Everything was timed nicely this time. We had time to nip to Asda before arriving at M-SParc on Bangor high street. It was Glyn’s birthday, so we got some extra little chocolate cupcakes to celebrate, plus the usual tiny cakey things and some soft drinks. We arrived at M-SParc just as Rhodri opened up.
It was miserable outside though, so were grateful when the usual crowd showed up not long after 11am. The weather actually cleared up by lunchtime, and was sunny the rest of the afternoon, so it was nice to see a newcomer get stuck in almost straight away!
We had a longer time of freeplay at the start this time, at request of Drn who could only get off work at 1pm!
It started with a bit of Tetris 99 between Dylan and Dale, then John and Dale.
“Thank Goodness You’re Here!” was the chosen feature game during this time. John was basically speed running it to show off the various and many elements of comedy in the game. Of course, if you follow our Instagram, the sausage references might have got a bit more context watching this gameplay, although maybe it equally didn’t because the time line of this game is somewhat chaotic!
On a smaller screen, Ffreuer was playing “Gris” – to me it seemed like a cross between an old favourite but long forgotten game I used to love called “de Blob”, and its style reminded me of Tim Burton’s creative output.
We finally started round 1 of the league after most had eaten lunch. Round 1 was the Olympics.
This time we went retro with the 1964 shooting game.
I only saw the smaller grid the once. Some people “got it” and others struggled to aim! We had 12 entries, so 6 pairs. which just about lasted until Drn made an appearance, but as soon as he was through the door we needed him to hop straight on the console!
After the shooting game was complete, we moved on to the main tournament. “World Championships NES Edition”
The championships game has various levels of difficulty, but most of the competition is about speed, with a lot of featured levels being estimated to take just 5 seconds.
We had 12 tournament entries too, so that meant 3 groups of 4.
Dylan did a random number generator, and did two sets for the first round. An easy set, and a normal set. Mushrooms on the Menu – Higher and higher / Short and Sweet – Recovery Discovery / Mushrooms on the Menu – NES cup 84′ -86′
For Recovery Discovery, there was a very cool moment at joint 1st!
There was also a glitch that Iolo caused to come 1st in one of the games!
Top two from each group went through, so then we had 2 groups of 3. The next modes were hard then normal. Technical finesse – Quick Classics / Foes in the days of Old – NES Cup 84′-86′
The final 4 played High Difficulty beginnings
John took the winning position (with an IOU!)
They played High Difficulty beginnings again after the main tournament.
There was a very quick time between 3 of the 4 players for this one…
The ice climber level was the most frustrating though. It was quite a climb, and if you ran out of time you had to start from the beginning again, oof!
After the main tournament it was time for round 2 of the league. This was a match 3 game called “Wario’s Woods”
There was time for a quick Suika Game before the raffle was drawn.
By “quick” we mean “Slow and Steady wins the race” which he did when Drn overtook Glyn’s final score!
We drew the raffle then finished with our usual group photo! (Thanks to Finn for taking the photo)
and of course thanks to M-SParc for letting us use their space 🙂