We had a last minute panic on Friday night as our usual venue decided to tell us last minute that we unable to hold our event in that room!
Our of our regular members, Rhodri, works for M-Sparc though, and fortunately he was able to open up shop for our event on the Sunday!
Perfect location on Bangor High Street, we got set up swiftly! The wrapped up goodies were on the table at the back of the room with the raffle tickets. The large table in the middle had cakes contributed by a couple of members, some exclusive Japanese treats from a members who’d just been over there; plus cupcakes and the good old Roses/Celebration tins! Free drinks were available too, thanks to the joint effort from some of our earlier arriving members.
Most of the day ended up being freeplay. We’d set up the Wii for Mario Kart, but the younger guys ended up playing Double Dash, Super Mario Wii and a couple of other games instead!
Jen did set up a few rounds of Mario Kart 7 at the big table, where 5 joined at a time. The local connection held out, and it was good to play the signature game of our formative years!
At 2pm was the scheduled Nintendo Land tournament, fitting, seeing as the Wii U celebrated its tenth birthday this month too! There was one problem… We’d left the Wii U at home! Dylan had to go back and get it, so an hour later than planned, the tournament started. We simplified it, while still getting the best out of the favourite games: Mario Chase, Luigi’s Ghost Mansion, then Animal Crossing: Sweet Day!
There was lots of fun had, and Dylan was the chased/chaser, and such has it that the one person who’d never played it before came out top and won the special Mario Backpack and OLED Switch Case!
We went back to freeplay after that. Meanwhile in the background, Rhodri was 3-D printing some commemorative 3DS NNW cartridges!
Lots of Switch was played, and a lot of Pokémon too, since Scarlet/Violet had recently launched.
It was finally time for the raffle! Lots of (wrapped up) prizes to win, and they were themed: Pokémon or Mario. Including two green-wrapped Pokéballs, which turned out to be Mario Lego!
For the first time, everyone loved their prizes, and NO ONE wanted to swap after! Amazing!
We had one final group photo before wishing everyone a Merry Christmas and a thank you for attending!
Over 30 people showed up throughout the day, and we received a number of thank yous on our channels after!
It’s been an epic ten years, here’s to many more <3