|
UBCon - General Statistics |
| Total Test Subjects |
46 |
| Participants that did not become Test Subjects |
9 |
| Total Participants |
55 |
| Total Female Test Subjects |
12 |
| Total Male Test Subjects |
32 |
| Age of Youngest Test Subject |
14 |
| Age of Oldest Test Subject |
44 |
| Average Test Subject Age |
24.8 |
| Total Number of Games Played |
73 |
| Total Number of Participants in All Games |
296 |
| Average Number of Participants per Game |
4.05 |
|
UBCon 2004 Rabbit Recap
by Russell
Grieshop
The Convention
UBCon is a gaming
convention held on the campus of the University of Buffalo, and the Looneys
were invited as Guests of Honor! This convention was held in various buildings
around the Student Union, and we set up our booth and tables in the Dealer's
room. But the exciting news is — UBCon hosted the first Looney Labs
Little Experiment!
| 
Volcano at a strange end-of-the-game condition, with all of the
caps in a row. Rich (left), another vendor, hung out with us practically
the whole time, and Liam (right) is a long-time Rabbit. |
|
UBCon is run by a Student Organization, and Steve
Hoffman played a big part in getting us there, helping us, and setting things
up for us. At one point in their history UBCon was a much bigger event, hosting
as many as 1,600 people, but since then it has languished. The club is doing
its best to grow again, and inviting us down hopefully helped increase interest
and will be part of them becoming a bigger convention again in the future. But
even if it was small (about 300 participants), it was a perfect chance for us
to beta-test our Little Experiment concept, and we're happy to report that it
was a tremendous success!
| UBCon - Games Played |
| Name |
# |
Percent |
| Are You A Werewolf? |
2 |
2.74% |
| Aquarius |
11 |
15.07% |
| Chrononauts |
6 |
8.22% |
| Cosmic Coasters |
12 |
16.44% |
| Fluxx |
14 |
19.18% |
| IceTowers |
4 |
5.48% |
| Nanofictionary |
4 |
5.48% |
| Thin Ice |
1 |
1.37% |
| Volcano |
8 |
10.96% |
| Zendo |
11 |
15.07% |
| Total |
73 |
100.00% |
|
Our Wonderful Rabbits and Helpers
We had a lot of help from a great team of Rabbits, including Steve Hoffman,
Dave Leonard, Liam
Bryan, Liana Olear, Julia
Hatamyar and Patrick
McAllister. We also met a lot of new proto-Rabbits, and I hope to see them
join our Mad Lab Rabbit program soon.
We had help from this team and from the UBCon staff the entire convention.
Dave helped us get our backdrop set up (and worked with Alison
to make sure that the vendors behind the back drop had beautiful tie-dye to
look at!). Steve helped us get more Little Experiment badges printed and cut.
James Jennings Wyckoff (the events coordinator) picked me up from the airport
and delivered me safely to the convention. I had received a verbal promise of
no snow while I was there, but Sunday morning it was snowing, and that complicated
matters for my return home — but I made it back safely, despite the scary
white stuff that falls from the sky.
The Little Experiment
| UBCon - Test Subject State
or Province of Residence |
| State |
# |
Percent |
| New York |
39 |
84.78% |
| Maryland |
5 |
10.87% |
| Ontario |
1 |
2.17% |
| Florida |
1 |
2.17% |
|
| 
The Little Experiment badge with all stickers affixed, and stars
for games won. Held in front is the special promo card, The Star. |
|
The Little Experiment's challenge is to play all nine games: (Fluxx, Chrononauts,
Aquarius, Nanofictionary, Cosmic Coasters, IceTowers, Volcano, and Zendo). The
first time you play a game, you get a cool little sticker for the game, and
when you get all nine stickers, you get a special promo card: The Star (counts
as The Sun or The Moon). Also, if you win a game, we had sticky stars we'd put
over the game sticker, just for fun and to let people show what games they'd
won.
The Little Experiment is a version of what we'll be doing at Origins this
year. The Big Experiment will have the same challenge to play all nine games,
but will also feature lots of other cool stuff, like seminars, tournaments,
crafts, the Big Experiment Lab, the Ice Arena (a 20x20 ft area in our booth
in the Main Exhibition halls with constant Giant Pyramids games), and a huge
gathering of Rabbits from all over.
| 
First three winners of The Star promo, from left, Steve, Mark and
Joseph (winner #1). |
|
UBCon was the first time we've run a bunch of events like this in the middle
of the Dealer's room, and in general, most of the vendors seemed to like having
us there with them. There was a lot of energy and activity in our area in the
center, and having us in the room created a big draw of attendees. It was also
lot of fun for the vendors, many of whom spent much of their time playing with
us, scooting back to their booths when customers came up. Here's a big Thank
You to those vendors who played with us, hung out with us, and generally helped
to make us feel very welcome!
Winning the Star
Many of our Little Experiment Test Subjects got very excited about getting
all of their stickers. There was a big effort by one group of people to be the
first at UBCon (and hence, the first ever!) to win The Star! When we returned
to the Little Experiment on Saturday morning, three people had stayed up late
into the evening to play enough games to win The Star. They're pictured above
in reverse order of their placement:
| 
Star winners #5 and #6 are Julia Hatamyar, right, and Patrick
McAllister. |
|
- Joseph Devincenzo (blue shirt)
- Mark Barnett (center)
- Steve Hoffman (left)
I wasn't able to keep track of everybody who won The Star, but here's a list
of people from our Little Experiment data sheets: [after the three listed above]
4. Andrew Schick, 5. Julia Hatamyar and 6. Patrick McAllister (pictured to the
right), plus 7. Tiffany Hummer (in that order, if my notes are accurate), and
also Liana Olear, Alison Frane, Russell Grieshop, Seth Ruskin, and Mike Biernat.
As with any experiment, we did our best to accumulate data about our test subjects
and the games they played. With the compiled statistics we can draw conclusions
about our Little Experiment. In one case a test subject didn't want their age
recorded, and in two cases the test subjects didn't want their gender recorded,
so those counts aren't represented. Sprinkled throughout this recap are samples
of some of the data we gathered.
The UBCon staff were all great hosts, and helped us out a lot in countless
ways.
Thanks so much for inviting us, and for playing games
with us! The Little Experiment at UBCon was a success in every way!
| 
The end of an UberChrononauts game. |
|
| UBCon - Miscellanous Facts |
| Fact |
# |
Percent |
| Number of Chrononauts Games played where everybody lost |
1 |
16.7% |
| Number of Volcano Games that ended in a tie |
1 |
12.5% |
| Total Number of AYaW games Russell Played In |
1 |
50% |
| Total Number of times Russell was the Werewolf |
0 |
0% |
| Total Number of times Russell was mauled in the first
night and was the Seer |
1 |
100% |
|
