The Conventions of 2024: Part 1: EMCon and Castle Point Anime Convention

Yes, this blogpost came out quite a bit later than I would have liked for a variety of reasons but I figured I better start typing it out before I head off to another big event later this week.

Last year, I dedicated a separate blogpost to each of the six “major events” I attended. This time, with the promotion of what was the “side events” to main event status to give each event a proper day in the limelight no matter their size, the structure had to change somewhat. And thus, today I will be writing on the first two events I appeared at in April of this year: EMcon, and Castle Point Anime Convention.

To begin, I’ll introduce you to EMcon, a small but sweet event at the East Meadow Public Library that’s only a short drive out from my place. While not the earliest event in the area that takes place, it’s the first one I attend after a lengthy break that starts from November the year prior and I like it precisely because it comes at the right place and the right time. It’s a very casual general geek culture event that has a few artist booths lined up in the front of the library, and being a free event at the library for all to attend, it also features a slew of activities for younger children. The artists present are a few local indie comic artists I’ve befriended over the years, including some that I’ve known from my first few years of attending conventions, and I always enjoy catching up with everyone after months of not seeing each other.

Even with the size of the event, there was still a good, if small, selection of cosplays and panels to experience on the event’s two days. One of the comic artists even got an entire panel to himself to show off and discuss his work process. There was a video gaming section but it was only for fighting game setups (there were tournaments for Tekken 8, Smash Bros. Ultimate, and Dragon Ball FighterZ) and it was packed away in a room to the side, distant from the rest of the event and the various vendors and artists that crowded around the library’s main entrance. Surprisingly, I was able to walk away from the event with three commissions, including one from a longtime friend I had met at Castle Point Anime Convention 2016, the very first convention I ever attended eight years prior.

And that was pretty much EMcon, one that I would love to go into more detail on but when we’re dealing with the smallest event of the year, there’s only so much detail I can get into without stretching things too far. If you’re wondering why I didn’t take any pictures of the interior, the large number of children in the building (in addition to wearing myself out the night prior playing Splatoon for four hours straight) made me reluctant to snap too many general pics of the venue. Maybe next year I’ll try to get some out but don’t hold your breath. Until then, time to move on to…

…Castle Point Anime Expo 2024. If EMcon was the warmup event, then Castle Point was the first true big event of the year. Unlike 2023, the event got to experience actual sunlight in the day, allowing for the outdoor cosplay and general atmosphere shots that I severely missed taking at and around the Medowlands Expo Center. It all felt very familiar, as familiar as my first time attending the event following the pandemic two years ago. Parking was thankfully a non-issue, making return trips to the car easy, short, and convenient. Stepping inside, all I had to do was present a QR code and I immediately received my badge, allowing me to explore the rest of the event. The inside of the convention center stayed pretty close to its layout from 2023 with one very crucial and well-appreciated change: The sound stage was not only much lower in volume overall, but it was now concealed in black tarp on all angles which allowed the stage to have light effects on for the entire day. Of course I still ended up losing my voice partway through trying to talk through my mask due to the crowds pouring into artist alley, but at least I was still able to cleanly chat with and likewise hear the artists in the artist alley.

Speaking of the artist’s alley, in past years Castle Point would typically have a line leading into the vendors’ hall and artists’ alley. It’s something they’ve done for years as a safety measure to avoid causing a big fire hazard but for reasons unknown, or perhaps since they saw the line as unnecessary following the move to a new venue, this was their first event in years to not feature the lines I associated with the event’s storefront areas. All I can say in response is a blunt “thank god” since every other event I’ve attended has never had to contend with lines into vendor halls and artist alleys (but getting into panels and even the events themselves is their own story). As for the Artist Alley itself, I was mostly unfamiliar with but still got along well with everyone that I chatted with. Getting commissions was something of a struggle at first but I was thankfully able to score the usual amount I get from CPAC, give or take maybe one or two images, and you can see the entire set of pics over on my Aozora’s Adventure blog.

Across from the artist’s alley was the video gaming section, and if you’re familiar with the gaming areas in anime conventions, you know what to expect: there were lots of fighting and non-fighting games on consoles, Japanese arcade and rhythm game cabinets, and stations to play board games. The fighting games were mainly the usuals: Street Fighter 6, Tekken 8, Guilty Gear Strive, and Smash Bros. Ultimate, and all of the aforementioned titles held tournaments as part of “King of Castle Point” through both days of the event. Since fighting games were not the central focus of the convention, I didn’t really stay around to spectate the fights. Dragon Ball FighterZ and Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 were available to play, though neither game ran any sort of tournament. Of course I had to preserve the cute doodle of Ken Masters that accompanies the signup paper which to my knowledge was drawn by DrowZs, the artist of the webcomic One Time Taxes that was receiving funding through the tournament. (If I'm wrong, please correct me!)

I did attend a single panel held in the mid-afternoon, one that I ensure I don’t miss each CPAC: The Dad Panel. What is the Dad Panel, you might be asking? Well, it’s a big comedy routine featuring a collective of four dads with their audience playing the role of their theoretical, collective children. The “children” ask the dads questions and they react accordingly, and the amount of humor that was able to be blasted out in an hour thanks to the heavy audience participation element of the panel and a half was astronomical. If it was available anywhere online for viewing, I would have strongly recommended you check it out--but since it's not, I suppose you'll have to catch it when it returns next year!

Unlike last year, the entire set of console games went dark as soon as the vendors and artists closed up, and there were no late-night free play setups or tournaments held even if it’d be the perfect time to play some Mario Kart or go bash some skulls in a few rounds of Good-Ass-Tekken. Only the arcade games (in a dimly-lit gaming area), a few late night panels, and two music and dancing performances were held past 7PM including the event’s signature “CPAC: the Dance”. Thankfully, the event was still very much active—the arcade machines still had lines lining up to play the various rhythm games, the Initial D machine remained alive through the night, and a four-player Gundam arcade title with a spectator monitor got quite a bit of spotlight through the event. Many people also hung out across the venue even with the lights over most of the event shut off, chatting with friends and watching the last set of performances at the music stage before returning to their hotel rooms and calling it a night.

And that was Castle Point Anime Convention 2024. How was it overall? Well, a month past its original date, I still am looking back on it pretty fondly, being just the right size for my first big event after the end of my winter break. If there was anything I’d say could use work, the only thing that would really come to mind is everything in the game room shutting off after 7PM. The vendor’s hall was also somewhat not to my liking, but considering I do not attend conventions for the vendors for reasons I stated before, I am in no position to say how it could be made better, especially with the limited space the vendors could occupy compared to other anime shows like AnimeNext and especially AnimeNYC. The one saving grace this event had over 2023 was the weather being bright and sunny.

At this point, you all may be familiar with how I usually end these anime convention overviews: a look back at the “trends” of the convention via its cosplays and the arts and other merch sold in the Artist’s Alley. I’m just going to go out and say that Genshin/Honkai, Jojo, One Piece, and to a lesser extent Demon Slayer were the biggest winners when it came to cosplays. With the artist’s alley I couldn’t really tell what series would have “won” as there was quite a wide range of representation even with the obvious biases twoards the newest and most popular media franchises. And because I’m something of a fighting game guy and have friends in the FGC, I’m happy to conform that quite a bit of Guilty Gear representation was at the event via cosplays and a few artist booths. The same cannot be said for Street Fighter 6 or Tekken 8 despite the tournaments the two games had in the gaming section. If you’re wondering how big the cosplay photo gallery got, I was able to get 100 shots total. Not close to my current record but by this point I think chasing down cosplays is much more cardio than my body can take, considering 120 is my average for Castle Point Anime Convention anyways. Now that that's taken care of, you can see the complete cosplay shoot gallery here. The full commission haul for both Castle Point and EMcon can be found here.

That's all for now! See you next month for an overview on Cradle Con and Brooklyn Comic Con, which will also be... the month of my 30th birthday?!

Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Anniversary Bash 26: The Recap

(Pardon the low-res Spaz, it was 2 in the morning when I made this and I couldn’t bother to go find a higher-resolution image)

For the previous two years I’ve been doing blog writeups on the Anniversary Bash, a yearly event held by the community of Epic Games’ Jazz Jackrabbit 2 to celebrate the anniversary of said game’s original (shareware) release. For this year, my drive to participate has been the same as all the Bashes I joined since 2022: to give a community that doesn’t get a lot of attention the recognition it deserves.

The Anniversary Bash was the most active between 8PM and 12AM CET, which translated to 2PM and 6PM in my timezone (EST). Friday and Saturday ended up being the most active days of the Bash and the days where I was present for the entire length with a few breaks here and there. Normally these two days would be considered the “standard” days of the event—Day 1 is Battle, Day 2 is Capture the Flag (commonly shortened to just “Capture” in the JJ2 community). For this year, the hosts decided to try a different format: For each time the level rotation for Battle looped twice, the game mode would swap to CTF and after two full loops on the CTF levels, the inverse would happen.

For all four days, the server was run alongside mod files known as “mutators” that altered parts of the game. As a Jazz player, one particular mutator would give the game’s titular star a buff to his super jump uppercut, now coming out instantly with zero delay and making it more useful to reach higher platforms and serve as a useful, albeit situational, getaway option. The other of the Jackrabbit Bros., Spaz, was played by roughly 90% of the Bash’s player base thanks to just how good his double jump is as both a traversal tool and to help him get some much-needed height while in combat. As with 2022 and 2023, I swore with Jazz for the entire event as I’ve become too used to the helicopter ears and high-jump technique, but I would briefly swap to Spaz and third playable character Lori with another mutator that let players change characters on the fly without having to back out to the main menu. Despite being a really useful idea (and a great QoL feature in general) on paper, the mutator was shut off after only a few rounds of being active as players could simply switch mid game whenever they wanted a different set of abilities and what character the player picked did not carry over from level to level, reverting back to their default pick once the current match was over.

One mutator that was able to stick around was True Fur, a mod that I indirectly contributed to (or inspired, I’m not sure). It implements a form of extended custom character colors in a manner similar to Sonic Robo Blast 2 that works on all three of the main playable characters. Having released late last year, this was the first Bash to implement True Fur, and I pretty much used it for every day after the first to play as a dark blue Jazz Jackrabbit. The remaining mutators mostly served to enable the alternate game modes that became more common on the last two days of the event, but a few did sneak into the first half as teasers to liven up the experience. The roster of game mode mutators included the likes of a randomizer (spawn with a random weapon that you must use, or have a chance of transforming into a bird/frog on each life), Multiflag (players can carry more than one flag), Last Rabbit Standing (each player gets only one life per game), Pestilence (aka the Zombies mode), Free Bird (a mode in which dead players become birds and must be “de-birded” to return to the game), “SWAT” (All players spawn with 1 hit point), and Treasure Hunt (Players gain gems from defeating enemies and must cash them out back at their base).

Not every community-made game mode made the cut for this year's Bash: A mode where players pick a team leader and then hunt the opposing team’s leader was nowhere in sight. Another particular game mode that I greatly anticipated and associated with the finale days of the Bash, Ground Force, in which players use weapons to demolish the stage and ring-out other players, failed to make a presence this year. It’s unfortunate that not every mode was able to come back, but considering the dip in players as the event went into its second half, the drive to play these modes was not strong enough to warrant playing them considering they best work with bigger player counts in mind.

The final hour of the Bash would feature a few games of the "SWAT" mode I mentioned above, and it made me realize that it may be one of if not my strongest mode in all of Jazz Jackrabbit 2 as you no longer had to time your shots around other players' post-hit invulnerability and could just go wild with what weapons you collected till you gained enough points to win. Afterwards, a joke level with nothing but a horde of Jazz raining down from the screen to the castle level background was all that was left before everyone was disconnected from the server. Overall, even with a few setbacks and technical issues that arose, the event was a blast and I applaud the organizers for working their hardest to gather the Jazz Jackrabbit 2 community together for another special weekend. Although in the end it does make me wish for more, as typical for many of the annual events I attend each year.

So what else do I have to mention about the Bash? Well... not much in all honesty. As it’s been well over a month since the Bash came to an end after the first weekend of April, I was running well behind my personal schedule going into April and even May due to preparing for a more active lifestyle (mostly because of all the conventions in my area, more on that in my next blogpost maybe). The only other thing I could discuss regards to the Bash that I didn’t already is the input lag, though that’s on me for playing the game from across the Atlantic Ocean and by now I’ve gotten used to playing with the handicap anyways. And considering the age of the game, it wouldn’t be fair to expect a huge net code update to make server responses near-seamless.

In conclusion, I would like to give my sincere thanks to the the Jazz Jackrabbit 2 multiplayer community for organizing another great Bash. As for myself, I’ll be catching up on blogposts for this blog since I’ve been falling behind this season after a rather slow and busy April.

Super MAYhem 17: Mario Doom Patch Release 2

Yup, it's time to DOOM with Mario and the gang once more. I'm going to keep this one briefer than last time since I already gave you the full run-down back in August last year (and I have a lot of projects/blogposts I need to get back to), but to recap:

This is the Super MAYhem 17 Super Mario Doom patch, a custom build of Valigarmander's Super Mario Doom mod from 2012 designed specifically for use with the the Super MAYhem 17 megawad. Since both mods were Mario themed (one for levels, the other for everything else), the natural instinct was to combine the two together in such a way that it works in various different source ports (for context, the original Super Mario Doom only works in Zandronum and [G]ZDoom). The result is a patch inspired by doomkid's "vanilla conversion" of Super Mario Doom, converting all sprites to use MAYhem 17's a custom palette to give them slightly more color options, removing any assets that would conflict with those of MAYhem 17's, and making small presentation improvements.

When I originally released the patch back in August of last year, it wasn't perfect and I had plans to update it sometime down the line. Later that year and even into this year, I started working on a newer version of the Super MAYhem 17 Mario Doom patch that adds several new changes and fixes. The focus was to polish up the Super Mario Doom content and make it feel better intertwined with Super MAYhem 17. And while there is still plenty left that could be done, including fixing a crash bug when closing out of the game on GZDoom and allowing the game to work in maybe one or two more source ports, this is a good state to call the patch "finished, for now" as I want to shift focus to other, bigger projects. If you’re curious, the attached readme goes into more detail on what has been added and some ideas for what I’m planning for a theoretical Release 3.

You can grab release 2 of the Super MAYhem 17 Mario Doom patch here.

As with before, the patch is designed to work alongside Super MAYhem 2017 and must be loaded after Mayhem 17's wad file (and its own “update1” patch) to add in the Mario enemies, weapons, and sounds. Super Mayhem 17 is not included with the download and can be found here. If you’re new to playing Doom mods, I recommend the Doom Launcher to make organizing and launching into Doom mods (especially multiple mods at once) easier.