And now for something completely different (Day 115)

I didn't just check out the ancient and traditional while I was in Japan. In early July I went to Bitsummit 2015, an independent games convention. I apologize that the photos aren't that amazing, I was pretty zombified at the event. It took place during finals week and I stayed up through the night studying and went to this the following morning on no sleep. Still, it was a really exciting opportunity for me to get a look inside the industry and share a small space with some of the most iconic people in the world of video games.

This guy is Mayumaro. He's a "yuru-chara" mascot. These guys are all over Japan and usually serve to promote certain locations. There's a pretty good chance you've seen Kumamon. He's on pretty much everything in Japan and shows up a lot on my american facebook feed too. Mayumaro is the mascot for Kyoto and shows up at all kinds of events.

La Mulana was an underground hit released in 2005 that saw widespread popularity when it was re-released with a graphical facelift in 2011. Here you could test an early build of the sequel.

This guy (the MC) was really funny, but his music was pretty good too. His name is Professor Sakamoto and he played "chiptune" style music. The thing on his head is a Famicom system, the Japanese equivalent of the NES. He'd put different cartridges in his head and play remixes of the game's theme music on his keyboard.

Here you can see people trying out Mighty No. 9, developed by Inti Creates and created by Keiji Inafune. Inafune was the original illustrator for the Mega Man series and created the popular character Zero from that series. He was also a producer for the Dead Rising, Onimusha, and Lost Planet series of games before he left Capcom to make his own games.

Here you see the sequel to the popular game The Banner Saga. The first was notable for being one of the first games launched on mobile with deep story and gameplay.

The Crypt of the Necrodancer guys were super cool, and they had a couple dance pads set up for people to play their game on. This game is really interesting as it's the only game I know of which melds the roguelike genre and rhythm games so seemlessly.

Here you see the presenters interviewing the Professor about his music.

This was the main event. Ben Judd (voice of Phoenix Wright, a former producer at Capcom, and now a games industry agent) interviewed (from left to right) Koji Igarashi, Takuya Aizu, and Keiji Inafune.

Koji Igarashi is the creator of the popular "metroidvania" genre. His first creation in the genre (and possibly my favorite game of all time) was Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. He continued developing Castlevania games for Konami (mainly on handheld consoles) until 2014 when he left with his brainchild Bloodstained to work independently. After a monumentally successful Kickstarter campaign (the most successful game campaign ever, raising over 5.5 million dollars), Igarashi is working with developer Inti Creates to realize his new project Bloodstained.

Keiji Inafune, as I already mentioned, was instrumental in the creation and success of Megaman and a number of other blockbuster franchises for Capcom. He was the first of these iconic Japanese developers to part ways with their companies and crowdfund a personal project. In his case, he's collaborating with Inti Creates to develop Mighty No. 9.

The guy in the middle is Takuya Aizu. He's the CEO of Inti Creates, the developer that's making both Inafune and Igarashi's games.

I know this post isn't that relatable for many of you reading this, but it was one of my favorite things I did while in Japan. So, I thought I'd share it anyway. Further entries will be more or less consistent with previous entries.