To start off the rainy morning, the group headed to Unreal Fest! Unreal Fest was held in a venue in Akihabara not far from the hotel, so despite the typhoon weather, the walk wasn’t bad at all. Once inside, we were able to wander the game showcase area to playtest tons of cool projects. One of my favorites was a cinematic, journey-inspired sea life game where you played as various sea creatures. Starting off as a small fish, you soon transitioned to a dolphin, a large school of fish, and more as you swam through beautiful oceans with an amazing orchestral soundtrack. Another favorite of mine that I saw was a small puzzle game called On The Rocks. I believe this was the result of a game jam, and it involved using pinball-like mechanics to transport a marble into a glass at the bottom of the level. What made it so interesting, however, was the various movement mechanics that were derived from simple just tilting paddles. It was also a very fun experience that I definitely think had potential to be developed further.

After Unreal Fest we had some free time, so Esther, Vincent, Brody, and I got some udon for lunch nearby and then went for some final shopping in Akihabara. I went back to a store I had visited a few days prior to get a gift for a friend and found something called a “Zeldabox” from the 2003 Wind Waker release and it was such a good find.

Inside is 2 small figures, a Wind Waker guidebook, a poster, and a cd with select songs from the franchise :0

I was also so excited to find a 1999 copy of Majora’s Mask for the N64 for relatively cheap.

Finally, we concluded our final day in Tokyo with a visit to Cyber Connect 2’s Tokyo studio. Cyber Connect 2 is responsible for the development of popular anime games such as the Naruto, Demon Slayer, and Jojo games. We got a tour of the studio where we could see the workspace layout and artists and designers at work. Cyber Connect is known for its gorgeous animation work and translating the art styles of manga and anime into games.