Skyler – RITs International Game Industry Course for 2023

Until Next Time…

By the next morning, a melancholic mood had spread throughout the group as people slowly left for the airport. Sten and I spent the early afternoon doing some last-minute shopping at Mandarake. was staying in Japan for a few extra days. I waved farewell to everyone who left with Sten and Steve and then took my bags to my hotel nearby in Akihabara. Because I had to wait to check in, I went to a nearby 9-story tall bookstore and was impressed at their selection of 3D books. I bought some books there and the best clear file.

After returning and checking in, I went to see the Gridman Universe movie in the Japanese cinema. This was an interesting experience because each seat was in its own cubicle and the trailers before the movie were mixed in Japanese and English. The movie was also completely in Japanese and I was able to understand the gist of most of it.

I walked around Akihabara at night and went to the Kanda Myojin shrine. This was a really beautiful night. Also, I was surprised to still see the maids on the street at 12 to 1 in the morning.

The next day I went with my dad to Mt. Takao where there were many shrines along the way. There was also a monkey park along the way where we watched a feeding.

The view from the top of Mt. Takao. On a clear day, you can see Mt. Fuji

Later that night, I went for a walk around Roppongi and found a Harry Potter themed hallway. Apparently, there was a Harry Potter cafe in the area.

The next day, I went with my dad to the airport. My dad, who is a pilot, and I went with the crew bus to the airport and I was able to look up front and see my Dad do the preflight checks with the other pilots. This was a fun experience as I’ve only flown with my dad on his trips once before this was my first time getting a detailed tour of the cockpit.

What a trip! This was an incredible experience and I look forward to more travels in the future!

The End.

UnrealFest and CyberConnect2

Our day started at 10 am to go to Unreal Festival, conveniently located in Akihabara. I expected it to be much larger than it was, however, because it was small, I was able to see most of the exhibits which were interesting. Overall, Unreal Fest was a great experience, even though my Japanese was not at the level to understand the presentations, seeing what people have done was really interesting. Some of the exhibits that I interacted with that I quite enjoyed were digital manga in which the reader interacted with Unreal scenes in order to change the story. There was also a company promoting their player-to-player server connections.

Afterward, a group of us left Unreal to go have lunch at a stand-up Wagyu beef restaurant. The restaurant was surprisingly cheap for A5 beef and was also really good.

Later, Megan and I went and played some crane games for a short time, however, no winnings were taken home. At least I was able to see the Hololive displays at the Gigo. I also bought a Taiyaki of Houshou Marine and I got her coaster as well.

Next, we met and took the train to CyberConnect 2. There, we watched a presentation and were given a tour by the head of PR. Seeing the studios behind the scenes was really fun and interesting to see. Other than the exclusive art made for CyberConnect, I enjoyed seeing the different artists’ desk setups as they used various different methods in order to eliminate glare. We also were able to see the meeting rooms and ask questions relating to the company. Overall, the company seemed like a company that I would be okay working with for a while, however, I could not envision myself working there long term.

When we arrived at the hotel from CyberConnect, a group of us went to conveyor belt sushi. This was the first time at a conveyor belt sushi restaurant and the system was quite novel. The food was also quite good considering that I had never seen so many chefs working so hard in the kitchen at once. Afterward, we got ice cream and it was really good and tasted similar to gelato. I got Hokkaido Milk flavor and strawberry mixed with another fruit that I did not know the name ice cream.

Later that night, some of us had a short farewell get together and some of us said our goodbyes.

One more post…

To be continued…

Mech and Tech!

Technology day followed similarly to culture Day with our start at noon. Some of us went to grab Starbucks in the morning before we made our way to Diver City.

At Diver City, we saw the giant Gundam statue, shopped and ate lunch in the mall. I bought two shirts from Uniqlo for less than 2,000 jpy before running into Kat at a pizza place for lunch. We also waited to see the Gundam move which was kind of anticlimactic as only a few pieces and panels on the face moved.

Next, we went to the Miraikan museum which was… not my favorite. Many of the interactions were problematic at best or didn’t have anything meaningful to show other than being slightly cool. For example, there was a game where you chose a goal for the future of humanity. However, many of the different goals were interconnected such as solving global warming and equal access to drinking water. Some were of lesser importance such as the ability for everyone to eat fish. Then, you would send your message into the future by setting a path and trying to avoid the hazards. However, the entire experience didn’t give the participant any feeling of agency or what they can do to help the problem. The museum was also very sparce and did not utilize the space well, in my opinion.

The most interesting interaction I had in the museum was with a Ukiyo-e Hatsune Miku who introduced you to vocaloid.

These robots served no purpose other than looking cool.

Next, we made our way to Team Lab planets. Even though I had been before, the experience was almost just as good the second time around. They also added a garden exhibit since I last came.

Projected Koi that transformed into flower petals upon contact

Strange Egg like shapes in the garden exhibit

Lastly, we went back and gathered people for Karaoke. The experience of doing it for the first time was really fun and the mics could reverb really well inside the room.

Until next time!

To be continued…

Culture Day

My day started with brunch with my Dad, who was on a layover, at Denny’s. At Denny’s, I was taking to my Dad about the trip when the person at the table next to us caught our attention and introduced himself as a employee at Gamefreak. We talked for a while and connected on LinkedIn.

At noon, we all met to go to the Imperial Palace and walk around the gardens. Toshi explained the respect that people have for the Imperial family and thus it was a crime to take anything from there. The gardens were really pretty and one area had different species of trees from all over Japan.

After that, we went to Harujuku where we had a lunch at a cafe at the top of a mall. The mall was really fancy looking and had an escalator that looked as if it could be straight out of Doctor Strange.

The next stop was the Meiji Shrine where we walked through a forest to get inside. The shrine itself was impressive but the forest surrounding it was more impressive, in my opinion.

After the shrine was our free time where some of Jessica, Chloe and I went to Shibuya to shop at the One Piece store. We also stopped by the Jump Store and saw the Mewtwo tank at the Pokemon Center.

Last, we ended the day celebrating Fabian’s 21st birthday at the Monster Hunter cafe. The food was extremely mid but I got a delicious drink.

That’s all for today. See you next time!

To be continued…

Moe Moe Kyun!!!

Our first free day in Tokyo started with a quick Starbucks run and a trip to a crepe shop. I got a tiramisu cream crepe and it was pretty good. The group then decided to go to Character Street at Tokyo Station where we bumped into a wild Sten wandering around Akihabara. He then joined us on our travels.

At Character Street, we shopped at all of the stores. I bought merch at the Jump store, Snoopy store, and a Quintessential Quintuplets pop up store. There were also other smaller stores where I bought my new favorite towel. It is a Haikyu towel of the character Kageyama Tobio and it says Ballin. They also had a Ghibli store and a pokemon center.

Afterwards, I headed back to the hotel with Sten and had a brief visit to Super Potato before heading back to the hotel. However, instead of resting, I had to find a coin laundry. I then found one on Google maps that was 11 minutes away and walked to it. Turns out, it was right next to a station one stop away from Akihabara so I went back to shop during the hour while my clothes were being washed. After picking up my clothes, I stopped off at a Thai restaurant for a quick early dinner.

At around 7:30, it was time for a maid cafe adventure with Sten and Steve. Since Jas and Jessica went to a cafe where the maids wore cat ears, we decided that it would be a great idea to approach any maid we saw but only if they were wearing cat ears. Immediately, Sten finds a cute maid in cat ears right outside our hotel and nonchalantly walked up to her and asked where her place was. The poor maid was in sheer terror as she probably had never met such a large and scary bald man with Yokai tatoos. After that, I was relegated to the duty of maid conversationalist as I am neither a large or scary bald man and I do not have Yokai tatoos. My ability to speak Japanese may have also been a deciding factor. Sten and Steve were lucky and had the job of pretending not to know me by hanging out in a nearby store to not scare the maid. After talking to a few maids, I struck a meaningful conversation with a maid and she offers to show me the way to her cafe. I call over Sten and Steve which surprisingly did not scare her off. She leads us up into a slightly suspicious bar with brightly colored and expensive looking alcohol where we quickly make our way out the door. We later found the maid cafe where Jas and Jessica went the day before. At the beginning, they served us Tokyo Mew Mew water where upon drinking it, you would turn into a cat! After turning into cats, we then enjoyed overpriced and aggressively mediocre deserts and soft drinks served by the maids in cat ears. We also got our pictures taken at the end.

Steve found the maid show mildly amusing, probably.

My Otaku cafe was about 1/10th as delicious as it was cute.

With that experience in the books, what could possibly top this?

To be continued…

On the Road to Tokyo

Before long, the day to return to Tokyo had arrived. I woke up slightly later than intended, ate a quick buffet breakfast, and boarded the bus for the station. Before long we were on our way playing games with our headphones in.

Upon arriving at the hotel in Akihabara, we spent some time inspecting the various oddities included in the room. Ranging from the massage chair, in room massages, a rain shower, the interesting shower setup, and a tv where one cannot watch regular tv. We spent some time recharging before leaving the hotel for Mandarake. At Mandarake, we speedran from the top floor to the bottom floor in 30 minutes. From there, we split and I explored some of my favorite shops on my own. I found a giant EVA statue for $1000 at Japan’s Hobby Lobby. No purchases made though…

The streets at night were very cyberpunk with the rain

Later that night, I met with Belle and Megan for crane games and arcade games. I spent way too much money getting my favorite vtuber, Mori Calliope and had to use a “sumimasen” for help multiple times before the staff made it nearly impossible to lose. Afterwards, my luck turned around and I won a Ruby plush from Oshi no Ko in 4 tries.

We got Megan’s RWBY to do a headstand. Unfortunately, no one else won any crane games…

First full Free Day tomorrow! Stay tuned…

To be continued…

Game Jam Wrap + Osaka trip

The day began the same way as the day before with buffet breakfast in tbe hotel lobby. We then returned to KCG at around 9 to our groups to make one last sprint towards the finish at around noon. Because I finished my portion of the art the day before, I spent the day doing minor tasks such as making our game logo. We also had delicious Omurice for lunch. It was my first time trying it and I found it quite delicious. Overall, while some things could have gone better within my group, the experience of participating in a game jam for the first time was a great experience and was very worthwhile.

After another great lunch, two professionals from the game industry came in to critique our games. Their feedback was very interesting to hear coming from 3d design since all our critiques are visually focused. However, all of their feedback revolved around the gameplay and mechanics which was very new to me.

After a brief stop at the hotel, we boarded a bullet train for Osaka. We went to a department store where on one floor there was a Pokémon Center, One Piece store, Nintendo Store, Capcom store, and other smaller stores. I spent a little bit of money at the One Piece Store…

We also had dinner at an Italian restaurant in the department store before taking the bullet train back. Later that night we had a short Jackbox meetup before heading to bed. Until next time!

To be continued…

Game Jam Grind

Today was the day the entire trip came down to… Upon arriving at KCG after a hearty breakfast at the hotel, we were met with temporary internet issues at KCG which bottlenecked some from downloading assets or Unreal Engine. During this time, our group specified our game as a trivia game on different elements between Japanese and American cultures. The player would play as explorers and find treasure at the end once answering all the questions.

My role as the artist was to make all of the assets for the game including a cart, rail tracks, and a bamboo forest with treasure at the end. Utilizing premade assets that I had either made previously or downloaded from the internet, I was able to finish my job in that day. However, the whole day was an emotional rollercoaster of mood swings ranging from extreme exhaustion, to mild frustration, and pure joy.

Me in the zone

KCG generously provided drinks all day and provided delicious onigiri for lunch and bento boxes for dinner. KCG were excellent hosts and the translators were very patient and helpful. I also had to borrow Sten’s laptop which was extremely helpful (Thank you Sten). Below is my work from only that one day.

Stay tuned for the end of the jam tomorrow.

To be continued…

Fushimi Inari Free Day

Before going to Kyoto, I knew that I wanted to go to Fushimi Inari before without the crowds. Inspired from a video from the YouTube channel Tokyo Lens, I decided to go at night. I set my alarm for 3:15 in the morning and silently made my way out of the hotel. The walk to Fushimi Inari took about 20 minutes plus 10 minutes of me getting lost wandering around a random neighborhood. The area at night was eerily silent but really pretty. The entire time I saw one maybe two people. With the solitude and silence combined with the iconic torii gates, for a little while, it felt like I was in a whole different world.

I reached the top of Mt. Inari around the same time the sun came up, however, there is no view from the top. The only good view is from approximately halfway. I highly recommend this to anyone willing to get up early as it was for sure worth going. I was worried that it would be a little dark, however, there was often too many lampposts for many of the photos at night to turn out well. The only thing that was a little scary were the wild monkeys roaming around at night.

I also saw some wildlife.

Other highlights

This is the link to a google photos album of my journey: https://photos.app.goo.gl/skTohPGDtuGQYGSFA

After getting back around 7 and having breakfast at 8, I went back for a nap before going shopping.

Kat and I became fishmongers at Don Quixote

After, we went over to KCG and toured their facilities. They were pretty nice and had some elements that I wish RIT had such as the private rooms and easily accessible power outlets.

lastly, we started the pizza party with the KCG students to kick off the game jam. They were all very fun to be around, except the guy who made me eat three spoonfuls of wasabi…

Up next is the game jam. Stay tuned….

To be continued…

Hiroshima

We started another early day with a quick breakfast and boarding the Shinkansen to Hiroshima. After the 3 hour train ride, we arrived and had lunch at a local food court where I tried tsukamen for the first time.

After lunch, we visited the peace memorial dome. All of us were pretty solemn, but at the same time this was an important visit.

During this time, we also visited the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. This was another site that was definitely important to go see.

Afterwards, we took a short visit to a small castle and temple before heading to an okonomiyaki restaurant. It was very delicious and filling. Mine had various types of seafood, green onion, egg, along with other foods.

Lastly, a group made a extremely quick trip to the Pokemon center. This was the only one that had a shiny Gyardos.

We all ran back to rendezvous with the rest of the group to take the Shinkansen back to Kyoto. Overall, a very heavy day physically and emotionally but well worth the trip!

To be continued…