PAX Day 2
It’s the second day! Apparently it’s going to be hectic, the busiest day of the three, absolutely it was! We heard from visitors and other exhibitors that Friday was the day people used to scope out the venue and queued up to buy merch before everything sold out. Saturday had the most people attend because there’s a lot on, panel discussions, cosplay competitions and the first weekend day when families could bring their kids along (no school). Yup, the theories definitely held up to expectations, Saturday was crazy!
As soon as the time hit 10, we had several people hone in on our table who wanted to play and buy our games. We were flat out as soon as the flood gates were open. It was a good thing we had Friday to practice as it gave us enough time to refine our sales technique and spiel. I was getting very good at explaining how to play Yum Cha. Taking people through each rule in the right order, making sure I explained everything clearly, getting into enough detail but not too much. We definitely developed a pattern and was working off muscle memory.
Back to the beginning of the day. With one day done and dusted, we kinda knew what to expect now. There’s no time for lunch breaks if you don’t actively seek it out. Bring a lot of water and just go to the bathroom as soon as there’s a small lull. Saturday didn’t start as early as Friday, and there wasn’t a lot of preparation we had to do either. We had a bit more time to ourselves in the morning so we ended up catching up with a friend for breakfast. We were surprised to find that Melbourne restaurants didn’t open early. Barely anything was open around the MCEC, it seems like Brisbane has a much better brunch game 😝. Eventually we find something light to eat, this is when we found out our voice was starting to fade.
After breaky, we went to the supermarket to stock up on water and lunch. Made our way over to the MCEC for another eventful day. Definitely eventful, we sold our second suitcase full of games by the afternoon and we were on the Indie Showcase panel that night. Part of our prize for winning the Indie Showcase for tabletop gaming is, we would get a small table to demo our games and to appear on the panel with fellow winners to talk about our journey and how we got to where we are today. The panel was on at 6:30 in the evening, meaning we had a hard close time for Day 2.
Being invited to be on the panel was a great privilege, imposter syndrome definetely kicked in, but we were super grateful for the opportunity. Communications from PAX organisers weren’t clear on whether we could have both of us founders/designers appear on the panel together. We decided to both turn up anyway, if they said no, one of us would just step down, no big deal. Leah Willams, the host of the panel was more than happy to let us both on. The panel discussion was great, we didn’t know we had so many fans, collectively 🤣🤣. People actually wanted to listen to what we had to say. It solidified our passion for Quokka Games. We want to create more games and represent and share our Chinese Australian culture.
Photo provided courtesy of Lyndon Cullen
After the panel discussion, we had time to talk amongst the winners for a little bit. This is where we learnt that one of our fellow winners Sarah was also a team of two, she didn’t join us on the panel. Sarah assumed that only one person was allowed on the panel and let Chris go to represent them both. She definitely felt gutted from the missed opportunity to appear on the panel when she saw the both of us. It was quite evident that communication was very poor across the board, it wasn’t just us, it was the same for all the winners. Beside the lack of comms, we are super grateful for PAX in general. PAX AUS has given Quokka Games a platform to showcase our game to Melbourne and the world, the reach is incredible. We cannot thank you enough for what opportunities PAX has given us.
It was getting so late for my stomach, it had forgotten to grumble from all the excitement. We haven’t had dinner yet and it was almost 8. We decided to grab ramen again from Shonan Kamakura, but try out a different broth. It didn’t fail to disappoint on wait time, this time our ramen took an hour long before it came out. They sold out of char siu as well that night, but offered karaage chicken as a substitute. The ramen was just as good as the night before and the karaage sitting on top of the broth was amazing. Usually when it touches soup the batter would get all soggy, but not this one, the karaage was still crunchy even though it had been swimming in the ramen broth.
Shonan Kamakura - Miso Ramen