Pokémon Lab(o) - VR? 11/05/19

We had a big day planned for everyone, with a main event, cinema trip and even pizza to round it all off!

We had to shorten the main event by an hour, so we chose not to do a main tournament, but instead focus on the league session and the Labo opportunities.
we had two challenges throughout the day.


The first one was the original Toy Con Labo - people had to try and catch the biggest "fish" (yes this DID include sharks :P )

The second challenge was to get the highest score on the first level of the Blaster VR challenges. #

There was also a screen of Smash Ultimate for people to play on for most of the day.

We demoed Puyo Champions for a bit, but it wasn't long until people reverted to either Tetris 99 or Puyo Puyo Tetris!

The league session's first round was ARMS.
People had to use the joy cons the other way round.

In the middle of the day we allowed North Wales team 1 to play their NPUK Spoil the Broth tournament match against Manchester 1. Unfortunately it wasn't to be though, as Manchester's JasonVMX and his wife seemed to be in a league of their own!!
Was fun to watch though regardless!

The second round of the league featured Ultimate Chicken Horse.
As a group we're used to playing Party mode on the premade levels. It was done differently because Dylan had made a custom level for everyone to complete on challenge mode.
You can find it using this code:  W6EP-FKVN.


People picked their characters, dressed them up and got going!

Dylan tried to show everyone how to do the level but couldn't finish it! (He did at home, honestly!)
A lot tried to speedrun it and got caught out. No one actually finished it, but people got scored according to where they died...

Once the round was over, people kept playing it, but only Jack M and James managed to complete it in the end!

The tie breaker saw Spid and James fighting it out in party mode.
Some items had increased probability, jet packs were turned off. The fire rate was sped up, but the speed of it was slow.... which resulted in a slightly impossible crossbow at one point.
We were hoping for more in the tie breaker, but on the second round, the other two with 5 ended up in the same group, and neither of them got the second 5 points...!!
The stage was the Crumbling Bridge.
The issue was that because there were only two players, once one had gained an advantage it was pretty plain sailing from there! (well done to Spid!)

It wasn't all bad for James though - Due to him getting the maximum points for the session, he's now joint top with John on the leaderboard!

John won the Blaster VR challenge, and Drn won the Fishing challenge with his 633m shark..!

We did the raffle and made everyone promise that if they won a plush and were going to the cinema, the plush had to watch the film with them too ;)

We had a good even spread of the prizes, and a big Jigglypuff, along with a Ditto and a few Pikachus made it to the cinema with us!
Thanks to Teki for donating some of the prizes for this one :)

Once we'd packed up at 4, we started heading over to Llandundo Junction for the Detective Pikachu at 5pm. A few of us only just made it in time, so we got our snacks and headed in.

The film had mixed opinions. Some thought it was amazing, and others thought the plot itself wasn't deep enough. What we didn't realise was that we brought an accidental spoiler with us ;)
Jigglypuff seemed to have some fun of its own too...!!!

We managed a group photo after we came out (apologies to Cat who we didn't realise had disappeared until she reappeared!!) and then headed over to pizza hut!

21 of us crammed into one corner of the restaurant, and finished off the day by eating loads of pizza!
We actually ran out of time for pudding, but some of us had to leave by a certain time.

It was an immensely fun day, and maybe we'll do it again one day :D

The Great Yoshi Egg Hunt! 13/04/19

We decided that since this (mini) meet was so close to Easter, as well as the fact that Yoshi's Crafted World had just been released, we may as well do a FREE Easter Egg Hunt!

The event itself was 12-5, but we started setting up at our usual time of 10. We had an awful lot of egg tokens to hide after all! (+ 6 Yoshis!)

We were also selling Easter themed cakes - dark crispie, milk chocolate shredded wheat nests and cornflake cakes for 50p each.

The egg tokens ranged from "XL to XS" and were coloured according to their rareness. This time, the biggest egg (bronze) was the star prize, and the XS size ones were the more common light green and light blue colour. (and won you a creme egg or similar size) The 6 Yoshis got you a Lindt or Cadbury bunny, but if you found "Fat Yoshi" you got a slightly bigger Lindt bunny!

There were rule sheets spread across the room, and we made sure people had read them before they started.
If you wanted to enter you had to show Jen a Yoshi "thing". Get the go ahead, then take said Yoshi thing on the hunt with you.
We had a few amiibo, some plushies, a CD case, and some figures of varying sizes.

People were allowed in from 11.30, but for fairness, once people had been signed up, we waited until 12 before we started, so that everyone entering had a fair chance.

We also started with a bit of Yoshi's Crafted World on the big screen.

There was a limit of up to 3, so that everyone had a fair chance of finding at least something.

before we kicked off, we had a group photo with all the yoshi things :) (John came in 30 seconds later and missed the photo though...)

The whole thing mainly took half an hour, and we let the last couple of people keep going as the rest had their limit. We hope that certain people remember how important sportsmanship is in our community.. :)


When the last few gave up, everyone got one more shot no matter what they'd won already...


...but there were 5 that just couldn't be found. (1S and 4 XS)
With the XS tokens being only just bigger than a 5p piece, it was supposed to be a challenge.
People did keep looking, but no luck.
Looking at Jen for clues, Jen realised that she'd forgotten where she'd hidden them, so her and Emma went round checking places to see if they could find any! (we found 3/5 so gave hints for people to find them)

In the end, those two "unknown" ones are apparently still in the room somewhere. I wonder when/if we'll ever find them...!

The rest of the day was dedicated to freeplay like the rest of our mini meets. We saw a 12 player Mario Kart LAN session, plenty of Smash Ultimate, Baba is You, Blazblue Crosstag battle, Ultimate Chicken Horse and lots more!

A group of Pokémon GO players also popped out because it was another community day, for catching Bagon!

Thanks to all those who made it, we hope you had fun! :)

March Multiplay! 23/03/19

Everyone seemed to turn up early this time. We were thinking we better get started, but it wasn't even 11am yet! Love the dedication, guys! :P

Some freeplay was set up to begin with, where we saw some  Baba is You and Taiko no Tatsujin. There was also Radirgy with his usual Smash Ultimate setup. 

We started around 11.30am, and had round 1 of the league. Today's first "game done differently" was Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. In mirror mode.... with a mirrored screen. It confused a few!
It was great fun though, and it gave everyone a chance too!

A couple chanced trying to race by using their controllers upside down... 

Today's event wasn't the busiest we've done, but probably the most complex. We had 12 games in the tournament, but due to time it also had to be single elimination.

The games were:

Strategy
- Puyo Puyo Tetris (Switch)
- Katamari Damacy Rerolled (Switch)
- Super Monkey Ball (3DS)

Fighting
- ARMS (Switch)
- Pokken Tournament DX ( Switch)
- Smash 4 ( 3DS)

Speed
- 10 Second Run (Switch)
- Pacman Championship Edition 2 (Switch)
- Bit.Trip Saga- Runner (3DS)

Rhythm
- Rhythm Paradise Megamix (3DS)
- Beat Sports (Switch)
- Taiko no Tatsujin (Switch)

For each round, people had to choose their category. There were 3 rounds in total, and each time, half the table got through and half got knocked out. (No matter how many people were on a table.)
22 people entered, 13 got through to round 2, then 7 for round 3. People had to change category each round, but it was up to them how they did it (and they couldn't repeat a category)
Once they were sat at their desired table, one person was asked to pick a card (out of 3) and the number on it corresponded to which game they needed to play.

For the third round, and 7 people, we ended up with 3 tables with 2, and the 4th table with 1, so he automatically got through to the final!
2nd place for Rhythm got through to the final too, because the guy who won it just upped and left before the next thing...


We saved the final for after the league though.

League Round 2 was unknown this time, because it was taking one of the games NOT used in the tournament, but was listed. We opted for Puyo Puyo Tetris. The "different" bit was one handed controls only. (Right Joycon)

We then did the final for the tournament - Murder Trivia Party from Jackbox 3. (Not expected at all, but also perfect as it didn't fit in any of the categories specifically)
It was a very tense finish, and fair dos to Radirgy who aced all the memory sections! However Drn came 1st and Dan came 2nd.

We did the raffle and group photo before the league tie breaker, so that we could finish on time for those who had to go.

The tie breaker was Monopoly (Switch) - the first person to go bankrupt (Without pressing the bankrupt button!) It didn't take 3 hours like the original way of playing it, but it was a good 45 minutes. John won the session again, so well done to him!