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.
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.
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
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.
For day 2 of the game jam, I work up at a decent time and grabbed some breakfast. Got my carbs for the day. After eating, the RIT students packed onto the bus and headed to KCG. For the final day of the jam we only had 3 more hours of work. I was done with my portion for the jam and helped Fabian with GitHub stuff. We did some pair git hub work and finished out our side of the project. Around noon we had omurice for lunch! Omurice is a Japanese dish that has typically fried rice topped with an omelet and maybe curry sauce. It was quite yummy in my tummy.
Once our 3 hours of time was up, we did presentations of our games. I think everyone did really well and a lot of interesting ideas came out of the theme. To reiterate, the theme was collaboration across cultures. Our game was about 2 aliens that meet on a deserted planet and had to work together to survive. One character was strong and one was smart. It was a 2D coop puzzle game.
Once our presentations ended everyone got a big round of applause and we cleaned up. After some time of socializing with the students and eating snacks, we left KCG. We didn’t have a bus back to our hotel so we had to figure that part out. We took the weirdest way to our hotel through many trains and stops. Thanks to Toshi sensei for dealing with us!
After having some time to relax, a large group of us went to Osaka! Osaka is another large city about 30 minutes by bullet train from Kyoto. We walked to Kyoto station, got out tickets, and headed to Osaka. Our plan was to go to all the character shops in this mall since it had a Pokémon center, nintendo store, capcom store, one piece store, etc etc. Osaka was described to us as the closest to NYC that Japan can get. It was weird but if you removed all the Japanese from signs and told me I was in NYC I’d believe you. However, there was this really pretty building with greenery.
Across that little bridge was this giant mall that had all our stores on the 13th floor. Once we got up there it was insanity. Literally crazy. I went to the Nintendo Store first and got some Kirby merch and some Zelda candy. They had some really cool statues in the store though!
After walking around like a bewildered child, I checked out the Pokémon center! This must be a new one cause the statue was of the new legendaries in the series. I didn’t plan on getting anything but I found these really cute stickers and they had pins of my favorite Pokémon so I had to.
I checked out and the gang walked around for a bit waiting for all of us to quench the thirst for merchandise. We gathered everyone and split up again for food! I wasn’t super hungry so I opted for a fancy cake. I was so excited to eat it but they didn’t give me any utensils and I couldn’t find them anywhere. So I sadly had to carry my delicious snack home to wait. While waiting for people, I did get this eclair knockoff from 7-11. It was the size of a breadstick that had a chocolate covering and a single bit of whipped cream inside. 6/10 tasted like an ok Swiss roll.
After everyone finished eating we headed back to Osaka main station to head home for our last night in Kyoto. We got on the bullet train and headed back. The ride was once again uneventful.
We got off the train and walked to a family mart so I could buy an ice cream to get a wooden spoon to use for my dessert that I still have not eaten. I got my wooden spoon and we went to the hotel to pack then hang out. I also ate my dessert! It was really really yummy. It was like a tiramisu layered cake. It had a lot of cocoa powder on top though. 8/10
As a greater group, we decided to get some sake and have all of us ( who are legal to) have a shot and try it. We’re in Japan anyway! Honestly it wasn’t too bad in my opinion, kinda good actually.
we played some games and around 1 we all went to sleep to get ready for the next days adventure.
That’s about it for this one but I’ll catch ya soon! Bye bye!
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.
4 am approx.6 am approx.
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…
Day one of the Game Jam was a success! My group consisted of 2 KCG game designers, an RIT animation student, a RIT new media student, and me, a game design major.
We got off to a bit of a rocky start due to some programming road blocks and issues being the only programmer on the team. However, as the event progressed we were able to get in the flow, overcome some challenges and progress with the programming. Katherine also ended up unofficially joining team 1 to assist with programming due to the imbalance of skills on the team.
Our concept dealt with idea of differing cultural depictions of superheroes and common legends. We wanted to incorporate 2 player coop with one player controlling a samurai hero and the other player controlling an american hero. While we were unable to implement local multiplayer, we still incorporated the idea of a dual tag-team esque mechanic by having a single player game in which the player toggled between heroes with siffeeent movesets.
Ultimately, on day 1 we made a lot of progress establishing the idea and feel of the game, communicating with the team about everyone’s role and aspirations for the project, and getting a good foundation with the code structure and programming.
The highlight of the day was definitely continuing to talk to the KCG students and get to know them as we collaborated. My teammates were wonderful and it was super interesting how overtime we were able to figure out an effective way to communicate despite language barriers. Can’t wait to continue tomorrow for day 2!
Today we had some free time where we were able to go explore Kyoto independently from a big group. I had learned about a Neon Genesis Evangelion exhibit at the Toei Studio Park in Kyoto. As a big Evangelion fan I was so excited and this was genuinely an experience I was so grateful to have gotten the chance to have.
The exhibit featured a life-sized model of Eva Unit-01 that you could take pictures with, go on top of, and even go on the hand. I got pictures with my favorite characters 😀 and even stood on the model’s hand. They incorporated a lot of elements from the series and it was such a fun experience.
Before leaving the park, we had a quick lunch break and I ordered the Misato Katsuragi curry ramen 🙂
We ended the night with a kickoff for the RIT x KCG game jam where we got to officially meet our teammates and start planning ideas. I am looking forward to working with everyone in the days to come.
Today we traveled from Kyoto to Hiroshima. I was looking forward to visiting Hiroshima because of everything I have learned about it, and was not at all disappointed. The scenery was beautiful with moving memorials and stunning gardens. We saw the Hiroshima dome which was a building left standing after the bombing. The dome was located on the side of a river near the blast center, and it was so surreal to stand in the very place of such a huge historical event.
The above picture matches almost perfectly one of the pictures from right after the bombings, and it brought tears to my eyes seeing such a place in real life.
After walking around the memorial garden and the dome we went to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum where I was able to learn a lot about the events of the atomic bombing, the health impact, and the rebuilding of the city. What was most moving were the survivor stories and witness testimonies. In the Peace Memorial Park, we passed a man who told us he was the son of one of the oldest survivors of the bombings, and was passing along information about his testimony and peace advocation.
After visiting the memorial sites, we also traveled to a shinto shrine in Hiroshima where we walked around briefly and saw some cute koi fish. It was a relaxing way to decompress after the powerful yet emotional morning.
Finally, to end the day, we enjoyed a traditional Hiroshima dish called okonomiyaki for dinner. The okonomiyaki was delicious and the restaurant staff were very kind and welcoming. Afterward we took the bullet train back to Kyoto and crashed for the night in preparation for our free time the following day.
My Game Jam Team! (From left to right) Back Row: Me, Megan, Reo | Front Row: Fabian, Shoma
Today was the final day of the game jam :(. We bussed over to KCG at around 9:30am and had about 3 hours to finish up our games. The plan for the day was to finish the games, eat breakfast/lunch, and then present our games to two special guests: Akira Thompson and Yuya Shiotani! The first 3 hours were very hectic and disorganized. Fabian was grinding out the animations in record time, which was super impressive, and I was frantically trying to learn how to impliment some of the sound effects into Unreal. The member who was supposed to impliment the sound effects said that he didn’t know how to do it for some of them, and needed help. So I offered to try to do the ones he couldn’t figure out, which took like 2 hours. Unfortunately we didn’t get them in the game because Shoma and Reo where trying to finish the coding and didn’t want us to push anything and possible cause problems.
After frantically finishing our game we ate yummy omorice for brunch. Omorice is basically just an omolet on top of rice with some sauce, which tasted a lot like curry sauce to me. It was scrumdidlyumptious. After eating we all got set up really quickly to present our games to Akira and Yuya. Every game had some really cool and fun ideas to them, regardless of the finish/polish that was reached. Most games, including ours, where not finished, but the special guests still gave great feedback and insight into our little 14hr projects. Overall the jam was super fun and unique, and I think I will remember the experience for a good long while. It was wonderful spending time with the KCG students and meeting all the really nice staff!
After heading back to our hotel I chilled for a bit and then went to get dinner with Maddy, Esther, and Vincent. A lot of the others went to Osaka which sounded cool, but I was too exhausted to do that. We went over to Aeon mall’s food court for dinner and got ramen, which was very yummy and inexpensive as per usual for Japan. On our way back we saw Sten coming back from a dinner party with he KCG staff and talked to him for a bit. Once we headed back inside the Osaka peeps got back and we all hung out again to play Jackbox. Some really funny moments came out of that session and I think it was a great bonding moment for all of us.
