For a lot of – including my new extended friends in the PAX East hype group  – PAX is a highlight of the year.

This article was originally published April 20th, 2016.  It has been updated to prepare for PAX East 2019.

Despite never having been to the literal Hokkaido, Japan’s northern island, I can safely say now that it factors into two of my favorite things in life.

It’s nighttime in the big city, where dreams and nightmares come true by the glare of neon lights, and… you know what, just read this:

Wakening Lair is something of a mystery and a miracle: it manages to take the genre of dungeon crawling and distills it down to its simplest parts.