PAX Day 3

The final day of our tabletop showcase! but not our final day in Melbourne 😛. Having no more stock to sell, we could just focus on demoing our game. That in itself took a lot off our shoulders so Sunday ended up being a little easier compared to the first two days. The only downside was our voice was almost gone.

Sunday was a very different day, we felt like there was more people on the showroom floor. It felt like it was busier in general. Many people that have already visited us either waved or said hi as they walked passed. A lot of the new visitors who came over to see us said that their friends had recommended them. Some were returning visitors that brough their kids or friends to have another go. It was great to see the positive reception we received for Yum Cha.

One of my icebreaker was to ask people if they’ve eaten yum cha before. It was good to hear that most people have been at least once but a lot of people have not been recently, there was a small number of people that have never been before. Almost everyone said they were going to go to yum cha now after seeing/playing our game. I think we have achieved our goal of showcasing a little bit of our Chinese culture, especially to a bunch of people who have never heard of yum cha before this event. Hopefully we inspired a lot of people to try one of our favourite pastimes and eat some new food that they’ve never had before.

Short descriptions of all the Indie Showcase winners on the visitor map of the venue

I picked up this map from a nice gentleman, I asked him where he got it from because I wanted to keep one as a souvenir of our first time at PAX, he ended up just giving it to me 😊. That’s another negative thing about the organisers of PAX. We learnt from one of our fellow winners that they received some sort of welcome package (2 packs of snakes) and we didn’t receive anything. It would’ve been nice to receive a welcome from somebody in person, acknowledgement that we’re actually the Quokka Bros and we actually made it to our table, some sort of confirmation, a rundown of where to go in case of emergency, where the toilets and rest areas are and where to seek help if we needed it (we knew only if the evacuation zone from the document we signed electronically, that’s it).

Today we finally had some opportunity to take photos of our visitors. Everyone was so positive and open to trying our games. It gave us a lot of confidence that we were doing the right thing, especially when we saw people having such a great time playing with people they’ve never met before (not including us). It was great to see people of all ages, different and diverse backgrounds, families, friends and people of different levels of gaming experience enjoy our game. Cosplayers were the best I’d have to say, I didn’t have a chance to go seek them out myself during PAX so it was great they came to us 🤣.

These guy really wanted to dine in and not takeaway!

I finally had a small window of opportunity to wander down the tabletop area and saw some of the great games that were on display. Aethermon (3rd Place Games), Pixel Star (Mauii Makes Games), Kingless (Two19) and Coffee Cup Games (Wombat Waddle Games) caught my attention 😊. It was great to speak to some peers and hear a little bit about their journey and how they got to PAX. We have this new appreciation for the passion, drive and hard work that game designers and developers have to endure to make their games thrive in Australia. We’re super honoured to be a part of this tabletop gaming community.

Later that afternoon, a girl with a mask came to our table, she had a media badge on her. I didn’t think much of it and gave her my usual spiel. I did end up delving a little deeper because she was super nice and engaged. It seemed like she was quite interested in what I had to say as she asked a lot of questions. I was talking to her for at least 10 minutes or so. Suddenly, one of the girls that was already playing at the table, exclaimed ‘Amanda!’. I was like, oh cool, they’re friends. Then Amanda replied ‘Tegan!’. I knew something was up but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. Then they said to each other that they’re definitely gonna talk about Yum Cha on their podcast. That’s when it hit me, I’ve been teaching and talking to two of my favourite podcasters for the last half hour and didn’t even recognise them.

These two marvellous Aussie tech journalists were from ‘Queens of the Drone Age’. I’m a huge fan of their work. I was so excited to reveal to them I’m one of their loyal listeners and have been following their podcast since (almost) day one and have listened to every single episode. I was super thrilled to be able to meet the two of them. I’m pretty sure they were happy to meet one of their listeners too 😊! I couldn’t believe that ‘celebrities’ were playing my game and enjoyed Yum Cha so much. The highlight of my PAX weekend!

Amanda and Tegan from ‘Queens of the Drone Age’

As it drew close to closing time, there were quite a few last minute stragglers that still wanted to play Yum Cha 😅. I couldn’t believe we actually had to kick people out. There was a hard close at 6, visitors could no longer stay. It was high-vis time. Exhibitors were all given a high-vis to borrow and wear as we packed up our tables. We finally had the chance to mingle with our fellow winners. It was great, we were all so stoked to have such a great platform and the last three days were amazing for all of us. We exchanged contacts, congratulated each other again before we said our goodbyes. Best class ever!

Class of 2022
Aethermon (3rd Place Games - Sarah and Chris)
Yum Cha (Quokka Games - Jono and Ando)
Pixel Star (Mauii Makes Games - Lyndon)

No we did not go to Shonan Kamakura for a third time, though we were really tempted to try the final broth they offered. We wanted to check out Melbourne some more now that we had PAX all behind us. We walked around in search of food. We ended up finding this little Korean joint. It was quite good. We ordered sweet and sour pork. There was nothing like this back in Brisbane that I’m aware of. So I’m quite glad we chose to find something new. After dinner we went to Xing Fu Tang again. It was so good we had to return and grab another drink..

Post PAX

PAX Day 2