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PAX Aus 2023 Panel Schedule Announced

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With PAX Aus literally just around the corner, we wanted to share some exciting news that will hopefully bring all of those loose puzzle pieces together to form the final picture – the launch of the PAX Aus 2023 Schedule. Whilst you may have initially asked what sea-shantying pirates, cursed cakes, and the most prestigious cosplay competition in the Southern Hemisphere had in common, well, now you know.

Having spent months behind closed doors curating the most comprehensive celebration of all things gaming, the team at PAX Aus is thrilled to unveil the panel schedule for this year’s event covering everything from meet and greets and freeplay opportunities through to main stage panel discussions and competitions.

So, please… take a seat and start mapping out your weekend here: https://aus.paxsite.com/en-us/schedule.html

Though a starting point is almost impossible to find, here are just a few of the highlights from the schedule:

Friday, October 6

  • Storytime with Erika Ishii | Main Theatre, 12:00 – 1:00 pm

  • Whose Voice Is it Anyway 2: The Voicening | Twitch Quokka Theatre, 6:30 – 7:30 pm

  • Beyond Stereotypes: Exploring Indigenous representation in video games | Kookaburra Theatre, 3:30 – 4:30 pm

  • Cursed Cakes 2.0 | GenerOZity Wombat Theatre, 4:30 – 5:30 pm

  • Sustainability at Xbox and its Approach to Developer Engagement | PAX Together Theatre, 10:00 – 10:30 am

  • The Future of Gaming – is cloud gaming set to transform the future of how we play forever? | Twitch Quokka Theatre, 11:00 – 12:00 pm

Saturday, October 7

  • Secrets & Stories, Music & Myths: A Stray Gods: The Roleplaying Musical Development Retrospective | Main Theatre, 12:00 – 1:00 pm

  • Robert Hartley GM presents D&D Death Roulette | GenerOZity Wombat Theatre, 1:30 – 3:00 pm

  • Sea Shanties you say? Yahaarghh! | GenerOZity Wombat Theatre, 9:00 – 11:00 pm

  • Cosplay Beginnings Workshop: Props and Armour | Cosplay Theatre, 11:00 – 12:00 pm



Sunday, October 8

  • My parents wanted me to be a doctor, but I want to be a content creator | Twitch Quokka Theatre, 12:30 – 1:30 pm

  • Bach 4 Blood: Game Soundtracks vs. Classical Music | Galah Theatre, 3:00 – 4:00 pm

  • Cosplay Central Crown Championship Finals | Main Theatre, 2:00 – 3:30 pm

In addition to the massive panel schedule, there will also be some celebratory, memory-inducing moments celebrating PAX Aus’ 10th Anniversary. These are:

  • The Year That Was PAX Aus 2013 – a special retrospective panel reminiscing on the year that was 2013;

  • Fireside with Mick Gordon hosted by New Zealand podcaster, KiwiTalkz, as they deep dive into 10 years of video game music;

  • PinnyPals 4*Eva – Celebrating a decade of PAX pin collecting down under;

  • Join the Press X Science panel who have hosted a panel for 10 years at PAX Aus exploring what we have learned from a decade of exploring science and videogames;

  • A retrospective on the legendary PAX Aus Omegathon;

  • Fireside with Halfbrick who were at the original PAX Aus – looking back to 2013 as well as discussing what they have been doing since then;

  • I attended every PAX Aus for 10 years – a look at the memories from the community, content creators exploring the key moments in the history of PAX Aus that have made the event what it is today;

  • Omegathon 10 Year Battle Royale – The last 10 years of Omegathon winners compete to find out who will be crowned the 10 year Omeganaut.

Phew, that’s quite a meaty schedule but we hope this helps with mapping out your activities for the PAX Aus 2023 weekend extravaganza!



PAX Aus 2022 – It Was Awesome

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After a 3 year in-person hiatus, the biggest gaming event in Australia was back, bigger and better as ever!

It was so awesome to see crowds flocking to PAX Aus 2022, just like they had between 2013 and 2019. Don’t get us wrong, the virtual PAX Aus events were great to have, but nothing beats the in-person experience.

Masked up and stocked with hand sanitizers, Ms. Ausretrogamer and I were glad to be back, or just like the sign said, “Welcome Home”. PAX Aus definitely feels like home, with its inclusive and diversity rich setup, the event and spaces were safe for all to enjoy.

It’s great to be back at PAX Aus!

Greetings!

Whoa, that is a big map! This is where we will end up….

Even though Melbourne experienced a torrent of rain during the course of the weekend (just like it did in 2013!), it didn’t dampen spirits, with cosplayers doing their thing, cosplaying like a boss. In the Expo Hall, we noticed that the big guns were missing (PlayStation, Nintendo and Microsoft, to name a few), but once you immersed yourself in what was on show (especially in the impressive PAX Rising area), you hardly noticed that these AAA companies weren’t there.

DarkWeb Streamer_ was our pick for best in show!

For us, PAX Aus is all about the great panels, indie developers and of course, the Freeplay area, which is still going strong and getting bigger each time we come back! From the tabletop gaming to the merch and tournaments on offer, this area is the heart of PAX Aus. The Freeplay area is also home to our beloved Classic Gaming Area (CGA)! Unfortunately we had to step back in being part of the CGA for this year, but we were so proud to see the amazing teams from Weird and Retro, Press Play On Tape, Mr. Pinball, Reality Games, Bartronica and the Pinball community create another amazing space for folks to get a hit of some intoxicating nostalgia.


source: Alex Kidman

For those of you that couldn’t make it to PAX Aus this year, we thought we’d share some photos from the event (see above and below, including the above video of the Classic Gaming Area from the equally awesome, Alex Kidman) to hopefully bring the event home to your screens and make you feel like you were there too!

Expo Hall

Freeplay Hall – including the Classic Gaming Area

 



Panels to Watch at PAX Online

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From the plethora of diverse and amazing panels that will take place during this year’s PAX Online, we thought we’d curate a few panels that we reckon you’ll all enjoy, especially the ones with a tinge of classic gaming. Oh yeah, the panels are all free to attend, so get ready to mark your calendars!

We’ll start with the best of the best, the Australian based panel that we are most looking forward to:

PANEL: Play It Again: Preserving Australia’s Game History
WHEN: September 13 @ 5:15pm
PANELISTS: Dr. Helen Stuckey [RMIT], Seb Chan [ACMI], Nick Richardson [ACMI], Candice Cranmer [ACMI], Dr. Denise De Vries [Swinburne], Dr. Cynde Moya [Swinburne]
ABOUT: The 1990s was an important era in Australian game development, with technological innovations such as Full-Motion-Video and motion capture helping to shape a new generation of games. Our panel will discuss the Play it Again ARC project, whose aims are to collect and preserve iconic titles from the era including Aussie Rules (1991), Krush Kill ‘n’ Destroy (1997) and the Team Fortress Mod of Quake (1996). We will explore some of the challenges facing the team from the technology of the era, and the ultimate goal of making these games playable once again via Emulation-as-a-Service.

And now for the rest…

PANEL: Sid Meier’s Memoir!: A Conversation with Sid Meier about His Life in Computer Games (pre-recorded)
WHEN: September 13 @ 9:30am
ABOUT: In his first video game instruction manual, for 1982’s Formula 1 Racing, a 28-year-old systems analyst for General Instruments named Sid Meier declared that he hoped to one day “write the ultimate strategy game.” At the time he was installing networked cash register systems in retail stores. Nine years later, his software company, MicroProse, released Civilization, arguably the most influential strategy game in video game history. It was the first significant design in the 4X genre (“Explore, Expand, Exploit, Exterminate”). Computer Gaming World called it “a new Olympian in the genre of god games.” PC Gamer US said it was the second-best video game ever created. Since then, the Civilization franchise has sold approximately 51 million units. Today, Sid Meier is a recognised giant in the field of video game design and development. His best known and best loved games include Pirates!, Railroad Tycoon, Covert Action, Gettysburg!, and F19 Stealth Fighter. Now he brings his signature wit and good humour to the story of his own development. In SID MEIER’S MEMOIR!: A Life in Computer Games [W. W. Norton & Company; September 8, 2020; $27.95 hardcover], he traces the arc of a legendary career, including the founding of MicroPose; the evolution of their famous war game manuals; the commercial failure of C.P.U. Bach, a visionary music generator inspired by his passion for the program’s namesake; and the abandonment of “DinoCiv,” his beloved dinosaur game that never came to be.

PANEL: Build an Inexpensive Retro Gaming Machine in Under an Hour
WHEN: September 15 @ 2:30pm
PANELIST: Tim Ellis [Creator of the Dispatches from the Multiverse podcast and Game Journalist with GeekWire]
ABOUT: Want to build a Raspberry Pi-based retro gaming console, but don’t know where to start? In this panel we will walk you through the whole process, start to finish, live. All you need is a $35 Raspberry Pi, an SD card, and your USB or Bluetooth controller of choice. And yes, we have Battletoads.

PANEL: A Guided Tour to ‘80s Computer Retrogaming
WHEN: September 17 @ 6:00am
PANELISTS: Alexander King [Adjunct Professor, NYU Game Center], Naomi Clark [Assistant Arts Professor, NYU Game Center], Clara Fernández-Vara [Associate Arts Professor, NYU Game Center], Bennett Foddy [Associate Arts Professor, NYU Game Center], Jesse Fuchs [Adjunct Professor, NYU Game Center]
ABOUT: Retrogaming is more popular than ever, and it’s never been easier to play history’s greatest videogames. But while vintage consoles and arcade games are increasingly accessible, classic computer games remain a bit arcane, and it’s easy to miss out on some amazing games buried in the floppy disks of yore.

So join us for a guided tour to an age of forgotten home computers, when PCs didn’t have the best computer games and they didn’t even make games for Windows yet. There’s no DOSBox where we’re going!

What’s worth playing? How do the emulators work? What’s BASIC? If you’ve never heard of a Commodore 64 or an Apple ][ and want to explore a new frontier of undiscovered retro goodness, join some game design professors to learn about getting into games on everything from the Amiga to ZX Spectrum.

PANEL: Building Our N64 Classic Console
WHEN: September 15 @ 11:00am
PANELISTS: Sam Woods [Associate Staff Writer, DualShockers], Mario Rivera [Video Manager, DualShockers], Cameron Hawkins [Staff Writer, DualShockers], Scott White [Associate Staff Writer, DualShockers], Ricky Frech [Senior Staff Writer, DualShockers], Asa GreenRiver [Founder/Host/Producer, Borderline Entertainment]
ABOUT: The N64 is considered to have ushered in Nintendo’s era of 3D gaming, and some of the best games of all-time have been released for it. From Super Mario 64, to The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time – we debate the 10 games that should make up the N64 Classic, if Nintendo ever decides to actually make one. This isn’t the definitive list of the top 10 games on the system, but a mixture of the best games from different genres that would make it the complete package.

The other panels we reckon you should also consider (if you have time) are:

There you have it folks, a few panels to whet your nostalgic appetite. There are staggering number of panels on during PAX Online, so don’t forget to check the schedule, as there may be something of interest for you.