League night #6 of 8
Games played: Iron Man, Metallica, Lord of the Rings, Medieval Madness, Monster Bash
Your intrepid blogger is, as always, reliable in her lateness. It has been a good while since our last update, since we had one of those months that resulted in two off weeks instead of one. During that time we also had the March Hare Madness charity tournament, so I will update you on both at once.
First, league night. For a change of pace, all of the games chosen by Matt for league were in fact used. I must say I was not exactly pleased with how Monster Bash was playing (it was back to shooting down the middle out of the scoop, so some people were just plain avoiding the scoop) but I suppose it technically worked. I had a really bad night actually, having one acceptable game and the rest awful (I did something like a 4 million Medieval Madness, if that gives you an idea of how bad I mean by “bad”), so I admit I’ve wiped most of this league night out of my memory banks. If someone remembers something notable about the night please feel free to throw it in the comments because I’ve got nothin’. (I forgot to take any notes, in other words… or any photos, for that matter.)
Matt S. shows off the removable lockdown bar from Ghostbusters at March Hare Madness.
Another development of note is that Pete’s has delivered a Stern Star Trek LE to the Avenue, which is now in the downstairs alcove. It seemed to have some odd behavior at first, according to Matt (auto-plunging Player 2 before he/she could choose a mode), but it wasn’t happening by the time I played it. Other than that it seems to play fine. Unfortunately, last time I was over there, Ghostbusters was in bad shape, with the lockdown bar becoming more of a “hold down bar” and a noticeable delay between releasing the flippers and having them drop. As a result we did use Star Trek in the March Hare Madness tournament, but did not use Ghostbusters.
The March Hare Madness finalists. (Danny had to leave before it was over, so he is not pictured.)
So I guess that brings me to March Hare Madness. This was the second annual MHM, held around the same time as last year, and with the same “amazing race” format. This is a format in which everyone plays a set of games in order and the lowest scoring player on each game is eliminated. Last year Aaron G. suffered the agony of being knocked out first; this time it was me. That may have been for the best as it allowed me to put my full attention into running things. Come to think of it, I didn’t have to make a single ruling or deal with a single major malfunction during the whole tournament, which I think is a first for my tournaments.
Mike with his trophies for the main and side tournaments.
March Hare Madness officially became the Stephen Memorial Tournament this year (and will probably continue to be so named in future years), so the proceeds went to the Rabbit and Small Animal Rescue of Westland (where I adopted Stephen). Although attendance was noticeably lower than last year, I did run a “closest to the pin” side tournament on three games (Tales of the Arabian Nights, Attack from Mars, and Indiana Jones) for 50 cents per try, and that helped make up some of the difference in fundraising. Mike S. won on all three games, and took home all three prizes (two Klassic Arcade passes and one $5 Schuler Books gift card). I got some stick from Chris for accidentally putting the target score for TotAN at 75,000,000. “If I may make a suggestion,” he said, “this seems a little high.” It was, of course, an error; I had accidentally carried over the target score from Indiana Jones. The target score for TotAN was actually 3,500,000, and the target score for AfM was 1,000,000,000. Mike’s winning scores were Indiana Jones, 74,753,920; TotAN, 3,484,660; and AfM, 992,248,050.
Meanwhile, in the main tournament, the final four ended up being (in order of finish) Chris, Joseph, Mike, and Danny. Joseph and Mike ended up having a playoff for 2nd and 3rd, and Joseph won the randomly chosen playoff game on Medieval Madness. This was the first time either Joseph or I have taken home a trophy at one of our own tournaments (not counting Fear and Trembling, where everyone who attended took one home).
In total the tournament earned $161 for RASA Rescue. Thank you to all participants for helping me memorialize Stephen. Thanks also to the prize donors. My friend Alesia Tom donated a pair of earrings and a bunch of movie posters for prizes, one of which (La La Land) was highly coveted by Adam, resulting in some bargaining between him and the finalists. Adam also donated a Game of Thrones translite for one of the finalist prizes.
Tonight, after a long dry spell, league is back in action, so I will see you all at 7 p.m. Actually, you’ll see each other at 7 p.m. and I’ll see you whenever I manage to get out of the philosophy mines.