Mario and Freeplay Festival

Yesterday was AWESOME‼‼! The same group that puts on Game Night every Thursday also put on the Freeplay Independent Games Festival which happened yesterday (Saturday Oct. 29, 2011). It is for their games exhibit space, in the National Gallery of Victoria, that I made Mario. He's up near a nice sunny window where even people passing by on the street can see him. I did it Mom; I have art in the NGV :) all that Girl Scout time paid off. (I didn't make the little Mario Stars, Sayra Lothian did.)

 Lol, we pinned his nose a little crooked

So back to the games. They started at 10am, but I didn't get there until about noon. We played...

Checkpoint: A team of smugglers attempts to move an entire picnic, piece by piece, from one location through a public space and rebuild it at another location. There is a team of guards who try to stop the smugglers from completing their goal. The smugglers can run, but once tagged by a guard they have to surrender any picnic item they carry and go to "jail" for a short period of time. This was a great game and confused everyone in Federation Square that wasn't playing (it was a pretty busy day for people there).

Lemon Jousting: Each player gets two wooden spoons and a lemon. Place the lemon on one spoon and use the other spoon to knock other people's lemons to the ground. Once your lemon has fallen three times you are out. Last lemon standing wins. We sometimes played without the drop limit too. This was fun.

Noodle Fencing: Each player wears a sparkly plastic top-hat and holds a foam noodle (you know, the once you swim with). Use your noodle to knock your opponent's hat off.

Art City (not sure what this was actually called): Cardboard city decorated with colored paper, markers, colored pencils, cut-outs, or anything else people thought of. This was great for when you needed a little break from the other games.

Earpiece: Downloaded onto an iPod are instructions that tell you what to do. You follow what is told to you no matter how silly it makes you look.

Werewolf: Each person draws a card from the stack. You are now a townsperson, a bodyguard, a seer, or a werewolf. One person leads the story (God as we called him). At night everyone puts their heads down and closes their eyes (NO CHEATING) God then instructs the werewolves to awaken, they quietly point to their target then go back to sleep. God then asks the bodyguard to awaken, that person can pick any player to protect including themselves, they go back to sleep. The seer awakens and can ask God what any one player is (God signals with a silent hand motion); back to sleep the seer goes. Everyone awakens and God announces who, if anyone, is dead. The players then have the option to lynch a player they think is a werewolf. If they pick wrong they themselves are killed. If the players fail to eliminate the werewolves before the werewolves kill off the town then the werewolves win.

Blink: Two groups of people at equal distances from a central person who stands over a lemon. You can move toward the lemon only when the person in the middle can't see you. If that person sees you move then you return to the starting line. If you get the lemon you win and now have to guard your lemon from the group. This was SOOOOOOOOO fun‼‼‼‼‼‼‼‼‼‼!

We played so many games that day, that list isn't even all of them. We even got people in Fed Square to join in. One guy was headed home for dinner and stayed to play games instead, "I can always re-heat dinner" he said. It was a really great day. There are pictures and videos, but I don't have access to any of them right now. Finally got home at about 10pm that night exhausted and I am definitely feeling all that fun again today. Who needs to work-out when you can just get a bunch of people together and play games instead?