Game Day 2013

I thought it might be fun to have friends over to eat, drink, and compete in games for a few hours, so this weekend we hosted a game day. Since we have a lot of game room equipment, a few games were a given to be included in the festivities - pool, ping pong, shuffleboard, and a card game of some sort.  After some deliberations, we chose "war" for the card game and also added battleship, trivia, and Mario Kart (on N64). Then, the preparations began!

  
All the competitions were individual, and you could opt out of 1 or 2 games if you didn't feel like competing in them.  After getting everyone's preferences ahead of time, we drew up brackets.  When players arrived, they were first greeted with a "Gear Up" table.  On it were placed name tags, head bands, arm bands, eye black, athletic tape, silly mustaches, athletic cups, a penalty flag and challenge flag, and gatorade.  We also offered a shot of liquor in case anyone needed liquid courage!

  Forgot to take a pic before anyone arrived, so half the gear is already gone!

Once they geared up, they were directed to the garage to participate in the mandatory competition - darts! Each player threw three darts and recorded their score on a chalk board.  After everyone threw, the player with the lowest score was required to wear a turkey hat!  But, this competition was ongoing, so everyone was allowed to come back and throw again throughout the day to try and improve their score.  If you no longer had the lowest score, you could pass off the turkey hat to the person who then claimed the lowest spot. At the end of the day, the person with the highest score won a prize.

Meezy's new 49ers dart board got some use

Poor turkey hat wearer, Brian

From there, everyone began their tournament play! Each game area had a posterboard with rules and the brackets on it.  Meezy and I wore referee shirts and went from station to station throughout the day, making sure everything ran smoothly.  (We also competed in a few events ourselves).  Each regular tournament game was a shortened version, but the championship match being full length, and then we added optional play where participants could make it a drinking game! 

Shout out to my sister for her great artwork!

When each champion was crowned, they were given a trophy.  Second place finishers even got something as well - their prizes were more like stocking stuffers, and some were funny or weird, but they were still appreciated!

Disregard the plates in the back - those are mine! From L to R, shuffleboard, war, ping pong, pool, battleship, mario kart, and trivia. (Forgot to take a pic of the 2nd place prizes).

2013 Game Day Billiards Champion close-up

Overall, Game Day 2013 was a great success, and we had many requests from people asking us to host it again in the future.  Some suggested they wanted it to happen even more often than annually, so maybe we'll consider a spring event where some events take place outdoors.  

Sharon, Stari, and Tiffany enjoying the war area

Intense trivia matches taking place

Katie M got the prize for "best geared up" participant!

No question who the big winner was - Justin took home three trophies!

My only regret was not taking more pictures!  We had an awesome spread of food available, and lots of exciting matches happened, so I apologize for not documenting that better.  It was a very fun and hectic day, but I'll do better in that area next time!