I’ve been warned that once I move to Japan I wouldn’t have as much time on my hands as I had before, everyone was right. I’ve been really busy, and terrible at updating this blog, but a lot of stuff happened, and seems like a lot of stuff are on their way as well. So in order not to be too overwhelmed with delayed updates, here’s a a photo-with-caption update on some of the major events that has happened in 2015 so far.
New Company, new team, new stories to share, those guys are awesome, they are super talented, super passionate about games and they’re making my transition into Japan so much easier.
Comiket was quite an experience, my first encounter with the “hobby” manga and game development community, this event happens twice a year attracted over 500,000 people each time, so much for a niche audience.
GDC happened, and it was as glorious as ever, this time I was super busy as it’s part of my job to meet as many people as possible, I had a lot of meetings scheduled and it was hard work, but I enjoyed myself there none the less.
You don’t always get to meet your heroes, I met a lot of them this year, Sakaguchi-san was receiving his lifetime achievement award, I was happy to celebrate it with him.
Also had a very interesting chat with the Master of Doom himself John Romero, he was loads of fun, insightful and down to Earth.
But perhaps the most awesome thing to happen was seeing those guys making their dreams come true, Frogshark games come all the way from New Zealand to reveal their indie title under the patronage of Microsoft. So proud of you guys!
Spring in Japan is absolutely breath taking
Mobile Game Forum Asia (MGF Asia 2015) in Hong Kong was interesting as it made me discover that it’s never too late to go and join the circus.
The Tokyo indie festival 2015 had so many interesting games that are far too many to list here, I played every single game on the floor and was really happy to see Japanese creativity at it’s finest. Western developers represent as well!
Everyone’s nostalgic to the pixel art era of games, but like this guy i have a soft spot for PSone era games, back in 1995 recreates a survival horror game in that style perfectly .
Also managed to get my face featured in one of the games on the floor by my good friend Crisler
So many games to see, I definitely enjoyed the event and would recommend it for people interested to come to Tokyo next year. Watch out world, Japanese indie devs are coming.
E3 is around the corner, and there’s other stuff happening soon, I’ll try to keep up here as well, No promises though.
Fawzi Mesmar 