Hello. Hi. Hey there. Greetings. Hiya. Pick your favorite greeting and let us move on to the blogginess.

So this group of students designed this game as a school project and decided to host a game day at the local community centre to finance printing a professional copy of it to present to different game companies. This event was held on Saturday and of course, where’s there’s gaming, there’s me. La Crique O Jeux had a contest to win a free pass and it turns out I won. I missed the crucial post to actually claim the prize though. All in all it was a good thing since this was supposed to be a fundraiser. As it turns out, this was for the best.

The game day started at 11 and I got there a little late. I passed by Fab’s house on my way down and saw him working in his backyard so I stopped by to chat for a bit. When I left it was already 11:15 and I was worried I was going to find the place too packed. No need to worry it turned out. I was the first one there. I talked with the organizers and learned more about their plans. We also talked about the games I’d brought as a couple, Sheriff of Nottingham and On Her Majesty’s Service, piqued some interest. As no one else had arrived yet, one of the kids sat in for a game of On Her Majesty’s Service with me (I lost).

There was a hot dog sale being run to raise more funds so I went to get myself some lunch. That’s when I ran into a friend from work, Dan, and his son. And that’s where the guest count stopped. It turns out nobody else came. At least we had each other to play games with. I lost another game of On Her Majesty’s Service, won big in Age of War and  I finally got to try out my copy of Welcome to the Dungeon and also discovered Labyrinth, which is a nice little family game. Not bad at all.

We bought some raffle tickets for the prizes that were available. And they were really good prizes too. I asked the organizers if they were sure they wanted to raffle them all off since the turnout was so slim. Surely they could keep them and wait for a better turnout another time. They assured me that it was okay to participate since they were all donations anyway that hadn’t cost them anything. I walked away with three new games (and an expansion to one of them), a Firefly ornament and a keychain.  And that’s with us not even entering every raffle that was available. There were other nice prizes available, but I kept to only the things I knew I’d appreciate. I was leaving with a lot more than I’d arrived with, which was great…only I was riding Speedy that day.

Dan offered to bring some of my stuff in his car, but I thought I had everything covered. With some creative packing, I managed to get everything I’d brought plus my prizes in the bags I’d brought and one plastic grocery bag. I turned him down and made my way to my bike. I got on and slid one of the bag handles over…and it promptly tore open. Curse my stupid pride for not accepting the help I was offered! I made my way awkwardly back to the centre and asked for some more plastic grocery bags and fortunately everything held until I was able to get back to Fab’s place. I didn’t see myself biking up the hill with all those bags so I asked if I could leave them there and pick them up later. Whew!

So that’s my story for this week. Have a good seven and we’ll do this all again next Monday. Carja V.