I’m finally back from the show, and while there was nothing really unexpected I somewhat enjoyed it more than the previous edition. Let’s have a look at what’s new in the world of video games, seen from a Japanese perspective.
Category: ThisIsJapan
A Night at Hacker News Kansai in Japan
On top of Pandoralive, I am involved in a certain number of activities in my free time, and one of them is Hacker News Kansai (aka HN Kansai). HN Kansai was born from the desire to find and gather readers of Hacker News living the Kansai region of Japan (basically the Western area of Japan with Kobe, Kyoto and Osaka as major cities). As one of the 3 co-organizers (the other two being Paco and Sacha) of the event, I have been quite involved and I just wanted to share here about what we did about a month ago, since it gives a good insight as to what this event is about, and may interest a couple of folks from the Pandora community as well.
Retro Fun at Akihabara
Last weekend I came back to Tokyo for a short visit. The main purpose of that short stay was to meet up with mmKALLL who happened to be there for a while, and to go together (with a couple of other friends from mine) in Akihabara to check stuff out. I knew most of the shops we went to, but there were a few interesting discoveries on the way…
A Quick Look at the BitSummit 2014
Today I went to the last public day of BitSummit, an exhibition in Kyoto which started last year and whose goal is to attract and showcase the works of indie game devs. Last year’s venue was very small, but this time they managed to get a lot more space, which means more titles on display and more visitors as well.
Awaodori, A Unique Dance Festival
Yeah, here you go for another off-topic post, again about some aspects of Japan. This time I’ll share with you my experience with the Awaodori, a dance festival held every year in the small city of Tokushima, in the 4th main island of Japan, Shikoku. Basically the whole town becomes a dancing stage for its inhabitants and their traditional yet energetic dance style.
You Really Should Be Using Virtual Desktops
Yeah, I’m talking to you, the Big Loser in front of your small or big screen. How do I know you are a Loser? Well, obviously you are not using virtual desktops on your Pandora, if not you wouldn’t be reading this article. Well, rejoice, you can become a little less of a loser after reading this, so come and join me for a trip in Xfce.
Tokyo Games Show 2013. Meh.
About a week ago I was still at the Tokyo Games Show, and here’s my full report of it. This article is going to be as much off topic as I can imaging getting, but since Pandora owners are usually gamers, I can probably afford to venture into this article without much restraint. So let’s get down to it.
Remember the Japan Edition Box ?
A couple of months ago I mentioned the work we (as in TraylorPark and me) did to develop a new box packaging for the Japan Edition of the Pandora. Since there was a lot of interest from a number of folks to get such a box (even without Pandora), I have made them available for overseas customers.
Who is Kenta Cho ?
Maybe the name is unfamiliar to many of you, but Kenta Cho is the Japanese game creator behind many of the shoot’em ups available on Pandora (and ported by MH-T and mcobit). rRootage, Tumiki Fighters, Titanion, just to name a few. Most of his games source code is available, and I guess you now realize he specializes in shooters. After looking at his productions I started to wonder how he came to do that. What was his story ?
My Day With The Pandora (TraylorPark)
Rather then starting with how my day began, I want to start with how my day ended. I had just realized that if I turned on the “alpha hack” option in PPSSPP (PSP emulator), I could get Lumines to run at just about full speed. My girlfriend and I spent the last hour of the night on the couch passing the Pandora back and forth as we tried to best each others score.