May 30, 2023 – RITs International Game Industry Course for 2023

Record of the Incident on May 30th, 2023 at 12:00pm.

Shibuya Scramble Crossing, Shibuya, Tokyo

Today was our Tokyo free day, so me and Vincent when to Shibuya >:). This was the highlight of the trip for me. I love huge bustling cities, I love shopping, I love anime, it was perfect. Also not the mention this is where the Shibuya Incident took place >:))). We didn’t have much of a plan besides wanting to go to the nintendo store. Upon arriving we walked out of the station to see giant walkways stacked beneath freeways on top of intersections between skyscrapers. It was like a shot from a cyberpunk city during the day, absolutely insane urban architecture. We decided to start our adventure at Shibuya Scramble Crossing because that’s where we heard a lot of shops were.

Cool building that you would never find in the US (too much green)

After watching 50 bajillion people scurry across the street in 20 different directions, we headed into Shibuya 109. This store was 7 floors of every style of feminine clothing you can think of. We didn’t even look in the shops because we knew there wasn’t really going to be anything we wanted, but we still went to all the floors just to see it. After 109 we went to Magnent, which is owned by 109, and is for a more masculine audience. However they pretty much only sold designer clothing or streetwear designer that was way to expensive for me, even though they were sick ass clothes. After Magnet we walked over to the Nintendo store in Shibuya Parco and spent an obscene amount of money. Got some stuff for me and some stuff for my friends. After Nintendo we went to the Jump shop because we are anime fiends. They had some rlly cool stuff too, including printed JJK manga panels on canvas, which we each got one of. Then we were hungy so we got some italian food, it wasn’t the best food ive had but it wasn’t bad.

Conssss

Then we went to the converse store and I got Japan-exclusive white chucks that are sooo cool. After the converse store we headed back to Akihabara and got dinner with Maddy and Esther at this hotpot place connected to our hotel. It was quite scrumptious. Then it was bed time for the next day :).

5/30 – Gundam Pilgrimage and Souvenir Searching!

Today was our free day in Tokyo, and Pavel and I were determined to make the most of it! We woke up early, and hopped on the train down to Odaiba and Diver City to see the one thing we’ve waiting for all trip: the life sized Unicorn Gundam Statue. The train ride wasn’t bad at all, and it was awesome seeing the water and bay as we rode over the bridge to the floating city.

There was also apparently a smaller Statue of Liberty?

Getting off the train, we immediately went to Diver City and walked towards the front, where we were greeted by the looming form of the RX-0 Unicorn Gundam. It was large, just as big as I imagined, and my jaw dropped as I giddily stared up at the giant mobile suit statue. It was honestly beautiful!

Getting to see the life-sized Gundam statue was a trip highlight for sure!

After witnessing that and taking many pictures, Pavel and I went to a nearby restaurant for some fluffy pancakes before the mall opened.

They were delicious, and super fluffy! (I wish I could’ve finished them all!)

Once the doors to Diver City Mall opened, we darted up to the top floor where Gundam Base Tokyo awaited us! Filled to the brim with Gunpla and Gunpla models on display, it was a Gunpla fan’s dreamscape. I nabbed a few exclusives, and then spent the rest of the 1 and half hours there browsing Gunpla kits and spending a good chunk of money. I was so enraptured by the kits, I actually forgot to really look and pictures of the displays!

I did snag this awesome picture of a rotating Unicorn Gundam Perfectibility statue though!

After checking out, we exited the mall just in time to see the gundam statue transform! Its panels shifted and opened to reveal LED-lit areas underneath, representing its Psycho-Frame technology from the show. We were about to leave then for Yokohama to see the moving gundam, until suddenly another tourist from the East Coast told us it was closed this week for maintenance, which we verified. So unfortunately those plans were ruined, but that just meant newfound time for other things!

Namely, getting to finally try traditional taiyaki!

We instead went back to Shinagawa first, to see a statue outside of Kojima studios, and then went back to Asakusa to do some souvenir shopping! We found a lot of local shops that specialized in certain things, like Edo glass jewelry, chopsticks from baseball wood, and Japanese style fans! I spent a lot here as well.

Some more statue pictures, the transformed Unicorn Gundam and Kojima studios statue!

All the shops closed very early however, so by 6pm all of them were basically closed, so we wandered around Senso-ji temple for a bit before deciding to head to the Tokyo Skytree! It was a spur of the moment decision, so we walked across the Sumida river to the tower, which turned out to be a great time! The sun was also setting, making for some beautiful pictures.

Asakusa and Sumida have really gorgeous scenery and architecture!

The Skytree was great, and gave us a gorgeous view of the Tokyo skyline! I also get a pretty cool engraved medallion, and Tokyo-exclusive curry flavored pringles?

Once we finished there, we visited a few more shops in the tower in lower floors for merchandise, and once they closed we headed back via subway to the hotel to unload our haul of the day.

Overall, a very fun and successful free day!

The Queen of Poor Financial Decisions

So, I spent a lot of money today.

Today was our free day in Tokyo, so we decided to start the day with a quick trip to Starbucks for some drinks while we wait for the crepe place we intended to get breakfast at to open. By the time we had arrived at the crepe place I was pretty full on sugar, but luckily there was a beef skewer place just next door that was also opening, so I chose to get one of those instead. Nothing will top the beef skewer that I got at Nishiki Market, but it was still pretty good!

We also decided to visit Book-Off, a well known secondhand book/CD/video game store that held a surprising amount of Pokemon DS games. While most of them were 3DS games, I did manage to snag a copy of Pokemon Platinum for only $25 which I think is an unbelievable steal. The cartridge looks really cool too! I’m very excited to play it when I get home and see if there’s a save file on it (though I wouldn’t be surprised if they wiped it before putting it on sale). Unfortunately I don’t have a picture of it and am already in bed, so here’s a picture of a really cute cat statue that I saw later in the day instead!

We then took a train to Tokyo station to find Character Street, a well known chain of shops under the station featuring a lot of popular chain stores like Disney, Pokemon, Kirby, and more. I didn’t find too many things there that I really liked, but I did get a cute cat sticker, a pressed coin from the Pokemon store, and some cute sweets from the mini Kirby cafe!

After a pit stop in the hotel to devour our goodies, we made a change to our original plan to go to Ginza and decided to stay in Akihabara and visit the Muji and Uniqlo stores here. I didn’t find anything interesting in Muji, but this Uniqlo store did have the Splatoon 3 shirts that I was looking for so I picked up two of them!

Splatoon was truly my downfall today. After visiting the Uniqlo store, I took a trip to the floor below to look at some video games and Pokemon merchandise. While none of the Pokemon merchandise caught my eye, I did see something else that made me excited… the Splatoon 3 Special Edition OLED Switch. Yes, it’s something I passed up at the beginning of my trip, but here I would be able to purchase it tax-free and save nearly $100 compared to how much it would cost in America. Cloud my judgement with the Splatoon and Splatoon 2 art books thrown in… I stood no chance. But I got a really good deal on some really amazing merchandise that I know I’ll use! So I’m happy.

After lugging all of my Splatoon merchandise home, we had to find a place for dinner. We decided to visit a sushi place that our professor had recommended us. The food itself was really good, but somehow the server or the chefs managed to forget about half of our order, so we were stuck there for over an hour. It was pretty affordable, but unfortunately I’d never go back just because of the bad experience we had.

To end the night, me and a few others decided to have a movie night in Skylar and Liam’s room and watch Bullet Train, a comedy/action movie set in a Shinkansen in Tokyo. The movie was actually really funny, and I ended up enjoying it a lot more than I thought I would! Tomorrow we will be going to TeamLab Planets, which I’m REALLY excited for because it’s a really iconic location with a lot of good photo ops. I think we are also visiting Diver City, which will probably have some cool merch spots! I’m sad that my time in Japan is moving so quickly, but I’m having so much fun that I don’t regret any of it.

the akihabara descent

i’m writing the mandatory travel blog post. i’m doing it. i’m gonna stop staring at my screen and i’m gonna write the mandatory travel blog post. we’ll get through this. it’ll be fine.

i spent most of that morning packing, dropped down to the breakfast room to get a few rolls to sustain me, not much happened until it was train time.

the first crisis of the day was that i very quickly discovered that i had lost yet another train ticket. not the pass, just the ticket this time but that did mean that i didn’t know where i was sitting and that stressed me out for the whole trip. it was a nice view though, as always.

after we arrived at the hotel everyone very quickly realized the… choices that were made with the room’s design and tv content. since i’m the only person in this room i didn’t really notice and was mostly pleased with the place. just wish the desk had a better chair :’)

[mine as i found it.]

events transpired on this day. we went to two stores that everyone was really excited about but to be honest it didn’t appeal to me and in a few cases was pretty uncomfortable. i went to a restaurant and there’s a funny anecdote there that on another day i might have written about but due to my mental state just made me sad. it was a relief to get back to the room.

i like the view from my window. seeing the train platform enlightened as it slices the otherwise typical city. it’s very loud and crowded here which contributed to the day being overwhelming, but seeing it at a distance made it seem a lot more manageable. we’ll see.

[i think it looks like cake here. train cake.]

i went straight to bed after this. gnight y’all :2

Day 7/8

Day 7 was the remaining part of the game jam and I stuck with my new group. We worked on adding the audio, the art, and backgrounds, as well as bug fixing when we got lunch. During lunch, I wanted to try adding a boss attack. So within the last 30 minutes, I started and finished adding fireballs to our game so the boss can attack the player.

Then we had two industry professionals review our games. One had started his own studio, and the other worked in the education outreach division of Epic – the makers of Unreal Engine. They seemed to think our game Hero Duo was funny – which was the goal, but gave a critique on our lack of player feedback; particularly when the player gets hit.

The next day, we took the bullet train back to Tokyo. I still think the bullet train is so cool, how it uses magnets to make the train as frictionless as possible. Although I’m bummed I wasn’t able to see Mt. Fuji due to the clouds. We went shopping for a while at some second-hand stores (although I mostly remained in the video game sections) before getting ramen – for the first time – and heading back to the hotel.

Game Jam: Start! (5/27)

S’up y’all! Today was the start of the game jam, so there’s really not much to talk about!

I was teamed up with Tamura, Naoki, and Ryuki from KCG, along with Belle and Esther from RIT as part of team 3. The theme was “collaboration across cultures”!

After meeting up and brainstorming (and doing a fun little party trick I call “eating loads of wasabi on a spoon”, we decided on the idea of incorporating food in some way. Eventually, we came up with the idea of working at a restaurant, and incorporating learning each other’s language in some way!

After a whole day of work, we were at a pretty good point, but still far off from a playable game. After all, not much can be done in a 1 day game jam ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Nevertheless, I did my best at helping in team communication, writing and translating dialogue, and gathering sound effects and music for the game. Belle worked on art, Esther worked on UI/UX, and the three others worked their damnedest in unreal to get this thing working!

Day 6

Today was the first day of the game jam. I spent over half of the day trying to download Unreal Engine on Professor Jacob’s laptop since my 2015 Mac would have never been able to handle that as it can barely handle Unity. While I was waiting for it to download, I began helping another group in the game jam.

During this time, Unreal Engine finished downloading on the laptop. However, it required another software to download. At that point, I felt that it would cause more harm than good if I went back to my previous group; since they would have to explain the entire code base to catch me up. So I remained with the new one since their programmer was sick with covid.

My time at KCG was where I tried a lot of new foods and snacks. I don’t know the names, but they were very good. One was in the shape of a mushroom and had a chocolate top. Another had a koala print on it and was filled with chocolate. I also got to try white rice wrapped in seaweed and Japanese pizza – which I didn’t realize was more uncommon there.

Day 5

I planned this day to be a relaxing and recoving day which was needed after traveling to Hiroshima the day before. I spent the day shopping with a small group of other students. I used this day to buy gifts for my friends and family as well. When I found out I was going to Japan, I knew I wanted to grab a few games due to the price difference and the abundance of games there. I found a few Pokémon switch titles for around $10 each – which ended up being the only games I wound up getting.

My friend asked for an interesting thing from Japan, so I found a bag that is in the shape of a fish for her. The group I shopped with got lunch before heading back to the hotel. After meeting the entire group in the lobby, we all left for KCG, where we got a tour of the newest building for their college. We then got to meet the other students we would work with for the game jam.

Day 4

We started the day early to catch the bullet train headed for Hiroshima. After getting off the bullet train, we stopped at the dome – the last remaining building from the bombing. I’ve seen so many pictures of this building and appreciated the opportunity to see it in person. It was fascinating how this building still stands when it was just over 500 feet from where the bomb fell.

We also saw the origami monument, which I had never heard of until this day. A young girl died of cancer 10 years after the bombing of Hiroshima, and she folded paper cranes everyday believing they would help her recover before she eventually passed away. This started a movement to pray for world peace and up to 10 million cranes are offered every year before this monument.

We got to walk through the museum which was a very emotional experience. Although the topic was incredibly serious, I was happy I got to go. Not just for myself. One of the things on my dad’s bucket list was to go to Hiroshima, something he never got to do, and I’m glad I was able to go.

the game jam post

alright today we’re doing a two in one. because the event lasted two days and it’s kind of like one chunk of memory. you get it.

i’m afraid i don’t have any pictures from this time since i was busy working, but i will attempt to go into the most interesting parts. hopefully you have matured past only reading books with pictures, i know it’s a lot but we can get through this. you and me brother we can read like adults.

my group’s concept was made by kiri, one of the kcg students, and i largely just made the assets he requested. this did mean however that i had a pretty loose understanding of what game we were making. this gave me trouble coming up with a clear visual identity, which is usually what gets me the most interested in a project. i got through the first day having made one walkcycle and a background for a puzzle layout i did not fully understand since it seemed like no one could decide on the mechanics. the other group members also made do with what they could considering my lack of focus on their areas kind of left them in the dirt for an extended period of time. it was cool talking to the japanese students but between how tired they were, how tired we were, and the lack of direction and time on all sides, i don’t think we walked away with a decent game. i certainly didn’t make any good art, which led to more of a crisis than i would like to admit.

i remember at the end of the first day a few of the kcg students joined us on the bus and i struck up a bit of a conversation with the person next to me through the translate app. i explained to them what the american students were talking about, we talked about how japanese cities are different from american ones, he asked about my favorite snacks from when i last visited. it was really dark and i never got their name before they left, so unfortunately i never got to talk to them again.

this was by far the most enjoyable interaction i had throughout the game jam and i will remember it in the most detail. just. what a time we live in. i remember when i was younger translation apps barely worked for the most basic of sentences and now i can have a full blown conversation with someone whose language i do not speak. throughout the whole game jam the japanese students in particular seemed hesitant to use the translators, but i think once people stopped feeling ashamed about not speaking the same language it got easier.

being monolingual is, in terms of communicating on a global scale, a massive barrier to connecting with other people and it can make being in foreign spaces an extra layer of frustrating. if your country’s education system doesn’t set you up with the tools to learn a second language young, acquiring one later on is an extremely difficult and long-term commitment that most everyday people don’t have time for. english as a first language is a massive privilege in this time in history and i’ve been fortunate in my ability to lean on it in virtually every country i’ve been to. the kcg students likely haven’t had that experience, and i wouldn’t be surprised if they’ve had a negative experience with a frustrated english speaker, all of these factors can contribute to the hesitancy i saw on that first day.

personally, i am frustrated that i was unable to acquire a higher proficiency with my foreign language classes at the moment. not that being fluent in french would help me here, but in general it was my best shot at breaking the english box. whether i acquired it or not was largely outside of my control as a child, but in the classes i did take i really tried. the structure just didn’t speak to me, the workload of my other classes was too large, there was always a reason. donc, je pense je ferai un effort pour comprendre mieux aprés cette voyage, parce que j’ai fini avec l’école et j’aurai plus de temps. my dad taught himself to fluency in 2 languages after college. i have to believe it must be possible.

alright. this wasn’t really about the game jam but what can i say it’s not where my heart was. i was thinking about other stuff. hope it was interesting enough. ok seeya :2