No!: PAX East attendees pitch game ideas (and get shot down)

A now annual tradition, the PAX "Pitch Your Game Idea" panel at PAX East was another guffaw-inducing affair this year. Amid the many, many, many calls of "NO!" that were tossed out from Penny Arcade staff members (and the single-player campaign tester on Gears of War 3) were a handful of "I like that" instances, which eventually resulted in a second round and, eventually, a trio of winners.

Taking the top spot in two rounds was "Double O Intern," a concept that sees a desperate intern of a superhero trying his/her best to complete objectives and set up things before time runs out. Number two was an iOS game with water mechanics, pitched as a puzzle game wherein you control an avatar who needs to reach various objectives while simultaneously employing the iOS device's tilt sensor to control the water. Think: Paired down Hydrophobia with fewer British accents. And number three went to the second round's final pick, the adorable sounding "Squirrel Dog Cat" -- a game that centers around a mouse out for revenge against the cat who killed his father. In first-person. Adorable.

We'll admit it, though -- of all the concepts, we were most on board for a game featuring an astronaut shaver who's traveling the galaxy shaving planets in search of his hair-god-cursed girlfriend. "Shave the girl, Shave the Universe!" was the game's tagline and, frankly, it really sold us.