(Check out all the pictures at the end of the post)

It took us a couple months, but we've finally exhausted our PAX material. There are just a few things I wanted to mention before we wrap this all up (as the resident casual gamer).

I'd never been to a video game expo before and I had no idea what to expect from PAX.  Would it be an agoraphobia-inducing nerd-fest filled with costumed fanboys speaking in techo-jargon so thick it could be a second language?  I was excited - being as I am technically a nerd myself - but I was more than a bit apprehensive. Thousands of gamers all crammed into the Convention Center, squabbling over game controllers, drooling over the latest titles, racing from one booth to another to amass SWAG, would I make it out alive?

Thankfully I did. And although my predictions proved somewhat accurate, my worries were groundless. Not to over-sell this, but, it was awesome; completely, and utterly awesome.

I do regret that I wasn’t able to make it into more of the speakers/panels and presentations. These were several that I’d marked on my schedule to go to but it turns out that the Disneyland-length lines we saw on our way out to lunch, which at the time had baffled us as to what people were lining up for, were lines for seats at some of these presentations. While I wish I'd gotten a seat in "Are Casual Gamers Killing Hard Core Games," I think spending those 3 hours hands-on with the games was more valuable.

I think it's great the number of people who showed up in costume. While seeing a male Princess Peach outside smoking a cigarette was surreal, and... just... wrong, it was all part of the magic.

Action and puzzle game, Impulse, was created by students at Rochester Institute of Technology, and was chosen as one of the PAX 10. We'd like to thank Programmer Mike Thomas for taking the time to tell us about their game and their experience at PAX.

Brian (Infinite Bits): How long was the game in development, from conception to what's on the web today? Which stages of development were the slowest/fastest?

Mike (Impulse): The game was in development for approximately 10 weeks, specifically RIT's (Rochester Institute of Technology's) 2007-2008 winter quarter. There has been some work on it during the run up to PAX and afterwards, but that has mostly focused on bug fixes and tools that will allow us to add more content. The speed of development definitely started off slow and ramped up to a feverish pace as we got closer and closer to our due date.

The Amazing Brain Train is a collection of educational and fun games developed by Canadian developer Grubby Games, and was one of the games selected for the PAX 10. We are pleased to be able to include an interview with Grubby Games co-founder, CEO and programmer, Ryan Clark, in our PAX 10 interview series.

Brian (Infinite Bits): How long was the game in development, from conception to what's on the web today? Which stages of development were the slowest/fastest?

Ryan (The Amazing Brain Train): The game was in development for about one year. The slowest bit is always the polishing and bug fixing at the end! The fastest (and most fun) was prototyping all of the mini-games, at the start.

Polarity, developed by a small team of graduate students at Carnegie Mellon's Entertainment Technology Center, was one of the games selected for the PAX 10. We are pleased to be able to include an interview with a member of that team, Daniel Bryner, in our interview series.

Brian (Infinite Bits): How long was the game in development, from conception to what's on the web today? Which stages of development were the slowest/fastest?

Daniel (Polarity): The game was a student project, so it took about a semester from start to finish. Trying to integrate an unnecessary story bogged us down, while having a great level editor sped up implementation and iteration.