game. According to Matt, this came from one of the scenes in the movie Minority Report, where they are scrubbing through memories back and forth. The concept of scrubbing memories evolved into a story about two best friends, with the use of this super interesting mechanic to tell their story through pictures and music. 

I wish I could remember more of what he had talked about, it was so interesting! 

But I will instead just have to wait until sometime next month when I can buy and play through this whoooooole game. The Gardens Between will launch on PS4, Switch, and Steam.

Soundfall

After playing The Gardens Between, I had an hour or so until my next appointment. I spent some time making sure I knew what I was doing with my recording device in order to hopefully not mess up again. I also got a chance to wander around the Expo Hall a bit, and man is it overwhelming! But overwhelming in the best way possible – everything is huge. Huge banners hanging from the ceiling and booths that are made to look like epic fortresses. So many big bright screens, so much amazing art, so so so many people! Its pretty incredible. 

The second game I got to play today was Soundfall, described by Drastic’s technical designer and cofounder Julian Trutmann as a music driven dungeon crawler. This game is from a newer developer, Drastic Games, who have been around for about 2 years. I was drawn to Soundfall initially because the concept of a game that is meant to be played to the beat of music, in combination with the beautiful art style, really appealed to me. Going into the demo I was a little bit nervous as I am not the strongest player when it comes to shooting games, but luckily for me Julian volunteered as tribute to play with me (which secretly meant he would end up being my shield and my reviver when I didn’t get outta the way in time to avoid being annihilated by enemies). I was actually super grateful for this as it meant that I got to experience the game without dying immediately. 

I was reassured that you only have to use one joy-stick and a couple of buttons to control all the things, which is helpful when you’re trying not to panic and die. Before starting, Julian explained that the whole point is to attack on beat in order to get boosts. Although I understood that logically before hand, as soon as I got into the game that information flew right outta my head and it became mash the attack buttons and try to remember to run away when someone is attacking you! At one point I had to cross over a bridge type structure, which required you to jump from pad to pad, but the catch was you could only jump if you hit the button on the beat. I definitely did not realize this initially and only made it over because I was button mashing enough to occasionally hit it at the right moment. Once we died and had to replay that part, on the second time around I actually recognized what was happening with the connection to music… which should have been helpful, but really wasn’t, it turns out I need a little practice at hitting things on the beat…

We did manage to make it through the first level though! Upon entering the second level, there was a distinct difference in music style between the two which created a much harsher higher pressure feeling atmosphere. It was interesting to see how intensely music can affect that atmosphere and feeling of a game so completely.

It was quite neat to see different elements of the landscape bouncing along and lighting up to the music, and to see the impact of actually shooting on the beat (which I’m pretty sure I only every did coincidentally) was pretty cool. You also get to wield this huge awesome looking sword, and it feels pretty danged rewarding when you kill the bad guys. Julian mentioned that the style of the game was quite challenging, that said, it was totes worth it. It’s beautiful to watch and if I wasn’t scared of being attacked around every corner I could definitely just wander around bopping along to the beat. 

I also had a chance to interview Julian about the creation of this game, so make sure to keep an ear out for that podcast following PAX weekend!

https://youtu.be/sO8I7_-tyG4

Stormland

The Stormland demo from Insomniac Games (in collaboration with Oculus), was hosted at an offsite about ten minutes from the convention centre at the 1927 Events Space. I walked up and opened the door, and immediately fog started pouring out onto the brightly lit sidewalk.

Here, I became excited.

I walked into the dimly-lit space and had to push through a plastic room divider that felt like I’d walk through the other side into a butchers freezer, but actually you walk into the amazing 1927 Event Space. I fell in love with this space when we visited for ECCC, all of the exposed brick and raw wood, so dreamy. Today, this was adorned with vines, puffs of cloud, and Stormland paraphernalia, all seen through a haze of fog. I checked in and walked around the space before getting in line to play the demo. It was kind of eery to see so many people together in one space, but separately totally immersed in a different world. There were about 10 people demoing at a time, so all of them were wearing an Oculus headset with headphones and controllers in each hand. They were all moving around in their little space and quietly exploring the empty air in front of them with their swinging arms. VR just makes people so danged vulnerable. It’s like all of your senses are transported off to this video game world, and your poor body is left in realtime without any awareness or defence. 

https://www.instagram.com/p/BnKGVQoAbjP/?taken-by=geekscapeforever

This demo actually allowed people to take their time playing the game, so when it finally got to be my turn it was nice to know I didn’t have to rush and could just experience the world around me at my own pace. We have PSVR at home, but I realized when I got there that I have never actually had the opportunity to us an Oculus before… Let me tell you, it is GREAT! The screen is very clear and the controllers… Well, the controllers are outta this world! The closest I can come to comparing them to something is basically its like putting your hand into the hilt of a sword that has the perfect little area for buttons that your thumb hits easily, as well as a trigger finger button and a button that your middle fingers can hit so it naturally feels like you are grabbing things! I am floored by how freeing the controllers felt and how intuitive they were to use. That being said, it may have felt so intuitive because the games controls are just that intuitive. 

As anyone who has heard/read me talk about video games will know, I am frequently caught in the battle of trying to properly use controls while getting myself stuck in a corner staring at a ceiling/wall/floor/anywhere but where I need to be looking to get away from whatever is attacking me. This game, however, was incredible in that there are so many different ways to move around that it didn’t matter where I ended up cramming myself – I was able to get out and get to where I needed to be! In talking with Chad Dezern, Chief Creative Officer of Insomniac Games (look for my audio interview later), he really highlighted how much effort they had put into developing movement mechanics that felt smooth and natural and easy. They definitely hit that outta the park on this one!

The Stormland demo has you playing as an android who is on a mission to find his android buddy. A satellite voice guides you through learning how the mechanics of the game work and toward the path of finding your friend. You learn how to climb and how to glide and you ‘slipstream’ which is basically just flying overtop of the fog at a faster speed, which is basically incredible. 

At one point, as I was about a third of the way through learning how to do all of the things, I struggled to figure out how to attach my new guns to my outfit. I dropped one and lost it immediately, and after desperately searching for a while the woman who was there to help with the demo eventually just said not to worry about it, as I’d find more guns along the way. After giving up on the gun I looked down and realized that my mechanical chest was waaaay too close to my face, and not only that, but my arms had some how become criss-crossed. After about ten minutes of trying different strategies of menu combos and recalibrating at least 3 times, she called someone else over, who once again made us relcalibrate… and then finally just made me quit and start over again. By this point I was feeling pretty queasy, but I wanted to expereince more of this incredible world! So I rushed through the beginning part again and made my way to where I had been. I got to blow up some stuff and jump over things, climb walls, and glide off cliff sides. It was quite a magical surreal experience. 

I sadly had to stop the demo before I got to the end, otherwise I would definitely have been barfing all over the place. Nobody wanted that. After recovering for a little while I got to have a conversation with Chad about the creation of this game, and it really just got me more excited to see how it all comes out in the end. As much as I don’t want to admit it, this amazing open world VR game really has me seeing the value in the quality of the Oculus Rift!

I Don’t Know How To Play Video Games, But Here’s What I Thought Of ‘Detroit: Become Human’

by Mikaela Maxwell

I almost don’t even know where to start. Almost.

I’ll start by saying I have not been able to stop talking about Detroit: Become Human. Anyone who will listen, or anyone who doesn’t know what’s coming and simply gets sucked into it (sorry Mom) is hearing me talk about this game. Even before I started playing the game, I was talking about this game…

At least you’re reading this and can decide to check out at any time, but if you want to get at me to talk about it, I’m super interested in hearing what other people have to say about it too! If you’re considering playing it, just STOP reading right now and go get in there, you won’t regret it – or maybe you will, but I’m not your boss, do what you want!

I hope you’re feeling like a princess, because you’re about to get SPOILED. (I was feeling pretty clever when I wrote that). Seriously though, last warning.

Detroit came into my life a year or two ago when Derek (my long-time fiancé and long-time Geekscapist) excitedly showed me a trailer for it. Immediately I was intrigued – it looked absolutely beautiful, and the little taste of story we saw in the trailer seemed so interesting. Then, time moved on and it was totally forgotten until a month or so ago when the game’s free demo came out. Derek had played through it a couple of times and encouraged me to give it a try aswell.

Immediately, starting the demo I was frustrated. It has taken me so long to finally feel like I can kinda use the sticks (you know the ones on the controller that probably have an actual name) to play a game, and here this game decides to use totally different mechanics and I am right back to getting stuck in a corner staring at the wall… seriously. That being said, I got used to it pretty quickly and was able to enjoy the gameplay of the demo, especially with my side-kick sitting beside me patiently (so patiently) explaining how to interpret the symbols and reminding me how to use the controls in this new setting. Once I adapted to the camera angles and flow of the moving mechanisms, I was actually able to sit back and enjoy the cinematic feel of the game as the story unfolded. Between the two of us we each played the demo twice, and without any strategy, got 4 totally different outcomes. Cue more intrigue.

I don’t know the actual amount of time, but pretty quickly after playing the demo Derek was digging into the full game. He was super hyped about it from the moment he saw that original trailer (saying something about enjoying the company’s previous games), and that excitement was only amped up with each new little tidbit of information, so by game time, he was pretty stoked to get in there. I, on the other hand, was interested enough to catch 10 minutes here and there of his gameplay, without any real intention of playing myself. It definitely seemed like an interesting premise, but who has time to play a whole game? Turns out the answer is me, and probably me again.

It was pretty neat seeing so many recognizable actors in a game.

I somehow managed to catch the final ten minutes of Derek’s playthrough, which was totes cool, cause you want all the spoilers when you’re never gonna play the game but are interested in the story. Little did I know by the next day I would be carefully arranging my afternoon so I had multiple hours to devote to uncovering my own version of this game’s story.

After finishing his playthrough, Derek filled me in a bit on what it was about, and we got into talking about the possibilities of what the future could hold for man and their machines.

Basically, the story is set in 2038, in Detroit obviously. Humans have created Androids, which are essentially robots that look exactly like humans, and are using them to do all of the dirty work (well actually all of the work in general). Androids are used for housekeeping, child rearing, manual labour, security guards, sex workers, personal assistants, military, etc. etc.; this has all been great for the economy blah blah blah… BUT THEN the Androids start to wake up. The Androids are becoming sentient beings, and now there is a whole other kettle of fish to boil! The Androids realize that they are basically slaves, and slowly more and more are becoming ‘deviant’ (self-aware) and are wanting their freedom, and a right to live the life they choose with the people they choose. Just like humans, once self-aware, Androids vary greatly, all with different personalities, priorities, opinions, etc..

Ah that Markus. So dreamy.

The thought of this is terrifying to me personally. Don’t get me wrong, I welcome technology into my life – I am surrounded by Alexa and Siri (who I just asked to define sentient for me, don’t worry we are using it correctly), and my phone is permanently attached to my person. However, I have no desire for Alexa to take human form and strive for her own goals and dreams. No. Thank. You. I’m pretty sure every science fiction movie has it right when they predict that robots will eventually figure out that humans suck and the planet would be better off without us, as would the robots, then BAM we are made extinct. Nope nope nope. How about lets just avoid getting to that place altogether and not make super smarter than us robots, and then we don’t have to worry about Android rights at all?! How about that?

Anyway, so after a lengthy discussion about ethics and morality around the creation/use/control/freedom of hypothetical Androids, I thought to myself if I can literally think and talk about this so extensively, why wouldn’t I want to give this crazy game a go?! So I jumped in there!

I have definitely never played a game quite like this before. You play from the perspective of three different Androids (Kara, Markus, and Connor), and gameplay is broken up into chapters that alternate between the characters, allowing you to follow and develop their storylines simultaneously. The curious beauty of the whole thing is that you really are developing their stories, as every choice you make has an impact on future choices and outcomes throughout their personal journey, thus shaping the overall story of the entire game.

Although each character is an Android, they are all coming from different backgrounds and are facing different challenges:

Kara is a housekeeping/child-rearing Android, who is owned by a drug addict and required to take care of his kid, until she realizes that he has been beating both of them and decides to escape his cruelty and take little Alice with her.

Markus is owned by a kind old man who encourages him to explore the arts and treats him with respect, until the old man dies. Markus is torn apart and has to find himself a new home, while also realizing he is a person, and taking on the task of fighting for Android rights.

Connor is a special investigative Android who has been sent by Cyberlife (the Android making company) to help Lieutenant Hank track down deviants (sentient Androids) and figure out why Androids are becoming deviant in the first place.

Now going into this, knowing how apprehensive I am about artificial intelligence/robots, one may think that I would be all about killing the Androids so they don’t take over the whole dang world… But actually, since we are playing as Androids I was fully on team Android and wanted to do everything I could to make each of these characters successful in achieving what I perceived to be their goals. However, like real life, sometimes things get a little muddy and it is hard to know what the right thing to do is, so you use all of the information available to you and your judgement and try your best. Sometimes this works out and is helpful, sometimes you totally fuck up the very goal you were trying to accomplish.

Some of the biggest take-aways I got from this game were: I am a people pleaser and I struggle desperately with FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out).

I went through most of the game trying to find a way to please everyone around each character, which is particularly difficult when all the characters around you are specifically meant to be on opposing sides of every argument and you have to choose between them, inevitably building trust and friendship with some people, and making others absolutely hate you. This was particularly difficult with Markus and Connor – I wanted Lieutenant Hank to like Connor, but not at the expense of reaching Connor’s goal, and Hank is particularly hard to read so it was difficult to know what would end up being the wrong thing to say! Markus on the other hand had the option to be pacifist or violent, so I leaned toward pacifist, which was great with the exception of the fact that his potential love interest was a violent person, and I desperately wanted to have them love each other (or at least not be hostile) but not at the expense of starting war with the humans. Such conundrums!

I really like the way the game is set up to guide you through the story. I played on the easier mode, and am not totally sure what the other mode would have been like, but in the mode I played there were many little tags showing you what you could interact with, and drawing your attention to things that were important to look at. It also literally showed you which button you needed to press and how you needed to press it every time you were required to do something other than walk. In this way it really took on a cinematic, choose your own adventure feel, as it didn’t require so much skill, but more engagement to choose how the story plays out. This can be kinda irritating when it feels like you are literally just pushing a button every once in a while so that the game isn’t just one long cut scene. Sometimes I found myself wishing it was just a show I could watch so I could get the story without the stress and time of being involved. But mostly I was super into it, and really enjoyed watching the story unfold as I prompted it along.

Every chapter has multiple points in which you are required to make choices, either by choosing an action or choosing who to talk to, or what to say, or how to handle a situation. Now I’m sure this isn’t a new concept, but it was certainly new to me. Not that I’ve never made a choice in a video game before, but I have never been so keenly aware of the impact my choices are making. Every chapter has a flowchart associated with it, and this flowchart shows you where you’ve made choices and how that choices leads to another action/choice/scenario, and so on. This flow chart not only shows you what you have chosen, but also shows you the blank paths that you could have gone down without giving you any indication of what that path would have meant. HOLY EFF what an EFFECTIVE way to get you engaged in a game.

That flowchart tho.

This immediately kicked in my FOMO. At the end of the first chapter I took a good look at the flowchart and was immediately fascinated and horrified. There were so many things that were apparently right in front of me that I hadn’t seen/looked at/talked to. Which meant that some paths were cut off to me without me even being aware. Later on you discover that so many of your decisions impact what options are open to you and what path you are on in future chapters, and unless you unlocked that path, you NEVER know what you missed that stopped you from having these options in the future. What a mindfuck! The beauty of this whole scheme is that when you are playing you are never aware that you are missing anything or that it is possible for the story to have gone any other way!

Once, when playing as Connor I was chasing these two Androids and trying to stop them from escaping so that I could get more information from them. But they attacked me and Hank, and in the end I had to make a split second decision to shoot one of them or let her get away. My feeling at the time was that this person was a danger and I was unsure what the consequences of her getting away would be to Connors end goal, so I shot her. Weeeeeell, this happened to be a moment when Derek walked into the room, only to be horrified at my decision making. It turns out that when playing he had let her go and then she had become helpful (after telling some SOB story about being in love), meanwhile I just straight up killed her and then her lover killed herself too and I was at a dead-end. If Derek hadn’t have rolled in I would have thought this seemed like the only reasonable option in the fast-paced-moment. And I am sure that the split second decision there had impacts on Connor’s outcomes later on down the road. This is just a small example of the decision making and repercussions, and the things is, this shit happens throughout the whole damn game!

A lot of the time I feel like like I’m choosing based on my instinct and how I think I want it to play out. Sometimes that’s a guessing game and it doesn’t work out at all, but it would be so uncomfortable to go totally against my people-pleasing-trying-to-be-the-good-guy ways. Sometimes I am just genuinely getting messed up, because why does Playstation have to have symbols on their buttons instead of letters like everyone else?!?! Just WHY?? Like I appreciate you telling me its time to hit the square button, but where the eff is the square button, oh just kidding someone’s dead already. And sometimes when you have to choose fast there is just so much pressure and then you can’t go back and change your mind, and your stuck on this danged path you stumbled into.

Where is the X button!?

It must have been so much work to make this game. The graphics are beautiful, especially that handsome Markus (Grey’s Anatomy guy aka Jesse Williams) with his different coloured eyes! Though sometimes I felt like things were a little unrealistic looking, I think I’m just getting spoiled as I never played games in the old days when Lara Croft had triangle boobs. Also, they would have had to do the story writing and animations for so freaking many combinations of story outcomes. So. Freaking. Many. How can a game be so vastly different in so many ways!? I can’t even imagine how many actors recorded so many lines of dialog that most players will never even hear. I feel like I literally played an entirely different game than Derek did, and I can’t wait to hear how the story played out for some of the other Geekscapists!

In the end… I failed miserably.

I had watched the moments of glory when Derek’s Androids were lead to victory at the end of his story. Meanwhile in the last ten minutes of my game literally all of my main characters were killed and the humans obliterated the Androids with hardly any resistance.

Yeah… Things fell apart pretty quickly.

Of course, I have gone back to the middle of the game and am trying to make different choices to get a different (and less bleak) outcome. **Fingers Crossed**

Like I said, I love talking about Detroit: Become Human. I love talking about it so much that I’ll be joining in on a special Geekscape Games discussion about the title and what all of the hosts thought of it, so be sure to look for that in the coming days!

Emerald City Comic-Con Was An Overwhelmingly Beautiful Celebration Of Art, Fandom, And So Much More!

by Mikaela Maxwell

This year’s Emerald City Comic-Con was by far the biggest convention (or event in general) that I have ever been to, and it was pretty amazing… and overwhelming… and so freaking exciting! Due to constant studying on how to help save lives better (I’m an Emergency Room Nurse currently doing some pretty intense additional schooling and certifications) I was only able to make it to the show floor for Saturday and Sunday, which was a super bummer, but still so worth it to make the mini trek down to Seattle. I definitely hope that I get to attend again in the future, and spend all four days at the convention centre!

This was my journey to and at Emerald City Comic-Con 2018. I hope that you enjoy it!

Mid afternoon on Friday I hurried out of the hospital and started my mini-roadtrip to meet up with Derek in Seattle. I have to say, this was actually an unexpected treat! I spend a lot of time transiting/driving, and have come to love listening to an audiobook while commuting. This time around I just wasn’t feeling my current book, so I listened to an episode of Geekscape Games, and then turned on a 90’s pop playlist that had recently been recommended to me (by Derek). This immediately led to a very animated and prolonged Careoke dance-sesh. It. Was. Great. I used to dance in the car all the time, and for some reason have fallen out of the habit, which I see now is an obvious mistake. I wasn’t even sad that I got stuck on an exit for half an hour trying to get into town, I just kept right on singing. If you’re an Apple Music subscriber, you can grab the playlist yourself right here.

I also stopped for a lil’ McDonald’s snack along the way so I could try this much anticipated Szechuan sauce. Spoiler alert, its just meh and Derek is wrong.

On a super cute side note I rolled up to our Airbnb to find that Derek had been standing outside waiting for me for half an hour. Ridiculous. Heart. Melt.

By the time I got into town Friday the convention was shut down for the night. But we had gotten an invite to a sweet lil’ partay, put on by Skybound Entertainment to celebrate The Walking Dead’s 15th anniversary, so we decided to head over there right away. I was pretty excited… and a little bit nervous. The venue was super rad — the space was beautiful, all exposed brick and wood beams, featuring a photo booth, yummy snacks, and bar featuring various The Walking Dead themed cocktails, and wine bottles that moved (in augmented reality, of course)! It was super neat, there were quite a few people there, and according to Derek there seemed to be a good amount of artists, and writers, and other important people that other folks may have recognized. I was pretty stoked when I spotted a cosplayer I had discovered at Fan Expo Vancouver, and can’t even imagine how star struck I woulda been if I had recognized half the people in there. This party is also where I discovered instagram stories, which is pretty neat once you get the hang of it, you can check out @geekscapeforever on Instagram if you want to see what we’ve been up to. (Hint hint: go follow us already!)

Super cool bottle, made even cooler in AR!

Saturday morning I woke up to Derek podcasting. One thing I love about this convention is that it doesn’t open until TEN! Which means I can get my beauty sleep! And it means Derek can get on that Wrestling Podcast! (#DoubleCountOut You are probably already checking it out, but if not, now is the time when you take a little gander over on the iTunes or where ever you get your podcasts and take a listen! — unless you aren’t into wrestling, cause then you wont understand what they are talking about, and it probably wont make much sense or be very fun to listen to… unless you just like listening to the sounds of young men’s voices, then it’ll still be a treat!)

Upon getting to the convention centre we entered a line up to go upstairs, and this line up was simply magical. Like people just kept coming out of nowhere. Then funneling into this teeny line, where literally one dude was checking if you had a badge and letting you get onto an escalator to ascend into the madness. Somehow, I don’t know how, this process actually moved pretty pretty pretty quickly. Like we weren’t at a stand still for more than 30 seconds, ever!

At my request we went to see a Cosplay panel Saturday morning, about the basics of getting into cosplay. I was a little apprehensive when it started, as I’ve previously had some kinda meh experiences at panels, but it actually turned out to be really useful and informative! They talked about how to budget for building cosplay, and their various experiences of starting it themselves. There were 5 different young women there, who all had different cosplay styles and had been doing it for varying amounts of time. It was great to listen to people talk about something they are so passionate about, and to see how inclusive this community can be.

I can’t wait to make my own cosplay!

We also had a bunch of time to walk around the show floor on Saturday. I thought I knew what I was getting into with this, but I was mistaken. Now, the conventions I have been to in the past have evidently been on the smaller side of things. The first place we went was the main show floor, which was one of many levels (through several buildings), each strategically housing certain things such as the cosplay centre, the photo op and autograph area, the gaming floor where you could experience new board games or set up a round of DnD or Magic: The Gathering, and way, way more. We started walking around the show floor and I was immediately overwhelmed. There were just so many things, and even more people. And then around the corner there was more show floor, and through the doorway even more, and across the hallway, you guessed it, even more…

But it was an overwhelm in the most wonderful way. I have never in a singular place, experienced so many different kinds of beautiful, curious, interesting things and people! One of my most favourite aspects of being at a convention is looking at all of the art. There are so many different kinds of artists, creating so many different and wonderful pieces of art, from books, to postcards and magnets, to canvas paintings and prints, to leather work and jewelry, and so so so much more. Each booth is filled with treasures of every variety, and most of the time the artist who created this brilliance is sitting right there just waiting for you to ask them about their work! How often in life do we get an opportunity like that, to just openly admire the hardworking these people are doing and talk to them about these things which they are so very passionate about?! I went into this convention knowing that I would want to buy a print or two. I like the idea of taking a piece of this experience home with me, and a beautiful piece of art is a great way to do it, especially if its fairly affordable print! On Saturday we ended up walking past this beautiful painting of a women letting her breath go underwater and I knew I wanted to be able to look at that every day. But I didn’t want to make a decision without knowing all of my options, so I waited until the next day, after meandering through Artist’s Alley (forever, because it’s huge and has its own floor) to find my way back to that booth and take home my own copy of that beauty.

Some of my haul… time to buy some frames!

While exploring the show floor we had the opportunity to demo a couple of games at the Skybound Games booth. It was great fun! At first I was intimidated by the demo guys wanting to get you into a game, but actually this might be my new favourite way to buy a game! We literally got to play a few rounds of a game I had never heard of (which it turns out had just released after a successful Kickstarter campaign), and I walked away trying to adjust my budget so I could bring it home. Who am I kidding, budgeting is not my strength, a week later and my third day of eating Kraft Dinner is telling me I didn’t do a very good job of budgeting… But my super fun games day is telling me it was totes worth it! We ended up picking up The Grimm Forest and Superfight.

The Grimm Forest is kind of like a mashup of every fairytale woven into your memory and a little bit of Settlers of Catan. I was super stoked to bring this one home. You are descendants of the 3 ( or 4) little pigs competing to build your houses, while constantly being thrown off track by monsters and big meanies. It’s great fun, and can be played in under an hour, which in my books is a huge plus (because there is usually a WWE Pay Per-View to get to when people come over)! Superfight feels kind of like a mashup between Cards Against Humanity (but seemly less dirty so far) and Exploding Kittens, with a dash of… whatever games makes you tell a story about characters! You literally pick cards and have to combine a character with a ‘super power’ and then explain why it would win in a fight against the other person’s character… I will admit I was a bit of a sore loser at this one. There are also so many different expansion packs for this one (and even an expansion pack subscription program), so I am sure we will add on to it in the future. I am looking forward to playing it in a group with more people, and more adult beverages, I am pretty certain hilarity will ensue.

Oh man, I feel like I am talking so much already, but there were so many good things, and I have so much to say!

I also had the opportunity to visit the Espionage Cosmetics booth, which specializes in nerdy nail decals, and got to try some on! There were so many different styles of nail art, most of which I was a little clueless to, but the lovely lady at this booth helped by pointing out what a few of them were! She also applied one for me, and it was so simple and easy, but glammed me up so much! I walked away with a little sample and can’t wait to have days off so I can give them a go! (Though I probably won’t be sharing photos of that, cause I have chapped nurses hands!). Their demo station also had glitter available so they could add a little sparkle to the bearded gents who were in attendance. I think this may have been the first time in my life I almost wished for facial hair! I tried to convince Derek to try it, but as you can probably guess, he was having none of that! Lame.

We got to watch a Twisted Toonz, which I had seen before at the convention we went to in Vancouver. It is actually pretty hilarious. A bunch of voice actors (I don’t know why they are called voice actors, they also do the body moving stuff, but they do video games and their characters are animated so I guess you don’t get to call them actors?) get together and read from a script, but each of them takes on a different celebrity (or character’s) accent for each scene. We literally had to stand for an hour and a half just watching giant screens from the back of the room packed with thousands of people, but it was so worth it! They were reading from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, and it was hilarious. I feel like I need to go back and rewatch that movie, I just could not believe how inappropriate some of the lines were!

https://youtu.be/-XUluDsQkk4

I don’t know if anyone has noticed the activity on our Instagram feed @GEEKSCAPEFOREVER, but it has been taken over lately by yours truly, and that means so many many photos of amazing ECCC cosplay! Which leads me to, Saturday night and my most anticipated event… The ECCC Western Championships of Cosplay!

https://instagram.com/p/BgAISGWgL-U/

We stood in line an hour and a half before the event started, which meant lining up outside in the cold (which actually wasn’t that cold considering its the beginning of March). It also meant a very whiney Mikaela who did not bring a sweater with her, but it was soooo worth it! There was a crowd of over 2000 people and we managed to get pretty great seats (although not great enough for pictures). I can not even put into words how amazed I was with these costumes. There was someone who had made the Doof Warrior outfit, and musical transportation platform from Mad Max: Fury Road (WTF?! so Amazing, and totally one of my favourite movies/characters!). There was also an amazing Dark Pit with movable wings from Kid Icarus: Uprising, and even giant guy who was dressed as an even more giant guy (some sort of Brute from Halo, according to Derek), and I couldn’t even believe this was real life. This competition was definitely one of my ECCC highlights, and if I get to go again, I hope I am able to grab some photos so I can share it with y’all.

https://instagram.com/p/Bf6zjMFAT2M/

Saturday night after dinner, I tried to stay awake to take advantage of being out and about and young and hip and… I fell asleep before midnight, and before even getting into bed.

Sunday I was determined to see the rest of all of the floors. I was super invested in checking out autographs or photo ops, but I ventured over to the cosplay areas and checked out the gaming area options. Then wandered through Artist Alley with my jaw on the floor as I tried to take in all of the crazy beauty. It was so neat to walk past booths and see people sketching or colouring or whatever, just making their art right there in front of everyone. It definitely brought me back to the budgeting thing, and wish I was better at it, so I could bring home more beautiful things. I picked out some post cards, and found a neat print of a Narwal ( which I had to have.), and walked away sadly from at least 5 prints that I wish I could look at every day. I also nabbed a little independent comic with super beautiful art, and even found the perfect Mother’s Day present!

I want every book.

We also went to check out the Cosplay floor, which had some handy booths for makeup touch ups and demos, as well as places where you could fix your outfits. There were a few Cosplayers who had their own booths, and a green screen set up for photos. The lighting in this area was not great, so I didn’t get as many photos as I would have liked, but it was super nice to see a place set up for the people from this part of the community.

I spent a couple hours on Sunday searching for and photographing some of the most amazing cosplay. The convention centre in Seattle is a beautiful building and has this great little courtyard that was the perfect back drop for so many photos, which you can see on instagram by @geekscapeforever and so many other people. We managed to get out there before the rain started, and still got some great photos inside once everyone was escaping the rain. Every time we go to a convention I am amazed by the amount of time and talent people put into these outfits, and ECCC did not disappoint. Go check out our Instagram and you will see what I am talking about.

https://instagram.com/p/BgMfJgQnDe0/

One thing that I became aware of at ECCC was the amount of respect and kindness the people of this community show each other. This convention even had a beer garden in the same building as the main show floor (!!!), but even with this awesome feature, I did not notice any drunk or belligerent people over the entire weekend! At most big events that host thousands of people there are usually a few rotten eggs in the bunch, and I am sure they existed here as well, but I never came across them. It was so lovely to be surrounded by people who are so accepting and kind towards each other. To be in a place where children and elderly and everyone in between are able to exist and make space for each other (metaphorically, not physically, that place was packed!) was pretty magical.

Thank you Emerald City Comic Con for putting on an amazing event.

I am so happy to have found this super interesting, beautiful, artistic, amazing culture of people, and I can’t wait to venture into this community again in the future.

I Don’t Know How To Play Video Games, But Here’s What I Thought Of ‘Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp’

by Mikaela Maxwell

Read my previous thoughts on Super Mario Odyssey here!

Animal Crossing: New Leaf was actually one of the first video games that Derek introduced me to. My siblings had Nintendo Game Boys and such as kids, but it was never something I really got into (though I’m not quite sure why). A few years back, when Derek suggested that I try playing Animal Crossing on his 3DS. I’m sure that I rolled my eyes at the ridiculousness of the idea, thinking “I am an adult,” “I’m awful at video games,” “It’s not really my thing,” etc., etc. In any case, my rubber arm was twisted and I was set up to play.

The first time that I played Derek sat next to me answering my questions about how to do things and why things mattered and what not. After about an hour he needed to go into the next room to record the Geekscape Games Podcast, and I continued on my own. I continued and continued (and continued). I played all through the podcast recording, and I even needed to interrupt him at one point to ask what this flashing red light on the 3DS meant? Turns out it meant I had played for so long that I had killed the battery. I played for at least 4 hours that night, and for many days thereafter. I can’t remember exactly how long I stayed on that particular game, but suffice to say that I really enjoyed it, and it was definitely a great way for me to start getting into video games. It also freaked me right out as suddenly I was devoting all of these hours to playing a game! How could I possibly be that guy?!

So yesterday when I was informed that there was an Animal Crossing game that I could play on my phone, that shit was downloaded immediately. And again, was played until there was no battery left to play. Obviously, it’s only been out for a minute so I haven’t gotten a chance to put too too many hours into the game, but I have definitely put in a few.

Right off the bat I loved the art style. The opening screen is the Nintendo logo with these two-toned trees and simple campers, and I fell in love immediately! I ain’t even mad when it takes foreeeever to load, cause I get to just sit there looking at this beautiful little screen thinking about how I could turn it into wall art on a hypothetical child’s bedroom wall someday…

The game is definitely true to form with the same classic characters and design of furniture and decorations and such. But there is also an element of modern simple art that seems just a bit hipper than what I remember from the original (3DS version).

One of the things that had me buy into the original game was that I got to modify and design things for myself. There were clothing options and home building options and you could plant trees where you wanted trees to be; you even got to design your character on a basic level, which is my favourite part of pretty much any game. (I once spent over an hour designing my Elder Scrolls Online character, only to be interrupted by a phone call and have it time out and reset… oh angry days.)

Although this game is somewhat different in the goals and basic tasks that you do, you still get to design and dress your character, and deck out your campsite with new furniture on a regular basis! Yay! One element that I really liked was getting to take my camper in and having it painted to my liking. I’m realizing now that I’m pretty sure my camper has the same colour scheme going on as the tiny trees on the loading screen, I’m such a level 7 (#SixSeasonsAndAMovie).

When I played the original for the first time I got a peach near the beginning, and either ate or sold it; for those of you out there who have played Animal Crossing before, you know what a silly mistake that was. You later discover that how you generate income is by planting trees and selling the fruit, and the way you grow a tree is by planting a fruit, thus when you are given fruit in the beginning although it seems sweet to make a buck off of it, the wise thing to do is plant it, because soon you will have 3 more of that fruit to either sell or plant! Needless to say as soon as a I learned how to shake fruit from the trees in Pocket Camp, I started hoarding it immediately. I’ve also been hoarding pretty much everything else until I figure out what my priorities need to be. Though I haven’t seen a way to plant trees thus far, sooo if you’ve got that figured out, let me know! (though I’m thinking maybe it’s not a thing in this mobile version).

I’ve also been enjoying fishing. It reminds me of my near and dear Stardew Valley, except much, much easier. Actually, most things in this game are pretty easy, even easier than I remember the original being, which is great as it means that I can be more focused on my goals than on trying to figure out how to master a specific task. I imagine that could get a little boring, but I’m not super far into the game yet so hopefully some things will become more challenging as you move forward. So far the most challenging part has been waiting to for things to regenerate, while not wanting to waste resources, or spend real money to speed them up.

This game is free to download with in game purchases. It seems like lots of people are into that, which I can definitely appreciate for games like Crossy Road (on which I spent way too much money buying characters… ?!). This feels more like a real game, however, not just a ‘phone game’, and I personally would way rather pay a set amount and just be able to play by earning things in the game. That being said I haven’t yet bought anything. I’m sure I will at some point, likely once I have a better idea of what the point of everything is, but so far I have been resistant to spending any real money on it (though those launch specials are looking pretty pretty pretty appealing).

Ok, so fast-forward a few days, I am still enjoying the game, but definitely have now found a few things bothersome. My biggest gripe is that everything takes so long! Not to say that the game is slowed down, but each task you do is for some reason accompanied by so many different animations and different screens that for a single task you are having to click through 4 or 5 pages. For example, this game requires you to craft a lot of furniture, because for some reason each character will only visit your campsite if you have specific furniture (Rude!). Well, every time you craft a piece of furniture you have to watch an animation of you fake opening a box and click through 4 other screens just so you can get back to the original screen you were on and order the next damned piece of furniture! Literally every single task takes time where you just sit and stare at your phone and wish that you weren’t stuck waiting to get through some pointless animation or dialogue so you can just keep moving forward with the friggin game!

Oh man, I guess I didn’t realize it, but that has been really bugging me. I even noticed today at work on my breaks I actually just ended up not bothering to play the game because I felt like the bored-waiting-to-get-to-the-next-screen to actually-enjoying-this-adventure-and-feeling-accomplished-by-completing-a-goal ratios were waaaay off. I’ve also noticed some bugginess, which I’m sure we all have, but every time I see that server error screen I have flashbacks to Pokémon Go, and I don’t wanna go there again!

Overall this game seems like a good game to pick up when you’ve got a little bit of time and don’t want to get too invested in something. I’ll probably still play it when I am waiting for the bus, or half watching TV in my living room, but it definitely doesn’t have me hooked the same way that New Leaf did, at least not yet.

Fan Expo Vancouver: We Chat With Some Amazing Local Cosplayers!

by Mikaela Maxwell

After Fan Expo Vancouver 2016 I could not wait to see more cosplay at this year’s event. I knew I wanted to get more of an inside scoop on what it’s like to be a cosplayer and what inspires these people to spend so much time, money, and effort on their outfits, so I decided to get in there and ask!

I was super nervous to talk to people, but found out pretty quickly people don’t mind sharing. The thing with cosplayers is they know going into this type of convention that they are going to be stopped every three steps for someone to take a photo, and they’re into it. Heck, I would be too if I had put hours and hours of work into a costume.

Here are a few of the conversations had with cosplayers this year:

Who are you cosplaying as?
I am Jupiter Jones from the movie Jupiter Ascending. It’s a bit of an obscure movie even though it had really big characters in it, Channing Tatum was in it, Mila Kunis is Jupiter Jones.

What got you into Cosplay?
I love Halloween, I love making costumes, I love making things. Dressing up and being able to express myself is a lot of fun.

What was the first Cosplay that you did?
Belle from Beauty and the Beast.

That’s rad, did it take you a really long time?
Not as long as this one. This one took about 150 hours, because each of the gems and flowers is individually glued on.

What is your favourite character that you’ve cosplayed?
Probably this one, it’s been the most fun. Although I did a remake of Rainbow Bright in armour and that was fun, but it was not as fun as this.

What cosplay do you want to do next?
Have you seen the movie The Fifth Element? In it there is a blue alien called the Diva Plavalaguna, I am cosplaying that one in a competition in May.

Cool! Where is the competition?
In Prince George, it’s a huge competition, in its third or fourth year this year. [in Northern BC, Canada] The convention is small, but it’s almost as big as this, if that makes sense. And they do quite a large cosplay completion.

Who are you cosplaying as?
Dva’s mech. from Overwatch.

How long have you been doing cosplay?
I haven’t done very much cosplay, I actually do balloons as a job most of the year.

So is this the first time you’ve made an outfit out of it?
Not the first time!

How long have you been doing this?
Eight years. I started learning at festivals and stuff, then got a little bit more inspired every time.

Why did you choose to do this cosplay?
The voice actress who plays the character, there is a character who drives the mech. [Dva], she was here yesterday. That totally influenced my decision to make the matching mech..

Did you get to meet her?
Yeah, I did, she was really happy. You know, mission accomplished!

What is the next cosplay you want to do?
Oh my gosh. It depends on what comes out. It’s always gonna be something big, like bigger than a person size. One year it was Baymax [from Big Hero Six], on year it was T-Rex. Maybe I’ll bring back the Megazord, it’s been on my to-do list, but it’s a bit ambitious.

Follow on Instagram: @kwlballoons

Who are you cosplaying today?
I am The Doof Warrior of Mad Max: Fury Road.

How long did it take you to put this together?
Including shopping, maybe like eight hours?!

What got you into cosplay?
Isn’t this a question!
I’ve only done it twice, so I wouldn’t say I’m “into it”. It’s something that I can show what inspires me. It shows people what has influenced my life. The first time I did it, it was a little bit strange, people talk to you as if you are the character, not as if you’ve made something. So it’s also like you can so how what has inspired you has also influenced a lot of other people.

That must be great insight into other people’s way of thinking.
Yeah, you can immediately tell: he’s one of mine.

What do you want to do next?
No plans, but I like repurposing things, as opposed to making things from scratch, because I have school and a lot of other things. So this was Halloween things cobbled together, and I think that worked pretty well. So things that can be made from in house materials like clothes and the like, things that are practical.

Follow on Instagram: @takimusic

What are you cosplaying as today?
Taako from The Adventure Zone

What inspired you to do this cosplay?
I just recently got into McElroy content, the guys who make this show, and they are really great. It’s a really inclusive show, it’s super funny, and the character is really relatable and hilarious.

What character do you want to do next?
Oh gosh that’s hard, probably Korra from Legend of Korra.

What got you into cosplay?
This is my first convention ever! It’s just more of seeing a lot of stuff online, and seeing a lot of creators and people who are really experienced with cosplay, and wanting to get to that level.

How long did this one take you to put together?
Over the course of a couple of months just pieces here and there. Not a lot of intensive labour, just mostly going to thrift stores and finding clothes. Over all probably about ten hours.

What is your favourite part of Fan Expo so far?
All the costumes, I love seeing all the people dressed in their costumes and meeting people who recognize my costume and things like that. It’s really rewarding.

Follow on Instagram: @jamiekusack

What are you cosplaying as today?
I’m dressed as Ho-Oh from Pokémon.

What inspired you to do this cosplay?
You know it was kind of a last minute thing, I didn’t think I was going to come this year, but I really wanted to and I had a lot of red fabric, so I just kind of made it!

How long did it take you to put together?
I think the top took me about two days maybe, and the rest I just kind of added to it from stuff I already owned.

Have you done cosplay before?
This is my first time in public, but I do have other that I have done.

What do you want to do next?
I don’t know, I was thinking with my sister to do a pairs cosplay. Either Link and Navi, or Magicarp and Gyarados.

What’s been your favourite thing at Fan Expo so far?
I didn’t get here until a little while ago, but I just love the atmosphere. The community is always so welcoming.

Follow on Instagram: @chelo.cm

Who are you cosplaying today?
Azura, from Fire Emblem Fates.

What inspired you to do this cosplay?
Ever since I first played the game I immediately fell in love with the character. I really loved the dress that she wore in the cutscene in conquest, where she tries to break some sort of curse, I thought that was really cool.

How long did it take you to put this together?
It took me a while, I had a bit of time issues with the cosplay, getting the wig was the easy bit though.

Have you done cosplay before?
I have, last year was my first time cosplaying. Last year I cosplayed Princess Zelda, from the Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess.

What is your next project?
I’ve got a lot of ideas in my head right now, I just don’t know which one to pick. I’m thinking about Ruby, Black Butler, Sword Art Online.

Follow on Facebook: Paige Dempsey

What are you Cosplaying as today?
Logan, from Wolverine.

What inspired you to do this cosplay?
The 2013 movie The Wolverine, started doing it then, just for Halloween. Then the last two years Comic Cons.

Have you done cosplay before?
Just on Halloween, then I found out there was such a thing as comic cons. Then I was like whaaat, I can do this every weekend if I can find a con somewhere around the world?

How many have you been too?
San Diego the last three years, Tokyo comiket, Singapore, Manila, one in Malaysia, Salt Lake City, one in Columbia, one in Mexico City, and a few other ones.

Do you have other cosplays that you wear?
This is a one trick pony.

Is there any other cosplay you would like to do in the future?
Yes, I really want to do Hector from Westworld.

Follow on Instagram: @CanadianWolverine

What are you dressed as today?
I am Princess Peach from the Mario series.

What inspired you to do this outfit?
I don’t have that many really girlie costumes, so I wanted to do something different, bright and fun. And she certainly is.

What inspired you to start doing cosplay?
I have been into anime and stuff since a young age and played video games growing up, and then it was a natural progression, I eventually found cosplay. I’ve always been creative and liked to sew.

How long have you been doing cosplay?
I want to say since I was 15, and I am 20 now, so about 5 years.

What cosplay do you want to do next?
I want to do Ashelin from the Jak and Daxter series.

Follow on Instagram: @spiralintohorror

What are you dressed as today?
I am dressed as Sweetums from The Muppets.

How long did it take you to put this together?
I started working on it about three months ago, but it was about 3 weeks total work time I would say.

What inspired you to do this as your cosplay?
I’ve always been a massive Jim Henson fan, so I’ve always wanted to do some kind of costume of his. Then I didn’t really want to do a hand puppet, so Sweetums was always my favourite really big crazy character, and I finally got to the point in my cosplay-ability where I was like yeah I could probably make that!

How long have you been doing cosplay?
About three years now?

Is this your favourite cosplay you have done so far?
I don’t know, I did Babar last year, which was really great. So I really liked Babar as well, but this one is much more comfortable, just really warm.

What is the next cosplay you want to do?
I’ve been thinking about doing Ludo from Labyrinth, maybe. But I am gonna coast on this one for a while, for Emerald City Comic Con. I just need to modify it and put some fans in the head.

Follow on Instagram: @jeff_porter_creative

What are you cosplaying as today?
Link, from Legend of Zelda.

What inspired you to be Link?
I just like it because he is a cool character.

What do you want to do as your next cosplay?
Deadpool!

Is this the first time you’ve cosplayed?
No, last year I was Harry Potter, which was a pretty cool costume.

Have you been to other Conventions with your cosplays?
No, only this one.

Follow ‘Link’s’ Dad on Instagram: @glasscannon.ca

What are you cosplaying as today?
I am Loki of Asgard.

What inspired you to do this cosplay?
I am so mischievous, just like Loki is, so he is like a part of me, he’s like a part of my soul. I absolutely love him.

How long did it take you to do this?
This is not even completed yet, it’s still in progress, but this has been how many months now? We’ve been working on it for about three or four months. And I still have to create some armour pieces to finish it off.

Are you going to take it to other Cons?
Oh definitely.

Where are you heading to next?
Probably Capitol City Comic Con, which will be in Victoria in March. And then after that not sure yet.

Have you done cosplay before?
Yes, I am from Toronto, so I have done these at Fan Expo Toronto. I have also gone as Tank girl, Pikachu, and Darth Talon.

What’s your favourite one so far?
Loki, I feel I can play Loki more than I can play some of the other ones.

Do you have an cosplay you would like to do in the future?
I’d like to actually do a Mystique, cause I do a lot of FX make-up and stuff like that, and I think I couls pull off something really cool.

Follow on Facebook: Gynnie Vi (aka Ginger Vicious, Burlesque persona)

Can you tell me what you are cosplaying as?
Chappie.

What inspired you to do this cosplay?
Chappie is my absolute favourite person in the world. Chappie is consciousness. Chappie is alive.

How long did it take you to make?
Three months.

Is this your first cosplay?
This is my second big one. I did a Xenomorph from the Aliens movie.

What is your next project?
I have no idea.

Are you going to get to wear this a few more times?
Probably. I think I am going to go to Victoria in March, or maybe Animerevo in August.

Follow on Instagram: @wartoast_cosplay

Here’s Some Of The Coolest Cosplay From This Year’s Fan Expo Vancouver!

by Mikaela Maxwell

We had so much fun at this year’s Fan Expo Vancouver.

From a long-anticipated Skyrim VR demo, to some amazing panels and performances, this year’s Fan Expo Vancouver was a treasure trove of great memories. We saw a ton of people, spent too much money, and laughed harder than we had in as long as we can remember (read all about my experience here).

I had the opportunity to interview a myriad of cool cosplayers, so be sure to look out for another cosplay-focussed piece in the coming days. There were simply too, too  many incredible cosplay artists roaming the show floor (and surrounding area), however, so here’s a look at some of the very best cosplay outfits that Fan Expo Vancouver attendees had to offer!

Harley Quinn – aliferouxs, Joker – mxrningstar



50’s Leia – kerri_lowe, Snow White – Eleighapie

Eileen The Crow – spearhead_solaire

Ursula – marcrovich

Wood Elf – tiramisuterror



Ariel and Snow White – dc_sisters_cosplay, Assassin’s Creed –  lullabyedespise, tribalbob41
Cyber Rin – Mahoumelon, Cruella Deville – Shaylakeelymay


Judge Dredd – ctmonks, The Countess – anigma-ashley

Enchanted Princess Kingdom

Leia Staked Jaba The Hutt – amyleeradigan


Carrhunger

The Boss – laurenbamlett

Pikachu – Michael Wang



Left Sharks – vodkablitz, twizzleys, kaitienicholas


But wait, there’s more! I had the opportunity to ask some really cool cosplayers some questions about their work. From an amazing Chappy, to Dva’s mech (made of balloons), to a Jupiter Jones dress that took over 150 hours to make, it’s all pretty incredible. Look for that piece in the next few days!

Fan Expo Vancouver Recap: Cosplay, Twisted Toonz, Personal Growth, And More!

by Mikaela Maxwell

Since meeting Derek, I’ve heard a myriad of tales of the wonders of the convention world, especially his years at San Diego Comic-Con (SDCC). It’s always seemed so neat to me; so many new things being demonstrated, new experiences to be had, SO much magical art, and a huge variety of people dressing up as their favourite characters. Listening to Derek talk about all the incredible games he has tried (long before they’d been released to the public), experiences he has been immersed in, and cosplay, all the cosplay… I knew I had to give this a try for myself.

This is surprisingly not my first convention! Well actually Fan Expo Vancouver was, in 2016. Last year Derek and I took his Dad (Rob) to Fan Expo Vancouver for the weekend. Now usually Derek, Rob, and I hanging out equates to me asking what everyone wants to do, everyone refusing to make a decision, and then me throwing my hands in the air and creating an impromptu itinerary to keep us busy. So that weekend together was a bit of a change as we were 100% out of my element, and I was going eagerly into their territory of geek fandom. EEP!

Fan Expo Vancouver 2016 was a great weekend. I was a little bit shocked by the number of people, and lack of breathing room (which I still hear is nothing compared to SDCC, or even Seattle’s Emerald City Comic-Con), but adjusted to that pretty quickly (who needs personal space?!). I was waaaaay out of my comfort zone, but super proud of myself for sticking it out. I wanted to look at every single booth, which meant I was forced to talk to vendors, and this turned out to be great. I met local artists and talked to people about their passion projects. I found an artist that I really liked and bought his whole series of comics along with a custom cover that features Eleven from Stranger Things. Someone helped me pick a few new graphic novels (I think that’s what they were, you know the ones where it’s like a comic book but way more pages and like real book covers) based on artwork I liked and previous books from Derek’s collection that I had enjoyed. I wish I could remember the name of that booth – that guy was super helpful, and made me feel like I wasn’t a total loser for being totally unsure of myself in the situation. I even bought a physical copy of the best comic that I’ve read so far called Wytches, a book I had already read the digital version of but wanted the physical one cause it is my favourite art. I literally have a Wytches Mondo print (from good ‘ol SDCC) hanging in our entry way so it’s the first thing you see when walking into our house.

For me the most notable aspect of Fan Expo Vancouver 2016 was the cosplay! The cosplay was REMARKABLE. I could not believe the intricacy, detail, and sheer size of these amazing costumes. As a person whose favourite holiday is Halloween, who wants every party to be a costume party, and who uses any excuse to wear a moustache… I guess its not really surprising that this was the most exciting part for me. I remember walking down a hallway and literally not being able to look straight ahead of me, I was rubber necking all over the place. On all sides there were people wearing the most amazing outfits. Some were riding solo, others were in groups, there were adults and kids and men and women, all just putting so much energy into expressing themselves through the recreation of so many different characters. I have never in my life asked the question ‘What is that one?’ so many times. Derek spent most of that weekend whispering character names into my ear, and then having to explain their backstory as I had no idea who they were most of the time anyways. It. Was. Great.

Old school Mika Moustache

We were also able to sit in on a couple of how-to Cosplay panels, which were soooo interesting. My favourite was listening to Andy Rae go through the basics of how she came up with, designed, and created one of her cosplay characters (I believe it was like a badass Snow White). I came away from Fan Expo Vancouver 2016 feeling totally inspired and freaking stoked about this new world I had stumbled into. I wish I could say I had my own cosplay put together this year, but I still haven’t found the courage/money/artistic-excellence required to make it happen… yet.

Needless to say, this year I couldn’t wait to see the cosplay, and Fan Expo 2017 did not disappoint! Literally on the sky-train down to the convention centre a family of four got on with a tiny Batman and the most legit tiny Wonder Woman I have ever seen. My heart melted and I got so excited!

Now let me paint the picture a little for you. Fan Expo is a Friday to Sunday event. I didn’t get to go on Friday as I had to work night shifts on Thursday and Friday night, so during the day on Friday while Derek was there to kick off the start of the event, I was tossing and turning trying not to think about it so I could get a good nigh… day’s sleep. This also meant that I got home from work at 8:15 on Saturday morning and needed to power nap and paint my face with makeup so I could hopefully trick people into thinking I was a normal human and not a night shift zombie (dang I am just realizing now I shoulda just gone as the zombie #MissedOpportunity). Normally any of the days surrounding night shifts are off limits. I know that I need sleep to be able to function on a normal human level, but the situation could not be helped, and there was no way I was missing out on any more of this convention than absolutely necessary. So, with the help of a little caffeine, we ventured out and managed to get there by noon!

The first thing we did (other than gawk at the amazing cosplayers all around us) was go to a Q&A panel with Nolan North (voice actor of Nathan Drake from Uncharted among a million other things) and Troy Baker (voice actor of Nathan Drake’s brother Sam Drake from Uncharted 4, among a million other things). Side note: Holy crap I just remembered those things all by myself, like literally out of my head, and actually know what I am referring to and their relevance!

Luckily I had watched Derek play Uncharted 4 for a while so I actually kinda knew what we were getting into and why we cared. That game is beautiful, and looks like so much fun (regardless of what Shane thinks)! It would likely take a little too much coordination for me to play at this point, as you can tell from my gaming experience detailed in my Super Mario Odyssey piece. It turns out these guys have voice acted as soo many characters in sooo many different franchises. It also turns out that they are hilarious.

Nolan and Troy walked into the packed Meeting Room 2, stating that they weren’t a big enough deal to get slotted into Meeting Room 1, and away we went. They were briefly introduced and right away launched into questions from the audience. It was super neat to hear lots of different types of questions from people who were clearly huge fans of these guys. It was also neat to see them call out some of the fans to show off their great cosplay. The guys played off of each other really well, and you could tell they were friends and really enjoyed working together. They had the room cracking up with almost every question asked, no matter what the topic. Now I don’t remember most of the specifics, it turns out that inspirational quote about how people don’t remember what you said but how you made them feel… whelp, it’s totally true. The two things that stand out in my mind about this panel, aside from feeling genuinely entertained the whole time, were: when I almost cried, and that it turns out I didn’t actually know how video games were made… like at all.

I did not expect to get emotional listening to some guys talk about how they were the voice for animated characters. Yeah, I was wrong. There was a question about one of the characters Troy has voiced, regarding something to do with how the character had been received (I believe the character was Kanji from the Persona series). Of course I know nothing about what this person was referring to, or the exact words of Troy’s response, but it was something along the lines of the power of accepting yourself and your sexuality and embracing your unique qualities etc. etc…. I was blown away that in the midst of having no idea what these people were talking about I could be so moved by someone’s attitude towards peoples’ rights to their bodies and the beauty of being your genuine self.

Also I don’t really understand why they are called ‘Voice Actors’. Like I get that they are the voice of the character, but I didn’t know that they are actually the body of the character as well?! My mind was serious amounts of blown. I’ll explain my vague understanding, just in case there is anyone else out there who has been living under a rock like I have. These guys legit broke it down for us. Turns out when the character is running, jumping, turning their head, crouching, falling, being thrown by an explosion, basically doing anything in the game, this is ALL actually done by the “voice” actor (or sometimes a stunt person). The actor will don one of those green suits with all the electrodes or something built in, and be placed in a big open room, then recorded from a million different cameras to capture every angle. Then they do all of these moves in this open space, and the animated character will be adapted to their body movements for the game. MIND BLOWN. Now that I am typing it out, it makes sense, it’s just like any CG movie effect. But somehow, I had never connected the dots that they would use the same technology for video games. I literally thought it was like an animated movie… wait is this how Pixar makes their movies too? Oh god I don’t know what’s real anymore.

We then went into my most anticipated panel of the entire event, the Celebrity Cosplayer Panel with LeeAnna Vamp, Holly Wolf, Karli Woods, and Riki Lecotey. I’ve gotta say that their Cosplay was definitely on point. I even knew who most of them were dressed up as! There was a bad ass Lady Beetle Juice and Lydia Deetz; this combo was definitely one of my top five for the expo, but I sadly didn’t get a picture. As well there was someone from X-Men (Derek says it was Rogue), and I’m not really sure what Riki was cause she is tiny and I could barely see her, but her top hat was pretty rad and apparently she rehabilitates baby squirrels in her real life, so I’m officially a big fan. They went on to discuss the basics of what it takes to use social media effectively as a professional cosplayer. There was a lot of information shared, but the biggest tips I remember are: to use whatever the newest feature is on that network (ie: Instagram’s stories, Facebook Live etc.), don’t put text on your Facebook photos cause they will get buried, and don’t put a link to another social network in your Facebook post, instead put it in the comments so again Facebook is less likely to bury it.

Once they were done with social media talk, there were just three minutes left for the audience to ask question (waah-waah). A few questions were asked, most noteably one about how someone who isn’t skinny can make it in a world where most of the higher profile women fit into the thin-waist-big-boobs category. And the answer was a solid inspirational quote type of situation. All in all, I feel like I would have appreciated a lot more of the how-to type of panel in relation to the physical costumes, but I can definitely see the value in knowing the ins and outs of using social media (especially if you’re already cosplaying and not just looking to get into it).

Going into this weekend, the big Geekscape project that I wanted to do involved taking pictures of cosplayers and interviewing them about cosplay generally. However, walking into the chaos of Saturday on almost zero sleep and even less confidence I definitely lost my nerve. I wandered around staring at all these amazing creations and passionate people, and basically just shrivelled up inside myself.

I took one picture all of Saturday (of an amazing Jupiter Jones cosplay). I got up the nerve to ask her a few questions, as soon as we started talking I immediately forgot how words worked and forgot the short list of questions I had prepared. Luckily for me she was super approachable and really excited to talk about her look. It also turns out she is a nurse (like me) and so we got to chat about that a bit too. I felt good about this interaction, but still totally self-conscious and awkward.

We then went to a panel called Twisted Toonz where a few voice actors Maurice LaMarche (The Brain), Rob Paulsen (Pinky), Jennifer Hale (Lady Shepherd from Mass Effect), Troy Baker, Nolan North & Veronica Taylor (Ash from Pokémon) were assigned various well known characters/celebrities to impersonate while reading scenes from The Princess Bride. It was pretty freaking hilarious. I spent most the time not being able to follow what was happening, but cracking up at their impressive impersonations.

https://youtu.be/o6-tPoKi7xA

Going into Sunday morning I knew if I wanted to earn my right to represent Geekscape, and walk away feeling satisfied with having pushed myself out of my comfort zone, I needed to step up my game.

I’m happy to report: I did it!

Sunday morning we arrived and hung out in the lobby for a while allowing me to approach people and talk to them about their cosplay. After a while I found my footing and got in the groove of it. Not once did I remember all of the questions I wanted to ask, but was able to get varying little bits of insight from everyone. It was super interesting to hear about how people got into it and what inspires them to do cosplay. I ended up talking to a lot of people who were cosplaying for the first time, which was pretty neat. I also get to talk to a guy dressed as the guitar guy from Mad Max: Fury Road, which is one of my all-time favourite movies. It was pretty neat – I won’t go into detail here, but hopefully I can get that article up in the next few days!

We went to Sketch Duel between Jae Lee and Eric Vedder, which was kind of a big deal. They were given a character (someone from Game of Thrones whose name I don’t remember) (editor’s note: Daenerys) with a modification (zombie) and each had to do their version of it while the audience sat there and asked them questions. It was pretty neat, and totally crazy that these people can just sit there chatting AND creating amazing art like it’s just no thing. The best part was at the end audience members got to win the sketches! (I was one number away from winning and just a little bit bitter about it).

Next up was a panel with the cast of iZombie, which Derek is super into and I have yet to actually watch even though it’s on Netflix (oops!). It was also pretty entertaining. I don’t remember anyone’s names, but they all played off of each other very well and were super into engaging with the crowd for the Q&A. The best part was when everyone sang Happy Birthday to one of the guys, and then at the end Rose McIver (the main character of the show) got all the people who were dressed in her character, Liv Moore, cosplay to come up on stage for a group photo. There were so many. It was great.

We then spent the rest of the day walking the floor, talking to artists, talking to cosplayers, taking pictures of people, and looking at all the things. Derek surprised me with a painting he bought for me while I was caught up in conversation with someone (the artist has an amazing Etsy shop here). We legimately did not leave until the show floor closed.

All in all it was a great weekend. There was so much packed into these two short days, and I walked away once again feeling inspired and excited about so many new things. I am so proud of myself for finding my lady balls and talking to all the people. I felt awkard and scared and I did it anyways… and I think it turned out pretty well. I gotta give a shout out to Derek for totally supporting me in embracing this and opening his Geekscape arms to me; as well as reminding me that I am awesome when I wanted to run away from everything. I am really looking forward to putting together my piece about cosplayers, and hope that you are too!

Wow. That was a lot of things to talk about. If you made it this far, thank you for taking the time to read about my experience! I had a great time and can’t wait for the next convention!

Shout out to the photo-bomber in the background.

I Don’t Know How To Play Video Games, But Here’s What I Thought Of ‘Super Mario Odyssey’

by Mikaela Maxwell

Geekscape has been a part of my life for about three years now (as has my Fiancé Derek). Turns out that Derek comes with Geekscape, and Geekscape comes with Derek, and the two are pretty much inseparable.

It’s been pretty neat watching Derek be a part of this community that shares so many interests – interests in topics that were for the most part so (sooooo) foreign to me. Through Derek I have learned a lot (and then learned again and again and again when I forget and ask for the millionth time) about a lot of these things.

Derek and this site have opened a door to a whole range of ideas that are so intricate and involved; I really do feel like I am learning about a whole new culture when trying to understand the ins and outs of this ‘Geek culture’. I still feel like I am just scratching the surface of understanding things like role playing games, graphic novels, comic books, superheroes, anime, and of course video games (just to name a few). That being said, I’ve also discovered that I quite enjoy most of this stuff!

And so here we are – I’m writing, and you’re reading, about my experience playing a video game. Who would have ever thought this would be a thing!?

In my head, it seems like everybody’s first video game memory should be of something Mario related… in truth mine is not. Now I could be totally mixing things up, but if Mortal Kombat on Sega Genesis is a thing that existed, it’s definitely my first video game memory. I definitely remember sitting in my Dad’s living room button mashing the shit outta the controller and, according to these rose coloured memories, annihilating the competition using one of those wicked lady fighters as my weapon of choice. I also favoured Duck Hunt in my youth… and continue to long for its return all these years later (but unfortunately don’t have a TV that it would work on). Later in my teen years, my Mom’s house became equipped with a new-to-us N64 and a few games, including Diddy Kong racing, which quickly became a family favourite. That pretty much sums up my video game experience during the Pre-Derek Era.

https://youtu.be/GcoTSYSuoO0

The other day I started playing Super Mario Odyssey on the Nintendo Switch, and I was pretty much instantly hooked! As a person who didn’t really embrace video games until much later in life it can sometimes be super difficult and overwhelming to get into a new game. This has not been the case with Super Mario Odyssey… except that it was literally difficult because I couldn’t exactly remember how to go about getting into a game on the Switch, or how to get into the game under my own profile (Derek, unwittingly, narrowly escaped me ruining his gamer cred by assuming his Mario identity). Luckily for him, through patience, perseverance, and a fair bit of swearing, I finally entered into the realm of Super Mario Odyssey.

One of the things that I really liked about this game is it doesn’t overwhelm you with controls. You start in a place (a level I guess… maybe a world!?) that does a good job of holding your hand through learning approximately five basic controls. Some of it is intuitive, and mostly it becomes intuitive pretty quickly, but at no point is it overwhelming to remember how to function on a basic level. It seems also that as you move through the game, and through the levels or worlds, you are kind of taught what you need to know as you need to know it. This was re-emphasized to me when I got to a more challenging area of the game and died like 10 times before deciding I should just move on to a different area, where I then learned the skills and acquire the equipment I needed to be able to complete the previously murderous task without difficulty.

That being said, I have become very grateful for the ‘Action Guide’ menu option (when I remember it’s there). As much as I appreciate the simplicity of the basic movements and my ability to function with that as my baseline, I still have a lot of difficulty remembering what the more advanced functions are. I’m sure that if I were to play multiple hours a day, many days in a row, it would be a lot easier to remember how to, for example, roll, which would make getting around so much faster.

In any case, that is not my life story, and as with most games, when I go back to playing I rely heavily on this type of menu to remind me of all the other magical things I am capable of in this world! I’m hoping that as I play this game more I will actually be able to remember some of these moves, and until then I will definitely remember how to get to that Action Guide (which is actually really straight forward, yay!).

I’m not sure what the proper term is, but I tend to struggle with games where I have to use two separate sticks to look and to move at the same time. In other games this has led to a lot of getting stuck in corners and shooting the ground while enemies kill me quickly. This is another point in the win column for this game –not only is the pace totally dictated by me, but when I’m trying to figure out how to move straight enough to get from point A to point B Mario spreads his arms out and looks like a dizzy little kid trying to fly and it’s basically the cutest. It’s also super helpful that randomly swinging the Joy Cons around makes you throw your hat, because when I am being attacked by anything swatting my hands while trying to run away is a pretty automatic (and somewhat effective) reaction!

As a not-quite-gamer I appreciate the non-pressure of knowing that I can set the pace without any negative repercussions in this game. That being said, as a not-quite-gamer when I am struggling to remember/figure out how to function/not die, everything takes For. Fucking. Ever. I cannot wait util the day where I can easily and quickly get through at least the simple tasks of this/any video game without my character failing 40 times first! (except for Stardew Valley, I got that on lock already)!

I often will also struggle with nausea due to motion sickness in games where I am having to use both sticks to move and look, mostly because my character is wandering around like a drunken sailor and so I end up feeling like one. As I have put more hours into this game I am starting to notice the sea sickness, but this is another area where I am hoping practice will make perfect and hopefully I will be able to rectify the nausea while also becoming more efficient at not falling of ledges or running into things.

Moving around as Mario is one thing, but you also get to throw your hat onto different characters or objects and become them for a period of time. This is a great mechanic, which I am really enjoying when I remember to clue into using it. So far, my favourite was stomping around as a big ol’ T-Rex, though that flying Bullet Bill guy was pretty fun too. I can’t wait to figure out how to become the bird that flies just out of reach in the desert world; it’s loud, and sparkly, and seems to go anywhere, basically it seems like the ultimate do everything character to takeover (I’m casually going to pretend I didn’t spend a solid 5 minutes bouncing hopelessly on a flower waiting for, then failing to catch the bird, and not even realizing until way later that the flower throws you way higher if you actually open it before bouncing…)

I also became a cactus at one point, but could not for the life of me figure out what I was supposed to do while cactusing.

One thing I have come to love about video games is the incredible variation of beautiful art in so many different art styles, and Super Mario Odyssey did not disappoint in this category! The worlds that you are immersed in are breathtaking, and all of them are different, with different types of creatures and layouts to explore. The place where I am right now is a desert that’s been frozen, so there are all these neat Frozen crystals throughout the landscape (super pretty). Inversely, the previous world was full of lush grass and a giant water fall with dinosaurs and vicious ball-and-chains (of the not spousal variety). I am super looking forward to seeing what the next worlds have in store!

It’s always interesting for me to play a game, and then to watch Derek play the same game. It’s crazy how we can be playing the same title but end up playing totally different games. On a basic level, he has way more experience using the various video game moving around mechanics, and so that part he just doesn’t have to think about. So, in a place where it takes me a full minute to creep around an edge and collect coins without falling off, he has scooped those coins in all of 10 seconds! But also, once he got through the first real open playing area and had reached the goal (collecting enough moons to power a ship) that allowed you to move on, where I had launched on to the next world, he took the opportunity to go back and keep exploring. This is when we discovered Super Mario Odyssey has soooo many hidden treasures to be found and goals to be accomplished! After completing the main task of that world/level we discovered new paths and entrances to secret tunnels, as well as new characters to interact with, and just so many more things to do. In a world where I was stoked to have collected 5 moons when only 4 were required, Derek discovered there was actually potential for 25 moons to be obtained! What this tells me is that Nintendo was really thinking ahead, and delivering a quality product to all of its customers; not only is this game totally accessible to young or new gamers, but it is also super rewarding for people who like more of a challenge to their games!

To sum it all up, I am totally digging this game. Like so many other interests, I feel like I have just scratched the surface of it, and I am super looking forward to digging deeper. I want all of the moons. All of them. I am also super looking forward to dying less.

A helpful tip for anyone getting into this great game: Purple water is not water. Do not try to swim in it. You will die. Every time. Immediately.

Keep an eye out for more from me, If I ever manage to stop playing this game, maybe I’ll write a bit about my next new (or new to me) game experience!

https://youtu.be/g4xW9aCg2zY