Technically the place’s anniversary is around Thanksgiving but the owners delayed it to the first weekend of December, worked for us!
Last year there was a tournament featuring Pinballz’s new Transformers game, based upon those dreadful films. This year the focus was on videogames: Galaga and Street Fighter II. All the proceeds were donated to the Austin Humane Society, where Molly came from.
I totally suck at fighting games. I lack the patience to learn button combinations to make the characters do the cool moves which are vital, nobody wins sticking with basic kicks, blocks and punches, you gotta’ make lightning happen! So I threw my hat in the ring for Galaga. I had no expectation beyond not coming in last. Plus my five clams would help another Molly.
How did the Galaga challenge work? Each player had no more than ten minutes to rack up as many points as possible. If you ran out of ships first, you were done. Lastly, it was on the stand-up cabinet that followed used the traditional settings: no more than three shots on the field at a time…spraying the bugs with missiles wasn’t possible.
I survived six minutes and scored over 50,000 points. If you know much about this videogame, these results aren’t very impressive. Some poor soul came in under 10,000 granting me my wish not to be in last. The four participants ahead of me guaranteed I started in fifth as I descended. I wasn’t disappointed, I did this for fun. Somara not playing was the larger bummer. She is the Maggi Republic’s reigning champ. Even on an off day my wife can get up to three challenge stages. Maybe next year.
I’m looking forward to playing in a league next month because I dropped out last Fall. Will I take first place? No idea. Don’t care. It’s all about having a good time and sharing this hobby with other enthusiasts. I would like to see if the owners will let me run a Novice-level league in the near future. I’m full of trivia about the game!