U-Con Gaming Convention

U-Con Games Library Day – May Edition

burtonja — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 02:55:19 +0000

The May edition of Games Library Day is going to be slightly off schedule on account of the Second Sunday being Mother’s Day. We’ll meet one day earlier on Saturday, May 11th and a touch earlier in the day (12pm – 4pm) to beat the Saturday evening crowds. This way you will have all of Sunday to take your mother out for brunch (or to be taken out for brunch if you are a mother) AND get some gaming in that same weekend.

Oh, if your mother likes to play games, bring her to Games Library Day too. We’ll try to have her favorite game on hand if you leave a comment as to what that might be.

Come join us for lots of pre-Mother’s Day games fun on
Saturday, May 11th
12:00 pm – 4:00 pm
@ The Corner Brewery in Ypsilanti (map)

A subset of the Games Library will be in attendance and of course people are welcome to bring their own games. If you’d like to see a particular game at Games Library Day, leave a comment to let us know. Hope to see you there!

Aftermath: April Games Day

burtonja — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 12:47:34 +0000

Kevin H. ponders his racing strategy as he rounds the corner onto Outer Wacker Drive.

Welcome to the aftermath post for the April edition of Games Library Day. We had around 30 people show up which is fantastic! Thank you all for coming!

This month, I made it my goal to learn (or at least play) FormulaD because the tiny cars are so dang cuuuute! I suppose a game has got to hook people somehow but I’m not sure the itty bitty cars are quite how the FormulaD people were trying to entice people into playing. Fortunately, Nick H. indulged my curiosity and brought along his copy of FormulaD, complete with additional tracks so I could learn the game. I had no idea there were course expansions; including a Nurburgring track. Neat, all that Top Gear watching isn’t for naught!

Paul E. contemplates downshifting for the corner. We challenged him to take it at speed; he may have lost a tire.

Six of us settled on the Chicago racing tiles and were off in a blazing start. Or as blazing as you can get having to start out in first gear and going just one or two spaces. One of the fun dynamics of FormulaD was deciding when to go all out (the higher the gear, the more spaces you could move), when to downshift for slower, safer corners and when to take a chance at possibly blowing up your transmission. We wound up doing only one lap of the city (and even then two racers wound up in the drink and had to wait for everyone to pass them before returning to the track) and yours truly moved up from 6th to 4th place. I even crossed the finish line without wrecking the car. Mostly. Apparently someone needs practice downshifting properly.

The baby is clearly taking notes: Remember how awesome the combination of FLYING and UNDEAD is.

I would declare this past weekend FormulaD weekend but for the fact that Smallworld was more popular. Someone asked on the Facebook Page if we could have Smallworld available because they wanted to play it. Absolutely! In fact, Nick brought his copy of the original game and I popped the Library’s copy of Smallworld: Underground in the games bucket. Both were out and about and popular. Seriously, people: If you want a game to be at any of the Games Library Days just drop us a line here or, probably more conveniently, on our Facebook page. We’ve got a pretty wide range of games between the Games Library and our own collections.

While Nick explains the finer points of Smallworlding…

Eric plots the expansion of his empire. Muahahahaha!

The second Smallworld game was in full swing.

Saving the Universe over at the Sentinels of the Multiverse table.

Finally, the far table took a go at saving the universe with Sentinels of the Multiverse. They were successful. Huzzah!

P.S. Look for May’s U-Con Games Library Day one day earlier than usual or the second Saturday of May. Sunday is Mother’s Day and if your Mom is like my Mom, she probably wants to be taken out to brunch rather than come play games. However if your Mom likes to game, bring her on Saturday and THEN take her out to brunch on Sunday.

-JQuirk

U-Con TableTopDay Report

Nick Huston — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 20:01:52 +0000

First off, I want to thank everyone who came out to the event, and to the organizers who made everything possible.

As one of the over 3000 events held in 55 countries (and Antarctica), it was great to see so many new and familiar faces come together just to play games. At least 50 people attended, with up to ten games being played at one time. Games that were played included:

Ticket to Ride, Small World, and Lords of Waterdeep
Magic, Express, Seven Dragons, and Phase 10
Dixit, Tsuro of the Seas, and 7 Wonders
Zombie Dice, Munchkin, and Munchkin Booty
Get Bit, Pint Craft, and Alien Frontiers
Flash Point: Fire Rescue, Castle Panic, and Pandemic
Pillars of the Earth, Living Stone, and Mage Wars
Seasons, Dominion, Suburbia, and Innovation

Here are some pictures too!

For those of you wondering, the winner of each episode from Season 1 of TableTop held a trophy with their name on a piece of tape. Since they could not keep the trophy, they got to keep the tape. So, we decided to continue the tradition with our own!

Thank you again to everyone who came out. Hope to see you all at U-Con!! Perhaps the trophy will make an appearance there as well…

U-Con Games Library Day – April Edition

burtonja — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 21:10:49 +0000

Each month I find new and awesome games to play and if someone brings FormulaD again I will see if I can snag a spot. Just look at those tiny cars! SQUEEE! I mean…erhm…what an exciting representation of car racing.

Come join us for lots of games fun (and perhaps a break from tax craziness) on
Sunday, April 14th
2:00 pm – 6:00 pm
@ The Corner Brewery in Ypsilanti (map)

A subset of the Games Library will be in attendance and of course people are welcome to bring their own games (especially you FormulaD people *g*). Hope to see you there!

-JQuirk

Zombie House Blitz

burtonja — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 13:45:07 +0000

I was going to make this into a “How to Play” but instead, I think I’ll do something a little bit different. Mainly because this game is still in its Kickstarter phase and if I wait any longer to post something you all won’t have a chance to get in on the ground (shambling) level. So! Go check out the fun over at the Kickstarter link and maybe put yourself down for a set of cards. Or, perhaps you’d like to be immortalized as a zombie. Go ahead…I’ll wait.

OK good. Now let me explain a little bit about this Crazy Zombie Blitz Card action game. Jeremiah Lee showed up to the last Games Library Day with two full games of these cards and a bunch of us gleefully sat down to play test this very new game. It’s sort of a combination of Speed and Solitaire. But with Zombies.

There are several different types of cards: Zombies (of course), Cars, Shotguns and People. The People are arranged from 1 to 6 in four different suites (two red and two blue). Initially, the Zombies, Cars and Shotguns are separated out leaving only the People cards. Some of the People deck are shuffled out into a face down pile that supplies your ‘solitaire like’ stacks while the others are rejoined with the Zombie, Car and Shotgun cards. The rejoined deck becomes the hand you cycle through by threes to try and fill in the gaps of your solitaire place holder piles. So essentially, the area in front of you is very much like playing solitaire except you get fewer piles of cards to work with than in actual solitaire. And whenever a Zombie pops up in your hand that you are cycling through it has a good chance to eat a person.

This is bad.

Meanwhile, whenever a Car comes up you can lay it in the center of the play area. As soon as a car is placed, anyone can start adding People on top of the car (starting with a number one person whose suit is the same color of the car) until all 6 People of that suit are “in the car”. That car is full up and “drives away” (the top card is turned over to indicate no more People will fit in the Car).

Eventually, someone will exhaust their face down draw pile, at which point the game is over. Points are scored by determining how many People you were able to get into the Cars (each player’s deck has a different colored back so you can tell who placed what person) minus how many People didn’t make it into cars or the Zombies wound up eating.

I may not have scored very high because it’s really hard to keep track of which suit is at what number in the cars at the center of the game area while simultaneously playing a shortened game of solitaire. Did I have fun though? Oh yes. If you like card games and want something a little bit different that you can play fast paced with up to 4 people, this is a pretty awesome game. Plus…zombies.

-JQuirk

U-Con 2013

lhamel — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 19:44:08 +0000

November 22-24, 2013
Marriott Ann Arbor Ypsilanti at Eagle Crest
I-94 at Exit 183 in Ypsilanti

We are excited to announce that we will return to Eagle Crest this fall!

There is so much going on over here. We have to revise convention hours and update all our website pages. We’ll get the events submission page open in the next few weeks, so please pardon our dust!

It’s official!

lhamel — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 19:17:25 +0000

November 22-24, 2013
Marriott Ann Arbor Ypsilanti at Eagle Crest
I-94 at Exit 183 in Ypsilanti

See you in November!

U-Con Games Library Day – International TableTop Day Edition

burtonja — Wed, 13 Mar 2013 15:58:39 +0000

March 30th marks the first anniversary of the Geek & Sundry created TableTop. They have declared this day “International TableTop Day” and have asked that groups who love to play games host a game playing event on this day. We put our collective heads together and decided that this was a brilliant idea, so we created an event.

Please join U-Con at The Corner Brewery in Ypsilanti on Saturday, March 30th for an afternoon of games and fun. We’ll be there from noon to 5 with many of the games featured on TableTop plus a whole lot more. Feel free to bring your own game if you’d like; we’d love to learn what your favorite game is as well as show you some of the cool games we know and love.

(Games featured on TableTop)

Contact Information Update

lhamel — Tue, 26 Feb 2013 21:51:40 +0000

We closed our P.O box as part of our plan; it was a remnant of the old organization. We plan to transition to a new box for the new organization in the next month or two. Meanwhile, please use the contact form if needed.

Rest assured this was a planned part of the transition! We may seem quiet at the moment, but we’re busy behind the scenes talking to the hotel about dates and soon we’ll hold our elections.

2013 Rendition of U-Con Games Library Day!

burtonja — Wed, 16 Jan 2013 15:39:31 +0000

Happy new year everyone! I’m hoping 2013 finds all of you in better spirits but if not, never fear: The first Games Library Day of 2013 is scheduled!

U-Con Games Library Day
Sunday, January 27
2:00 pm – 6:00 pm
@ The Corner Brewery in Ypsilanti (map)

There is no charge for this event, though space may be limited.

As usual, you can suggest games you’d like to see from the Library (I put a list on our Facebook page), bring your own games or just show up and see what fun materializes. I’m feeling all crafty like so I think I’m going to start a 1KBWC U-Con deck. What’s 1KBWC? You’ll have to come and find out (or, you know, Google it). Hope to see you there!