Comics Salon/Istrocon

Comics Salon and Istrocon are annual events that take place in Bratislava. It is a convention were anime/manga, games, fantasy and sci-fi fans gather to have some fun. This year after several years pause I went there as well with Rare-Items which brought some entertainment technology to the con (lasergame, dance games).

Day Zero

At 4 pm I was supposed to be at NX's place. He would go get me and we would leave for Bratislava. The day did not start well for NX as there was a already a series of fails that resulted in 2,5 hours being behind schedule. But as we all know this is normal when organizing an event (even partly). We managed to get lost in an the area near Istropolis were the convention is held. We finally arrived there at 11pm.

We unloaded all the stuff - tables, benches, sound systems, dance pads, yet another dance pads, even more heavy dance pads, lasergame arena stuff, lasergame stuff, etc etc etc. 5 of us managed to get this to the second floor where we dividid in two - dance game multiplayer stand stuff and lasergame arena stuff. We left the stuff as it was there and went to Robert's (the main organizer of the event) place.

Day One

At 1 am or even later we could lie down and sleep. It was humid, hot and noisy. I couldn't sleep so I was enjoying Robert's collections of Japanese games, Mutant Chronicles etc etc (btw his brother had there the best printed Magic proxies I've seen in my life^^ and I've seen a really nice NM Wasteland.)

At 5 am I started to be really hungry and wanted to fall asleep but I couldn't. Robert woke us up at (at least those who were asleep) at 7 so we could get ready. A lot of hard work awaited us.

We arrived at the site later that morning and started getting things done. Lasergame 'arena' consisted of a series of boxes in metal cases that were wired together. The metal cases in which the boxes were standing were pretty sharp. The boxes were 1cm larger than they should be so it was difficult to put them in it. It took along time and was relatively exhausting. Wiring everything together a challenge of another level. But in the end we somehow managed to make it.

Putting together the multiplayer stand was much easier and did not require so much time. I tried to do my job, but at times I could just lie down and almost fall asleep (at the card games area). I was staring at the ceiling laying on a bench and then few minutes later figuring out that I'm asleep. Anyway I got up, drank some energy drink and O2 water and continued in the work.

I spend some time later at the multiplayer stand realizing few things. The players most of the time are capable of playing 4-6 level songs. The songlist did not contain that many songs so we heard a song several times per hour. People were requesting songs like Tricky Disco and Bad Apple. Few people coming to us were capable of playing higher level songs.

In the meantime I was told that there would be a minimaster single elimination tournament. I wanted to play in it, but I thought that it would start at 6pm. But alas it started at 4pm. NX took my place and waited for the rest of the team to arrive to Bratislava. They arrived after the second round of the Magic: The Gathering tournament.

After the tournament I was hungry and tired. Srandista and Centime saved me and solved my problem. Instead of staying at Istropolis I went with them and stayed at Srandista's parents' place. I still wonder how it is possible that the dog barking and birds' cawing (whatever sound they are making...) seems so loud.

Day Two
This day I wanted to play music games and if it would be possible I would compete in the dance games. But all the tournaments were on Sunday and for that day I already signed up for Grand Prix Trial Milan.

Pump it Up Fiesta
When I first saw Fiesta I couldn't figure out how the system works: I chose a song, chose a wrong difficulty and did not manage to set a speed mod. My second time on the machine was more successful. I realized that the old speed mod codes actually work and that the difficulties are divided into single, double, performance and another. So it was quite ok. The song list contains some songs from DM Ashura and Cospi which was a surprise to me. It also features the feared song named Gargoyle (oh yea the stepchart is awful!). The stepcharts for these songs resemble the ones from PIU Pro. Not sure if that it's a good thing, but anyway it is a change. The K-Pop songs are really annoying if you hear them all the time and the song Ring Ding Dong or how it is called was banned later the day. And I still hear Shock in my head!!

What I did not really like about fiesta is the noteskin. At first I thought that I'm incapable of playing longer streams but later I realized that it is not the legs that are having a problem. It was my brain not being able to understand the fact that PINK = UP-RIGHT or UP-LEFT. I realized that I react to red and orange color but not to pink (yet).

Anyway I played some Fiesta songs mostly level 18-20 with several 15/16 level songs and even 21+. I have to say that there were 20 level songs that I passed with A and then I almost died on a 15 level song's stream! Wierd. I had fun playing the game and playing on Nightmare was really enjoyable.

Most of the time when I arrived to the machine and started setting things up someone asked me if I need some help setting the difficulty and speed mod or what is the thing I actually desire. At first I ignored those questions but later I started to simply answer 'I have all I need set up'. When I started to play on NM I overheard some of the comments behind me. Some were relatively funny^^. At least the one that amused me the most was [I was wearing a Magic: The Gathering t-shirt]: 'hm magic players can actually move fast?'.

I usually hear comments like...'I can't even read the arrows', 'I won't be able to do this ever', 'she's crazy', 'that's impossible', 'she's good', 'she has to know this by heart' and so on. Sometimes people even ask who I am. But it seems that not being present at such conventions for 3 years made some people forget and new people simply don't know me. After finishing my credit people usually asked me if I'm going to compete in the PIU tournament on Sunday. I usually told them that I go to the GPT already and if I would go 0:2 drop I would come and compete not that they would know what I mean with that... (I got 2:0 when the PIU tournament was supposed to start).

In The Groove
Mary-chan from Austria brought her machine to CS/IC as well. I have no idea how it came down to this but it happened. I was happy to see Mary but did not manage to spend some time with her. I enjoyed the few songs we played together. She is a good assist tick now^_^.

My first few songs on the ITG dedicab ended up with lots of excellents. You can clearly see that the timing on Extreme machine is off. After few songs I started to get my normal Fantastic/Excellent ratio but still it wasn't that good.

At the machine there were some people all the time, most of the time the very same people. Many played songs like Vinyl etc. After a while the people standing there for a longer time started to be a bit mad about the song choices as it was the same songs all the time over and over.

I did not manage to play double nor managed to play some songs I would like. I had no idea what songs are on the machine so I just played what people picked or I randomly picked (songs I know from IIDX). My scores weren't good but I found out that I can still relatively well play the game. Also tried few parts of the Through and Fire and Flames song. There are parts I can read and follow but the streams are killing me... (I can't even pass that on a keyboard..beh).

Anyway I'm glad that Mary has her machine. It is in a good shape now and has pink bars!

Everstep Multiplayer
Offsync by a half an arrow, by the end of the day by even more than that. The songs there are nice, there are even good charts. But people wanting to play Bumble Bee and Little Kitty Mine and Carameldansen ....that's just ...NOOOOOO. Anyway syncing is not a problem at events like this. People don't usually notice it unless they are capable of following both the notes and the feedback given. More experienced players are capable of that but those usually end up playing ITG anyway.

It seemed that people were having fun and most of the time people could play the 4-6 level songs. From time to time someone who wanted to play more difficult songs came and most of the time not even asked if he can play them. Such people were sent to ITG machine to play their songs. I don't know...why a person being able to play level 9+ songs wanted to play on the multiplayer system?

Dance Central
Oh man I finally played this goddamn game. This is the rival game to Dance Evolution by Konami. Dance Central is a game by Harmonix and should be the 'real dance' game. You as the player have to follow the moves that you see on the screen and you are evaluated somehow (bad, nice, flawess etc) - the game uses the Kinect system if you don't know about it check it out on the internet. There are about 30 songs in the first game/mix and it contains pretty known songs and notable Poker Face by Lady Gaga. (This song was the most played one and Rude Boy from Dance Central 2 was the second most played song ugh. Add some Star Wars Imperial March theme into the mix and a LOT of noise + some guitar hero and + fire arms sounds and you get the picture of the noise at the convention. Anyway Dance Central WAS the LOUDEST, could be heard everywhere...)

I don't personally like the routines and I don't really see them as a dance either (and I can't hardly perform it). At the hardest difficulty it still does not really look like a dance routine. At least on the screen. I've actually seen players dance much better than what you see on the screen. Here unlike in Dance Evolution the difficulty depends on the moves you are doing. In Dance Evolution you are evaluated on less movements but you see the full routine all the time. Not sure what is better...Well meaning you can play Dance Central on the hardest difficulty and ignore the rest, or learn the easy, then medium as it adds some movements and then move onto the hard version which contains moves that aren't not that easily learned at least for me as I have no idea how to dance to something like these songs...and Rihanna, La Roux or Montell Jordan does not really tell me anything.

Dance Central 1 couldn't be played by two players at the same time. Dance Central 2 which is pretty new supports this though. I think this is a must for a game like this. DC2 also has more features (like speeding up or slowing down moves in the break it down mode or showing a result screen at the end of the song - containing more than just a score and grade).

Anyway, I tried to play the game and I didn't like it. I would prefer Dance Evolution but that game does not have DLC and as far as I know does not have a sequel. Dance Central has both of these and has much better support. Dance Evolution in my eyes though has much higher potential and I find it sad that the game does not perform that well, but I understand the reasons. Wish KONAMI would continue with this game.

On this day I also had a really great sashimi. The salmon was delicious, thanks everyone.

Day 3

Grand Prix Trial Milan coming soon...maybe...

After GPT Milan we started disassembling everything. There was more of us for that so it was much faster than setting everything up. It took some time though. After that we went to Aupark to get some food, cold drinks and to relax for a while (and to find out once again what breathing fresh air means).

Thanks everyone for the nice event!