📝 Whatever happened to October?

2023 November 03

Ignore the date of my last post, okay? Let’s just. Let’s just get into it.

September stuff

Nice Disc at Tokyo Game Show

Daikon and I went to Tokyo Game Show on the two business days (September 21-22)! It was extremely crowded and very overwhelming, but I had a ton of fun. Here are a few of the highlights:

Game cabinet for Nice Disc: The Last Hot Blood with monitor, speakers, and two controllers.

Our very own arcade cabinet at TGS!

Nice Disc: The Last Hot Blood had its own game cabinet! It was part of the Kemco showcase of games. We were really impressed with how nice it looked. It was very surreal to hear Daikon’s music blasting over the loudspeakers and see people playing his game at one of the biggest game shows in the world. The folks at Kemco also prepared some nice stickers for anyone who played the Switch demo:

Nice Disc swag!!

It was a ton of fun. We met up with some folks including mojilove, and Daikon faced off against him in a match of Nice Disc!

Two people playing at the Nice Disc game cabinet

mojilove and Daikon playing through the story mode!

The rest of TGS was a busy blur of checking out publisher booths, playing tons and tons of games, and looking for silly photo opportunities.

Person holding a toy gun and lifting up a cardboard box, underneath which is another person holding up their hands in surrender. In the background is a metal shipping container reading METAL GEAR SOLID Vol 1: Master Collection

I've never played these games but I'm pretty sure it works like this, right?

TGS was incredibly exhausting. The first day in particular was rough since there was something wrong with the air conditioning, so it was incredibly hot and humid inside. When we got out, there was this lovely rainbow greeting everyone… along with a warm and muggy September rain.

Sunset rainbow over some hotels outside of Makuhari Messe

This beautiful rainbow obscures the heavy stench emanating off the sweaty, tired crowds.

Nice Disc and Kairiki (Machamp) stickers on a shiny metallic pink HP laptop

It was fine, we made it to our hotel and had a glorious shower.

The next day we went back for more stuff, this time focusing on the indie side of things. We checked out most of the Selected Indie 80 titles.

Person shaking a bottle of cola in front of the Jet Cola booth at TGS

I finally got to try Jet Cola!

After two days of walking around TGS, we were dead tired. We found a nice curry shop near Makuhari Messe and had a super yummy dinner.

A plate of curry with a circular cheese naan cut into fourths and a bowl of butter curry next to it. Across the table is a long piece of naan, two pieces of chicken, two small bowls of curry, and a cylinder of fried naan.

Dinner @ Mantra in Marive Dining

I had the honey butter chicken curry with cheese naan! Daikon had special set (vegetable curry and chicken curry), chicken tikka and nan! It was all super yummy!

October stuff

Camping in Motosuko

Daikon setting up a yellow tent in a forested camping area.

We spent the night at our new favorite campsite near Lake Motosu from October 10-11. The weather was finally cool enough to go camping. It was a very relaxing time, except when we had to figure out how to eat these enormous marshmallows that Daikon bought…

Daikon holding an enormous marshmallow sandwiched between two tiny crackers.

Seriously, these things were MASSIVE.

A huge blue sky scattered with thin clouds. Underneath is an equally blue lake edged with green mountains.

In the morning, we took a leisurely stroll around the lake. It was a beautiful day. Before heading back to Kanagawa, we ate some Yoshida udon at a rest area. The noodles were really fat and chewy, and the broth was super yummy.

Daikon holding up a bunch of super thick udon noodles from a bowl.

Zentame

We went back to Zentame again this year! Just like last time, we had a big tent for our games. I tried to fill out the walls with previous zine covers of Indie Tsushin to make it look more colorful.

We even set up a little reading nook for our zines! I also made new postcards with the September issue cover on one side and the TOC and QR code link on the back. Daikon likes to call these “AR books,” which is very funny.

Folding table and bench for Indie Tsushin print zines and postcards.

Really glad we got to go and meet up with some of our gamedev friends who don’t live in Tokyo! Gifu was as always a very chill and beautiful place, and I really hope we can go back again next year.

勉強会ジャム // Study Buddy Jam

We ran the 勉強会ジャム // Study Buddy Jam for all of October! It’s a game jam where the idea is to start or learn something new, and then write about what you learned. Even if you don’t make a full game at the end, so long as you opened up a tutorial, or played around with the code of a sample game, or loaded up a TRPG SRD, you win! It was a very chill and fun time. Right now, we’re working to compile the list of submissions and responses. I was surprised that more people joined than I thought!

My own game was morning drive to gifu, a game made in binksi using the Tiny binksi Visual Novel template by PRINCESS INTERNET CAFé, and based off my memory of driving to Gifu for Zentame earlier in the month.

Grainy photo of Mt. Fuji in the early dawn.

It’s a very simple and barebones game with a total of only 400 words, but I’m still pretty pleased with how it came out. I really liked working with binksi and have some ideas to make more stuff in the future!

Etcetera

This is not a complete list. The last half of September and all of October was just a whirlwind of madness, from which I am still recovering. The October Indie Tsushin zine issue came out last week, and I’m hustling to get started on November. We have plans to go camping sometime next week, maybe, if everything falls into place. Next weekend is also Dejige, which we plan to go check out. November is already shaping up to be another busy month. I need a break! I would like a moment to just stop and read some manga, please!!

I hope to be back soon with another blog post, hopefully one that doesn’t take two months to write!!