This is an auto-generated report from SuperFRED regarding an event that Diane Sudduth has submitted. http://rabbits.looneylabs.com/?RabbitUserID=imbri6 ======== Title: Gamer Ground Demos Location: St. Louis Date: 3/30/2007 Last Friday evening the St. Louis Warren met again for demos at a local store; this time at Gamer Ground, a new game/toy store in our area. Our Fearless LabBrit leader, Timothy, made the initial contacts and set plans in motion with enough advance-warning to really get the word out. When he initially contacted the store owners, at or just after their grand opening, they hadn't heard of Looney Labs, but we soon remedied that! I answered the call for volunteers and we spent several hours at the store a few weeks back, introducing the owners to the games. The word got OUT on this event! I believe I heard Casey, the shop-owner, estimate that at one point we had 35-people in the store. Upstairs is "the store" with a couple of tables, downstairs is All Gaming with more tables, and I think we kept most of those tables full and over-full most of the night. How many people can crowd around a Fluxx table? I'm not sure how many were playing, but I think there were at least 10 folks tightly packed around a fairly smallish table at one point! It always surprises me, at demos, how few games I actually play. This time, over the course of 6 hours, I played: Fluxx Treehouse, Aquarius (3), Ice Towers Chrononauts, Martian Coasters, Werewolf (1 as player, 1 as moderator) Most of the time I was playing with folks who either hadn't ever played the games before or had played so very long ago as to almost have never played. Several games I didn?t play, just observed, advised, etc. The overwhelming consensus of everyone was that they *loved* the games, and so proved it by putting a rather noticeable sized dent in the LL stock the store had procured for the event. I spent a bit of time playing with a set of kids, aged 6, 9, and 14. Trying to find something they could all understand and enjoy playing was... challenging. I'm afraid to say that I couldn't capture the 14-year-old's attention on Treehouse, though the younger 2 seemed to like it until we were displaced by a game of Werewolf and had to relocate. Aquarius went a LOT better, and Ice Towers finally seemed to catch their attention (the 6-year-old got rather more than a little help from Daddy on that one, and he seemed to be enjoying himself as well) The hands-down favorite at my table for the whole evening was Aquarius, which, sadly, the distributor was out of and thus the store did not have a single copy for sale. There was much sadness at this news, but also promises by the store to order the game and by the players to come back and buy a copy later. Chrononauts was also a lot of fun at my table. We'd not been playing all that long when one player said "I can patch a paradox even if it doesn't help me win, right?" And we assured him that he could, and it would help him win by netting him an extra card. Whereupon the next player drew a card, looked at the cards in his hand, and said, "Does this mean I win? Because I patched this year, and now he's just patched that year, and the other one is still showing the original timeline, and that's what's on my card" and so we had an abrupt and yet fun end to the game. I'd set up Volcano though never got a chance to play, though at one point I took a short break and walked through and saw 3 separate games of Volcano in progress. I confess to mild jealousy at that point! I was happy yet disappointed at the end of the night to *not* go home with a copy of EAC. Friends have it, and I've played, but I don't yet have my own copy and intended to buy it that night. However, when I arrived, I learned about the distributor woes. No Aquarius, only one copy of EAC. I determined that I would be a considerate rabbit and not buy it until the end of the evening IF it was still there. Alas, it was not to be, as a pair of sisters went shopping. Upon seeing that one sister had bought Chrononauts, the other *leaped* upon the only copy of EAC. (And was easy to persuaded to get the lost identities as well) Ah well, I'll get it later... I was lovely to see so *many* people there! What a huge, wonderful turnout! The store owners were just *beaming* at the end of the night, too. Happiness all 'round!!!