Photo: Edward A. Ornelas, Staff / San Antonio Express-News

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People attend the PAX South gaming convention Sunday Jan. 14, 2018 at the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center.

Photo: Edward A. Ornelas, Staff / San Antonio Express-News

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Cristian Delrosario (left) plays Cefore as his mother Jennifer Delrosario, both from Tampa, Fl., looks on Sunday Jan. 14, 2018 during the PAX South gaming convention held at the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center. less

Photo: Edward A. Ornelas, Staff / San Antonio Express-News

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PAX South gaming convention attendees watch others play Brawlhalla Sunday Jan. 14, 2018 at the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center.

Photo: Edward A. Ornelas, Staff / San Antonio Express-News

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Aija Natividad (left) and Eddy Alvarado, both from Houston, take a selfie while waiting to play the Monster Hunter: World video game Sunday Jan. 14, 2018 during the PAX South gaming convention held at the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center. less

Photo: Edward A. Ornelas, Staff / San Antonio Express-News

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Portrait of Braxton Zand as "Arsenal" from the TV series Arrow (left) and Emily Rigling as "Deku" from My Hero Academia, Sunday Jan. 14, 2018 during the PAX South gaming convention held at the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center. less

Photo: Edward A. Ornelas, Staff / San Antonio Express-News

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Destiny Luna plays the virtual reality game Tale of Swords, Sunday Jan. 14, 2018 during the PAX South gaming convention held at the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center.

Photo: Edward A. Ornelas, Staff / San Antonio Express-News

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Portrait of Nick "Sir Nick Justice" West as the "Predator" Sunday Jan. 14, 2018 during the PAX South gaming convention held at the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center.

Photo: Edward A. Ornelas, Staff / San Antonio Express-News

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Portrait of Jaycie Roberts as "Dark Link" from the Legend of Zelda video game, Sunday Jan. 14, 2018 during the PAX South gaming convention held at the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center.

Photo: Edward A. Ornelas, Staff / San Antonio Express-News

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Augustine Smythe, from San Antoino, (left) and Derek Harris, from Dallas, play the Star Wars: X-Wing Miniatures Game Sunday Jan. 14, 2018 during the PAX South gaming convention held at the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center. less

Photo: Edward A. Ornelas, Staff / San Antonio Express-News

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PAX South gaming convention attendees watch others play Super Smash Brothers Sunday Jan. 14, 2018 at the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center.

Photo: Edward A. Ornelas, Staff / San Antonio Express-News

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Portrait of Adam Chavis as "Skull Kid" from The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask video game Sunday Jan. 14, 2018 during the PAX South gaming convention held at the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center.

Photo: Edward A. Ornelas, Staff / San Antonio Express-News

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Robert Babin, from Baton Rouge, (left), Gerald Marchand, from New Orleans, and others play the Fantasy Strike video game Sunday Jan. 14, 2018 during the PAX South gaming convention held at the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center. less

Photo: Edward A. Ornelas, Staff / San Antonio Express-News

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Portrait of Graham Gladek as "Venom Snake" (left) and Linny Littlefield as "Quiet" from the video game Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, Sunday Jan. 14, 2018 during the PAX South gaming convention held at the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center. less

Photo: Edward A. Ornelas, Staff / San Antonio Express-News

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The small crowd of spectators watched, transfixed, as a player with the handle MasterChief — his character wearing a hat fashioned from an animal’s skull and an outfit seemingly made of animal pelt — snuck up behind his enemy, a competing player in the survival game called “The Darwin Project.”

Set in a dystopian post-apocalyptic wasteland, the game pits players against each other in a kill-or-be-killed arena setting. MasterChief, in a stealth maneuver, snuck up behind his adversary and, wielding an ax, sliced him to bits.

The crowd gasped and cheered.

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This was one of many scenes in the expo hall of the Convention Center on Sunday, the final day of the three-day PAX South gaming convention. The annual event, first held in January 2015, drew thousands of gamers from around the world to downtown San Antonio.

In the first-floor hall, gamers, some dressed in costumes resembling their video game character of choice, weaved through the array of gaming and merchandise booths, a continuous flow of movement fueled by energy drinks and gaming fervor.

Many of the booths in the expo hall showcased indie games — shorthand for independent games, typically those released by smaller companies without the oversight of a publisher like Sony or Nintendo.

“When you become stagnant and just get used to playing stuff that’s produced by major (companies), then it gets boring,” said one gamer, who identified himself by his handle, KungFuTreachery. “It's really refreshing to see that indie games are actually stepping up and really giving a lot of major players a run for their money.”

PAX South, originally called the Penny Arcade Expo, is the first regional gaming convention of the year in a series of PAX expos held in Seattle, Boston, Philadelphia and Melbourne, Australia. Penny Arcade doesn’t share its attendance figures, but somewhere in the “tens of thousands” of people attended the three-day convention, spokesperson Robert Brown said.

Two floors up from the hall, Whitney Beach, 26, greeted gamers at the door of the virtual reality (VR) gaming room. As an “enforcer,” Beach was one of many PAX employees responsible for keeping the convention in order by answering questions and, in her case, filtering people in and out of the VR gaming room.

Beach, a Seattle resident who has flown into San Antonio to work at the last three PAX South expos, said VR gaming has increased in popularity in recent years, to the point that about half the people playing VR games at PAX South had some level of prior virtual gaming experience.

“Three or four years ago, you had to wait hours in line to go through Oculus and stuff,” Beach said, referencing the company that creates VR gaming equipment. “It’s finally becoming pretty accessible, so a lot of people have already done it before. They're not all super interested.”

At one end of the first-floor expo hall, hundreds of people played tabletop games — board, card or dice games, for example — on a massive layout of tables resembling an oversized high school cafeteria. Game titles included ‘Martian Rails” (described as “epic railroading on Mars”), “Velociraptor! Cannibalism!” and a Game of Thrones-themed “Settlers of Catan.”

Next to the tabletop bonanza, professional gamers competed in a “Super Smash Bros.” tournament, broadcast on a massive screen in front of a crowd of hundreds of people. In one match, a user by the screen name of Samsora, playing with the character Peach, battled against Larry Lurr, playing as Fox. During dramatic moments, the crowd applauded and yelled.

On the third floor, some gamers experienced “True Dungeon,” a life-sized version of the fantasy tabletop game “Dungeons and Dragons” focused on problem-solving and teamwork.

Cade Mackin, 20, had just finished playing the demo version of the game. He has attended Comic Con — a similar event but with a focus on comic book culture — in Austin and San Diego, where the largest such convention takes place. He said that while nothing quite measures up to the San Diego convention, PAX South remains “one of my favorites.”

“There's just something for everyone to do,” he said. “There's role-playing games, there’s tabletop games, VR, Pokemon if you want to do handhelds."

Another gamer, Lyn, who did not want to reveal her last name, said playing the card game “Exploding Kittens” was her favorite moment of the weekend. The game, described on its website as a “highly-strategic, kitty-powered version of Russian Roulette,” has nearly 60,000 Twitter followers after growing out of a modest Kickstarter project.

“It’s a card game where there are certain cards you put into play, and you essentially try to get your opponent to get a bomb kitten, and the opponent dies if they don’t have a kitten that can counteract that,” Lyn said. She added: “The designs on the cards are really cute. As a graphic designer, I'm in love.”

No shortage of gaming options for thousands at PAX South convention

Updated 9:58 pm, Sunday, January 14, 2018

Local Channel