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 Our main
space at Origins is the big room where we run our tournaments,
which we call The Lab. (Other spaces we were using were our Booth in the Exhibit Hall, the Hallways
in between, and in the Trees all around.)
Here's a typical view, with folks playing Volcano in the foreground.
(We ran the Volcano competition as a Floating Tournament this
year, and it seems to have been a good choice for that format.
People were often seen playing Volcano...)
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During the course of 4 days of competitions, we gave out 45
prize medallions. Here they all are at the beginning of the weekend:
Notice the cool display rack the medallions are hanging on...
this was one of the new lab fixtures which the Myers clan supplied
for this year's Big Experiment. Using PVC tubing, the Myers also
built free-standing screen-holders for the Zendo banners created
by Zarf a few years ago, plus a rack for hanging and organizing
the lab coats! (The Myers family even stores all this bulky stuff
(and a bunch of other equipment we use only each year at the
Big Experiment) for us all year. Thanks so much, Myers! You-all
rock!)
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 Tournament Scorecard
Here's the list of who won all these events:
Fluxx:
- Fluxx World Champion: Kenneth Esbin
- Fluxx Finalists: Johnpaul Adams, Shannon Seaman, and <Who
got the Love medallion?>
- Family Fluxx Winner: Jared Newbold
- EcoFluxx Winner: Kyle Hunkar
- Stoner Fluxx Winner: Trent True
Chrononauts:
- UberChrononauts Winner: James Durfor
- Chrononauts Finalists: Jeff Drum and Dani Rotach
- EAC Finalists: Kat Robertson, Shannon Seaman, and Stacy Wendt
Aquarius:
- Aquarius Tourney Winner: Chris Ballowe
- Hairdown Longest Hair Award: Meg Gandy
- Hairdown Runner-up Emily Frawley
NanoFictionary:
- Nano Winner: Andy Lavery
- Nano Finalists: Joyce Murton and Shane Tilton
17th International Icehouse Tournament:
- Icehouse Winner: Julian Lighton
- Icehouse Finalists: Liam Bryan, Joshua Kronengold, and Elliott
Evans
- Cooler than Ice: Josh Drobina
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Other Icehouse Games:
- Martian Chess: Craig Forbes
- IceTowers: Joshua Kronengold
- Volcano: Amy LoCurto
- Zendo: Meg Gandy
- Zarcana: Joshua Kronengold
- Gnostica: Jesse Welton
- Pikemen: Chris Ballowe
- RAMbots: Nathan Lazotti
- CrackeD Ice: Ryan McGuire
- Martian Hold'em: Chris Stadther
- Binay Homeworlds: Andy Looney
- Treehouse: Kenneth Esbin
Other Looney Games:
- Just Desserts: <Who won this?>
- Cosmic Coasters: Elliott Evans
- Proton: Melissa DePlanche & Joshua Kronengold
- Alpha Werewolf: David Meredith
- Best Werewolf Hunter: Peter Charney
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Joshua Kronengold got the most medallions this year: Here
he is receiving one of them from the lovely 'Becca Stallings.
(Josh Drobina posted lots
more photos of winners receiving their medallions in his
album.)
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 17th International Icehouse
Tournament
Here we see the finalists in this year's Icehouse
Tournament. Congrats to the winner, Julian Lighton! (He's
the tall red-haired guy.) Julian learned the game from Eeyore
some 10 years ago and has been a dedicated competitor in our
official tourneys for the past 5 years. This year he won not
only his first Icehouse medallion, but also took the Scepter
from 3-time previous winner Eeyore, who came in 2nd. (As Eeyore
observed, the student has become the master!)
 Meanwhile, the coveted Cooler
Than Ice award went to our Rabbit Coordinator, Josh Drobina!
Josh took photos of the finished state of all of the tournament
games... check out his
online album for these photos. Also, don't miss Eeyore's
detailed report, which includes the complete scoreboard.
(Thanks again for running this Eeyore, and Craig, Zarf, and Eric!)
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 Nanofictionary
Tournament #5
Andy Lavery, who won the first ever Nanofictionary Tournament
in 2002 and has won at least one in between, became the Returning
Champion once more. Here's a picture of him from 2003, when he
got Alison to make a very cool special card for him with a NanoBlank:
Eeyore videotaped the finalist's stories and is posting them
on YouTube. Currently available:
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Martian Chess Tournament #7
Ryan has posted a report on this
year's Martian Chess tournament. Congrats to Craig! (It sounds
like the issue of stalemates has become a problem we're going
to need to make some sort of ruling for... read Ryan's report
and join the discussions on the Icehouse list if you have any
input. Thanks!)
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The Aquarius Hairdown
 Here we see this year's
official contestants in our annual hair-length
challenge:
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Once again, repeat champ Meg Gandy took top honors,
with Emily Frawley (who has often come in third place with her
gorgeous hair) finally winning a medallion as the Hairdown Runner-up.
(As you can see, this made her very happy!) Note that we had
a 50/50 mix of men and women in this year's competition, with
Marc Hartstein being the longest haired male competitor. (Someday,
perhaps a man will win this sport...) I myself competed for the
first time, since Robin was onhand to take photos in my place.
(And I didn't come in last!)
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 Other Random Tournament Notes
There were of course many events and competitions I didn't
see or compete in, so this report is by no means complete. But
here are some other memories and moments I recall:
- I did well enough in the RAMbots
tournament to get to the finals, but because of timing issues,
I had to play out that final match as one of the games I was
playing during Andy vs. Everybody.
(I didn't win...)
- This year we did the Martian Hold'em tourney as a regular
scheduled event (instead of floating-style) and we got 15 players.
(I got to 6th place.)
- After Trent won the Stoner Fluxx tournament, I got his expert
opinion of the changes we're planning for Stoner Fluxx 2.0. Though
initially alarmed by our plan, he became quite pleased with it
after he studied out the cards, particularly after I said I really
liked the name he suggested for a new Goal that uses Peace and
Freedom: Utopia.
- The Binary
Homeworlds Tournament found last year's finalists battling
it out again on Sunday. Halfway through the 3 hour match, both
players felt sure Jesse would win... but then the tables turned
and I retained my title.
- Although I didn't actually see it, I thought it was hilarious
that Ryan won the CrackeD ICE Tourney by quietly saying the word
"Achoo" at an opportune time.
- Another thing I missed but though was funny was the scene
on Friday when a huge group of "bigwigs in suits" came
through the lab for a tour while the Masters running the Zendo
tournament were all dressed up in their finest Japanese garb.
- Russell and Jesse surprised everyone with one more event:
An Ice-Haggle game! Haggle is Sid Sackson classic (including
in his landmark work, a Gamut of Games) which requires
a fair amount of custom preparations and which I've never had
a chance to try until now. Russell & Jesse worked up an Icehouse-based
version of the game they called Ice-Haggle, and since it's a
game you are meant to play casually over the course of an evening
along with other activities, our lab was the perfect place to
try it out. (I wish I'd gotten to spend more time on it!)
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 Rabbit Crafts
Tournaments weren't the only cool things going on in the Lab.
Again this year, Carol arranged for a bunch of rabbity craft
activities too. In keeping with the theme of "Trees,"
they did crafts using actual leaves!
Here you see a typical craft session in progress... that's
Carol in the back there, and she has this to say: "Thank
you to all who brought leaves! I was amazed that leaves picked
on Monday or Tuesday were still good on Friday when we used them
(putting them in ziplocs w/ wet paper towels in coolers works!).
Thank you especially to Emily Frawley (she not only assisted,
she brought some of the supplies!), Melissa DePlanche and Di
Sudduth and everyone who came to play at Rabbit Crafts!"
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The Rabbit Craft area produced much that was cool and beautiful,
but everyone's favorite creation was this peace-sign T-shirt
design by Alison, using the system she came up with for making
paint-patterns with leaves:
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Potato
 This report wouldn't be
complete without mentioning Potato. While the joke got carried
a little too far, this potato escaped from the potato printing
department of Rabbit Crafts and somehow got entered into the
Volcano floating tournament. When challenged on Potato's right
to compete, he somehow produced a badge with his name on it!
(Potato didn't win, but he didn't come in last, either.)
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The Jim Steiner Martian Chessboard
In my report on last
year's Experiment, I mentioned meeting a fan who'd read my
novel 6 times. His name is Jim Steiner, and he's read The
Empty City a couple of extra times now, and this year he
presented me with this awesome handmade one-of-a-kind Martian
Chessboard he created. Many of those rocks and boulders are rearrangable,
making for a modular element that could inspire any number of
new game ideas. Thanks Jim! This is way cool!
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The
Wedding
 As you will recall if you
read my Weekly Wunderland.com
articles, the Lab also hosted a Wedding this year! Congrats again
to Steve
and Amy!
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