Hope for the future generation/Momocon Summer Game Festival

[fastbilly1]

A couple weekends ago I helped run a Momocon side event called the Summer Gaming Festival. We were mostly Boardgames, Cardgames, and RPGS, but we did have a room to the side with some of my retrogames going. Four Swords was played all day, and the other six tvs were running everything from a Saturn to a 7800 (no room for the Dreamcast, PSX, and N64, ran out of tvs). Well everything was going as normal, the Atari was getting some play, Genesis and SNES were dominating. Contra and Punchout were the two most popular NES games, so standard fair.

Well some time in the afternoon, a six or seven year old boy and his sister came up to me asking about what games we had. They asked about Banjo Tooie and when I said no they were very disappointed. Then they surprised me. “Do you have Centipede?” Infront of me was a young child, born in the decade asking for a game that is almost thirty years old. I set them up on the 7800 with it and for the next hour they played Centipede, Defender, and Asteroids – usually I don’t let people hog the machines for that long but no one asked to play it and well I am bias.

Later their father comes in and joins them, and he asks if I have Joust. Being well prepared I had it for both the Atari and the NES. So we fire it up on both, one for his two youngest, one for him and the older. For a time everything kinda stopped and everyone started watching this family playing Joust, and they were pretty good.

Being a retrogamer I was proud the father had started them with an Atari and that they were not like some of the other kids who came in asking where my 360 was because it is obviously the best console of all time. Sure I did have a Wii in the room, but that is because it was before I bought my 5th Gamecube and I needed it to run 4 Swords. I was also proud that the others who came in realized that the father and oldest son were high tier Joust players. I mean how often do you find four people in the wild that can bounce through the stage?

See there is hope for the future generation yet.

The event itself was a bit small – only 70 people showed up. But next time we will have a bigger CCG contingent, it wont be the same weekend as Origins (a big boardgaming convention), and hopefully we will have a Play N Trade running the videogame room, with some of my collection there on the side. My biggest disappointment with the entire thing was that my last package from Hashiriya1 arrived during it, so I did not have a chance to make people play Battle Cross and Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon SuperS - Zenin Sanka!! Shuyaku Soudatsusen – what a mouthful, thank you copy paste. And that the Racketboy business cards did not arrive until the Monday following… Ohwell next time I wont think of these things the week before.

Hopefully next time my job wont be trying to cut out my department the week of so I will remember to advertise it here. Once we have a date and somesort of flyer Ill have it up.

[Hatta]

Nice. I was at a BBQ this weekend and let some kids play with my DS for a bit. They found Super Mario Brothers and played for quite a bit. They even knew all the warp zones. I was impressed.

BTW, how do you run an event like that? The IT dept here has a video game event once a year, and I was thinking of contacting them and offering to set up a retro booth. I'm a little paranoid about things just walking off though. Any thoughts?

[Ack]

Yeah, sorry I couldn't make it Fastbilly. You know I would have if I'd been able to. I'm looking ahead to future events and I'm working on building up that SNES collection further, so if I've got something you're looking for, just shoot me a line in time and I'll get it to you as quickly as possible.

Hey Hatta, I lent my collection of cartridge-based fighting games to Fast for Momocon last March. He kept strict lists of what materials were there and who had brought them. The retro room had its own special staff, and at least one(but preferably two or three) staff member was required in the room at all times. Staff were the only ones allowed to handle games, but lists of what was available was put up by each console, so all folks had to do was ask for a specific game and they'd get to play it. If a console wasn't in use, we'd throw in a title and let the demo play, which would often interest people in playing it. To my knowledge, not a single thing went missing, but we also made it a point to not bring much in the way of rare or expensive games(hence no RPGs or the like).

[racketboy]

Very cool -- thanks for sharing!
Pictures and/or video?

[nickfil]

(hence no RPGs or the like).

RPGs are a bit hard to just pick up and play for a bit anyway. A good move for more than one reason.

cool event. Wish i was able to go.

[MrPopo]

PAX has a similar style retro room. The way they handled it was that if you wanted a game you traded them your badge for the game. You could do a similar thing with a driver's license (though that won't work if it's just a couple of 8 year olds).

[fast]

Hatta, the method Ack described is the absolute best way to do it and since implementing it I have only lost one cartridge - Starfox for the SNES two years ago. If I can ever figure out a better way of doing it I will make sure to inform yall.

As for your other question, just ask them. If they say yes, find out if you have to bring tvs and what not. It is fairly easy to get people to come play - bring all the popular games you can. I made the mistake my first year of bringing mostly multiplayer games and was bombared with requests for Sonic 1, Megaman, and Punchout. I pack my consoles in sterlite containers like these:
http://www.shroomery.org/forums/thumbs/ ... te_tub.jpg
And cover them with a blanket when I am not getting something out of them - another level of theft prevention.

It is alot of work and doublechecking yourself, but it works out in the end. Good luck.


And Racket I will have pictures soon, no video to my knowledge. We did have two guests make surprise visits:
Sam Chupp - One of the creator of Changling among other Whitewolf RPGs
Peter Olotka - Creator of Cosmic Encounter

Well I say surprise, but I invited Sam...

[Hatta]

Sterilite tubs on shroomery.org, gee I wonder what else you could use those for.

[fastbilly1]

It was the only picture I could find easily that didnt have a snake in it. And I am not fond of snakes.