Vincent – RITs International Game Industry Course for 2023

The Return to the States

Finally, the day had come: the flight home. Brody and I didn’t have a flight until 6:42 PM, later delayed to 7:05 PM. We left the hotel at checkout time, around 11 AM, and we said a hearty goodbye to those who were there. Brody and I were comfortable with the idea of getting to the airport and chilling out for 5 hours, so that’s what we did. We took a train back to Narita-Tokyo and went to the check-in station for Singapore Airlines – our airliner.

However, we did not expect them to open at 3:40 PM, 3 hours from our arrival time. So, we got our last Japanese McDonalds, where I had a crazy good chicken-teriyaki burger and shaka shaka chicken. I sat and caught up on some Star Wars comics as Brody read some manga until 3:40 PM, where we rushed to drop our massive amounts of clothes and merchandise we had bought during our stay. We made it past the very lax security and to the gate, where we would sit for another three hours with a small gyoza break somewhere in there.

Finally, we boarded our flight and prepared for a 10 hour flight, in which I watched an anime called Forest of Piano. The flight was long, but I was able to get some sleep to help me out with the inevitable jet lag back home. After a not-so-bad 10 hours, we landed at 12:40 PM at LAX. My father picked us up as Brody and I went back to stay the night at his place, Brody meeting some of my relatives for an excellent Mexican dinner.

Brody and I going through the over-hyped US customs

Brody and I got back to my dads house after dinner and binge-watched three episodes of the latest season os Succession (crazy good show, I would recommend it any day) before passing out from our exhaustive day of travel, only to wake up to another full day of travel from LAX to ROC, where we would be taking different flights with different layovers.

Japan was one of the best experiences of my life and I’m grateful to both Professor Jacobs and Professor McKinzie for allowing me to join them on their expedition abroad, and I am thankful to have met all of my fellow students on this trip and gotten to know them. To those who graduated: good luck on your future endeavors! To those who did not: I look forward to seeing you this upcoming year, where we can brag loudly about our fantastic summer trip.

The Final Countdown

Our last day included two tasks: attending UnrealFest and visiting CyberConnect. After a semi-late start at 10 AM, we were able to get into UnrealFest, which I had been promoted from the waitlist the day before. Unfortunately, today was also the day of the typhoon, dooming rain upon us.

UnrealFest had a lot of cool games, though I had to admit it after my feud with UE5 during the Game Jam. It was a little difficult at times learning how to play the game because most of them were in Japanese, but I had fun nonetheless.

Afterwards, Brody, Esther, Maddy, and I found a soba place where I was able to order and absurd amount of so a for around 1000 yen – it was so much that I couldn’t finish it, and that’s saying something. Then, we went to Radio Kaikan for some last minute gift shopping.

The image I stole from Steve because I didn’t take any photos that day

We met back up with everyone around 2:30 PM to say goodbye to Toshi – probably the saddest part of the trip. He walked us to the subway, where we parted our ways as he went back home and we went to the CyberConnect studio.

We had a small introduction to the studio by their PR manager, and a cool tour that included seeing a lot of anime and manga spread about their many shelves. After CyberConnect, we were officially done with our Japan trip agenda and were free to spend the rest of our last day how we chose. Brody and I, who were exhausted after the whirlwind of activities in these last weeks, just decided to get dinner and rest in our room.

Instagram Day

This day was special: it was where most of my pictures were taken. Our first destination was the Diver City Mall where we saw the large gundam statue. After some lunch, a minute amount of shopping, and a slightly underwhelming gundam transformation, we found our way towards the Museum of Science and Technology.

The Museum of Science and Technology had some fascinating exhibits, like a robot that replicated your facial and arm movements, a depressing and interactive viewing of our world in the future, and a guided learning experience about iPS cells and stealing kidneys from pigs. A lot of it was actually really interesting and I enjoyed walking around the various exhibits.

Next, we made our way to teamLabs, which was an artistic experience based on room-to-room art exhibits. Unfortunately, we were split in two. But, It was truly insanity some of the sights I saw.

One of the many pictures at teamLabs I took

After teamLabs, Maddy and I went back to Akhihabara to get some Chinese food. I had mapo tofu for the first time and it was one of the most delicious dishes I had during the trip. However, it was a rough realization when I started thinking about how it was one of my last in these remaining days of the trip.

Invading the (Probably) Emperor’s Home

We met at noon, but beforehand, Brody, Esther, Maddy, and I got McDonalds, which was conveniently close by. Then, we met with the rest of the group in the lobby and debriefed for the day before starting our journey towards the Imperial Palace, where I was told the Emperor lived, or at least previously lived.

We took the subway to Tokyo Station and walked to the Imperial Palace from there. The name refers to a whole plot of land instead of a singular building, and it was a large plot of land.

We first walked through the given paths, which taught us a lot about the masonry and upkeep of the Palace over time. Towards the end of the palace, however, was when the beautiful garden began to reveal itself.

The garden was beautiful and had an arrangement of plants, structures, pathways, and sights, including a small waterfall and a pond.

After our quick tour of the Imperial Palace, we made our way towards the Meji Shrine, a shrine near Shibuya and Harujuku. We got some quick lunch in Harujuku before making our way towards the shrine. After a small, civil dispute within the group, we entered the park towards the shrine, passing through the large Torii Gate.

The Torii Gate Entrance to the park nearby Meji Shrine

I learned that we had to walk on the sides of the pathway because the middle was meant for the gods to pass through, which I thought was a fascinating design based on spiritual beliefs and cultural tradition.

Eventually, we made it to the shrine and I prayed the longest prayer so far, and received a fortune that included a vague poem that I have yet to fully decipher. and realize its meaning. After the shrine, we were let go to do what we liked, so Brody, Esther, Maddy, and I went to Shibuya, where I picked up the My Neighbor Totoro vinyl from one of my new favorite shops: RECOfan. We explored some other record shops and music shops as well, eventually ending out mini-trip to Shibuya with a steak dinner where we had to cook it ourselves.

Tired and exhausted, we made it back to Akhihabara and prepared ourselves for our MAGIC meeting at 11pm (before you think anything: yeah, I know). After the meeting, it was not long before I had fallen asleep.

The Shibuya Incident

For our free day in Tokyo, Brody and I went to Shibuya and planned to do a lot of shopping. We knew we wanted to hit the three-floored UNIQLO there, but we found so much more.

We did some research and found ourselves initially in Shibuya109, which we then realized was a female clothing store, but still thought was interesting enough to walk through because the designs and fashion were really cool. However, I didn’t come out empty handed as there was a place where I could get a very good matcha latte.

After leaving Shibuya109, we went to MAGNET, which was the male equivelent of Shibuya109 under the same company, however much smaller. Brody and I found some very expensive places, but eventually hit one of the many places I would become a costumer at: RECOfan, a record shop. Here, I bought two Studio Ghibli records as Joe Hisaishi is one of my favorite composers of all time, and they were much cheaper than if I bought them in the United States.

After that, we went towards the Parco mall which holds the famous Nintendo Store and Pokémon Center, as well as a Jump store (which covers most shonen anime). Of course, I spent some more money at these places, acquiring many stickers and even a painted manga panel, as well as some plushy gifts for my friends back at home.

Next, Brody and I went to UNIQLO, where we bought even more clothes (this being our third time to a UNIQLO in Japan). Lastly, we hit the Converse store, where we got some Japan-only kicks.

After the massacre of our wallets and the encumbrance of our spoils, we went back to Akhihabara to meet with Maddy and Esther for a hot pot dinner. It was delicious and, surprisingly, empty. It was also connected right next to our hotel, which made it convenient. We ended the night with an attempt to go to karaoke, but after Maddy’s unfortunately late birthday ruining our plan to get drinks, we abandoned the plan and called it a night.

Return to Tokyo

After an exhausting week, we were able to get up reasonably late and rest. The plan for the day was to get to Tokyo and to our hotel in Akhihabara. After a pretty quick two-and-half hour bullet train ride, we made it to Akhihabara and found our stay at the REMM Hotel, which was literally right next to the station, as well as the rest of Akhihabara. We settled in, got some food, and went to Madarake and Super Potato.

Madarake was a cool, warehouse, almost thrift-like store that had anime, games, art, manga, figurines, and just overall a lot of Japanese content, and even some Western things as well. It was really interesting, but also so much to look through in the hour we had.

Afterwards, we split up to be on our own, and some of us went to Super Potato, a retro game store. It was really cool, but also quite cramped so it was difficult to thoroughly explore their collection. Afterwards, some of us separated further and went to ANIMATE, one of the top anime stores in Akhihabara, and it had a lot of content, but not much of what I was looking for, such as stickers or apparel.

After that, we went to a few more stores, but the rain really hindered our mood to explore, so we turned in for the night. However, we had an immediate free day in Tokyo to look forward to in the morning.

Evening Up the Score

The second day of the Game Jam started off with a bang as I was motivated to tie up with my arch-nemesis: Unreal Engine 5. As I worked on hitboxes, I found that my code was working, but not entirely. Hitboxes were spawning and de-spawning correctly, but just no in the place I wanted them to. However, before I could amend this problem, I had to fix some bugs with controls and animations, mainly that if an input was put in and held too long, the model would freeze. After an hour of messing around with Animation Notify events, I was able to fix it completely, and all by myself, no internet or anything, besides some documentation about Notify’s.

However, time was running short, so before I could work more on hitboxes, it was time to merge my team’s work. Because we didn’t use repos, I put my files onto a hard drive and gave it to my teammate Kento. After about 30 minutes, he told me I had to merge it on my computer because he lacked some external tools I installed to be able to link Visual Studio to my Unreal Engine. Thus begun the difficult process. I failed to merge multiple times because my C++ classes were not properly importing into the KCG project, so I had to manually re-create everything in record speed, having to ignore a good portion of our lunch break. After all was said and done, I had accomplished it, but not without a lot of stress.

Then we met the judges who went around to each group and gave feedback, and, despite having very little besides art and controls, we weren’t bashed too badly. After that, we cleaned up and thus ended the KCG Game Jam of 2023, with the score between me and Unreal Engine at a tie of 1-1. as I definitely took the win this time.

We got back on the bus and the evening was ours to do as we liked, so a lot of us got together and celebrated the Game Jam. However, Unreal Engine and I are still sitting at an unsatisfactory tie, and our match will be decided in the future. Of course, I will undoubtedly win.

Unreal Engine – 1, Vincent Le – 0

Our first day of the Game Jam started at 9:30 AM, so, naturally, I woke up at 6 AM. After a tired awakening, I showered, got breakfast, and hopped on the bus towards KCG. As soon as we got there, we meet with our groups. My group, Group 5, had some decisions to make concerning our game, such was gameplay and art style, but it was quickly resolved.

The Game Jam started with our team making a Google Drive and my long initialization of Unreal Engine 5. I was worried about this Game Jam because I had never used UE5 before (nor any of its previous versions) and I was hesitant about the use of Google Drive as version control. But, I decided to throw myself in the deep end for the sake of ease for the KCG students on my team who were used to this workflow.

I was put in charge of movement and character controls, but I also wanted to work on local multiplayer, which would be my biggest mistake. After getting some quick controller inputs working with the characters, I started working on the local multiplayer aspect. Unreal Engine 5 is pretty new, and there are a lack of videos and articles that could help me figure things out, and it’s documentation isn’t as helpful as, say, Unity’s. So, many of the tutorials and articles I saw were for Unreal Engine 4, which had many different systems that I had to try to adapt to. I was not a fan of the module-based coding and found myself very confused on how to actually interact with the “code.” So, I tired hard-coding it, but the C++ aspect of UE5 is to compliment it’s blueprint system, not replace it.

After several hours of trial and error and no success anywhere near, I decided to put it off and work on other things like collision and hitboxes. Luckily, one of my teammates, Kento, took off where I left, though he struggled just as much as I did. As I was putting together collisions, I, once again, ran into many issues, and time was running out. Eventually, I was defeated by Unreal Engine 5, and, Kento eventually explained to me that we were doing local multiplayer correctly, but the version of UE5 that we were using had bugs in that specific area that blockaded it from good use.

The Game Jam ended and I went back to the hotel, beaten and exhausted. Though, determined to learn UE5 so I could win the next round. Whether that happens in the time before the second day is questionable, but not impossible.

My Wallet vs. UNIQLO (2023)

On Friday, we had a free day until 4 PM, as that’s when we would have our first introduction to the KCG students. Brody, Esther, Maddy, and I wanted to go to the Toei Studio Park, where there was a big Evangelion attraction. We asked others if they wanted to come, and Sten ended up straggling along.

We got the park and went straight to the attraction, which was a large statue that you could take pictures with, and even enter and go up towards the top. After a couple photos, we entered and explored the inside, which had cut-outs of many of the characters and a pilot-aptitude test in the form of a multiple-choice personality quiz.

Standing in the hand of the Evangelion attraction

Afterwards, we explored the park a little more, going to get some Evangelion-themed ramen, and going around the many stores. It was getting around 2pm and was a 50 minute journey back, so we left the park and hopped on the train. Once we got to the station, Brody, Esther, and I saw that the AEON Mall was right across the street. The thing about AEON Mall was that there was a very special store in there: a UNIQLO. Sten and Maddy went back to rest as we went into the mall with only the intention to look. How wrong our intentions were. After seeing how cheap the clothes were compared to their US prices, and the different and more diverse designs, we found ourselves on a shopping spree.

Our spree, however, was cut short by time, and it was starting to approach 4 PM. We rushed back and got ready for the bus ride to KCG. Our introduction started with a tour of their newly-built building, which had a minimalistic design to it that I really loved. It was not a very large building, but the facilities were luxurious, especially the teacher’s lounge and garden.

Part of the garden outside of the teacher’s lounge

After our quick tour, we met with the KCG students and shared some Japanese pizza with them. My teammates were really nice, and with the help of one of the translators, Quan, we were able to get along quite well.

We went back to the hotel and some of us got together for a small group hangout, but with the early morning and day-full game jam the next day, it didn’t have its full rager potential.

The Great Hiroshima Sprint

We woke up super early to prepare for our train to Hiroshima. To prepare for our 2-3 hour ride, I downloaded some episodes of the Queens Gambit, one of my favorite shows.

Going in the bullet train is one of my favorite modes of transportation just because of how fast it feels, and with a window seat this time, I could really experience the relentless speed first hand.

We got to Hiroshima and grabbed a quick lunch at a food court. Then we went around the Dome, which was a beautifully tragic sight to see. The fact that it remained so intact is still so fascinating to me. Afterwards, we went to the Peace Museum. It is incredibly tragic, yet optimistic in its goal to end nuclear warfare, and reading all of the stories and history was an invaluable experience.

After the Peace Museum, we went to visit a nearby castle, adding onto the many steps we’ve taken since entering Japan. We saw a lot of carp and koi fish, and another temple. For dinner, went to a unique place that had recently burst in popularity, but KCG was able to get us an impossible reservation, and it was a fulfilling and delicious meal.

After dinner, some of the group members and I split to go see the Hiroshima Pokemon Center, and as long as we were back at the station by 7:30 PM, we would be okay. After failing to hail a cab for 10 minutes, we finally got one and arrived at the Pokemon Center at 6:40 PM. After buying some stickers, it was time to go back. However, our group reached a point of indecision on how to get back: cab or station. With how difficult it was to get a cab, and our cluelessness with the subway, we wasted another 10 minutes. So, instead of wasting even more time, we decided to do what any sane tech students would do: speed walk.

It was a race against the clock and we were keen on winning. With our feet already straining from all of the walking throughout the past couple of days, our journey was made even more treacherous. The only thing motivating us was the fear of missing our train. It was a war between the ground and our feet; an unstoppable march towards the rendezvous point. Small disputes and skirmishes about directions caused tension, making it a mental battle instead of a physical one. After a long path of sweat and tears, we made it to the station at 7:31 PM, finding the rest of the group. This was an event for the history books.

Anyway, we got onto the train and it was a comfortable ride back to Kyoto, though Sten’s snoring might have broken some of the rules of the quieter, Japanese culture. After a long time doing laundry and a nice bath, I hit the bed and fell asleep faster than ever before