Magfest stands for music and gaming fest.  It is held at a huge hotel in the National Harbor which is just across the bridge as you cross the bridge from Virginia into Maryland just past DC.  The music part of the feet is chiptunes, music from games and bands that play music from games.  There are usually performances by musicians who compose videogame music.  There are also screenings of videogame related movies as well as panels by players and designers.  Many people attend in cosplay costumes and there are cosplay contests.  

The main attraction for me is the main hall which has 80 or 90 arcade machines (maybe more) and 10 or 15 pinball machines which are all set to free play.  There are also dozens of console games and tvs set up for console gaming.  There is a LAN section where people bring computers to set up LAN games.  There are also table games and spaces to play games with figures like Warhammer.

The other side of the main hall has a vendor area where people sell games, comic books, t-shirts and lots of other cool things.

i already have reservations to attend for the third year in a row.  It is a fun chance to play lots of pinball and video games and spend time witb a bunch of people who love videogames and pinball.

On Saturday, Joe, Taylor and I went to Charlottesville to play in the Fall Downtown Mall Silverball Crawl.  This tournament was organized by Chris Newsome who organized the last tournament in Charlottesville.  The plan was to play in three locations – Miller’s Restaurant on the Downtown Mall, The Arena – ice skating rink on the Downtown Mall and West Main: A Virginia Restaurant.  The Arena usually has one pinball machine – Lord of the Rings.  The operator of Lord of the Rings brought No Fear, Spiderman and Big Buck Hunter to the arena to be played in the tournament.  The cool part was that he stayed and played in the tournament too.  West Main has a Junkyard machine and Miller’s has Game Show and Harley Davidson.

The day started with a side tournament at one at The Arena.  I think there were 14 or 16 people in the tournament.  The tournament was a knock out tournament played in groups of four.  After each game, the third and fourth place finishers received a strike.  Once you received two strikes, you were out of the tournament.  We got some games in on the side tournament before going to West Main for the main tournament to start at three.

The main tournament was a high score tournament.  For each machine, the tournament awarded a point for each person’s score you beat on that machine.  The first place score would receive 15 points and so on down the line.  You could play each machine twice and use the best score as your score for the tournament.

We ran into an organizational snag at West Main.  We had 16 people who needed to play two games each on one machine.  This ended up taking about two hours.  It was good to have a chance to get lunch at a good restaurant and hang around for a while, but it delayed the tournament more than was necessary.  For some guys, it was a good chance to rest up on the couch to conserve energy for the later rounds.  I know Chris discussed ways around this for next year’s tournament and I’m sure it will be a little more smooth next year.

Junkyard was my Kryptonite.  I could not get a score on it no matter what I tried.  I ended up in the last place position on Junkyard which had me sunk for tournament from the outset.

A few of us went back to the arena from West Main to start playing the machines there to continue the tournament.  The rest of the tournament went well and without much problem.  I think everyone was surprised at how long it took everyone to get in two qualifying games with only 16 people in the tournament.

We ended up scratching Miller’s from the tournament because it was going pretty late and the machines there are on the third floor which is a smoking floor.  No one protested the decision to scrap the third location as everyone was getting a little weary.

Eventually all the qualifying games were in and the top four and five through eight played in the finals.   Joe and Taylor were both in the 5 through eight group after Joe won the two way ninth place playoff.  Joe ended up sixth in the five through eight group with Taylor in seventh on No Fear.  If I remember right, Joe won by a few thousand points.  Joe and I really started to like No Fear with Taylor still on the fence about it.

Following the main tournament, we finished the side tournament.  I had played the first two rounds of the side tournament before heading to West Main and ended with no strikes.

I got a strike playing in a hard group against Bayless Rutheford, Chris Newsome and Joe Said on Spiderman.

I had to play Spiderman again and put up a miracle 72 million on my first ball.  Taylor gave me some game play advice on modes and multiball progression and starting which really helped.  I ended up ducking the strike in that game which left the side tournament to me and Joe Said.

Joe is a very good player with lots of experience in tournament pinball.  Joe had no strikes which meant that I would have to beat him twice to win the tournament.  I got lucky and beat Joe in our first game on Lord of the Rings.  Our second game ended up being No Fear.  My lucky run came to an end at this point.  Joe played well enough that he was able to plunge his third ball for the tournament win.

I saw some of the same guys from the previous Charlottesville tournament and met lots of nice people.  Just like in the previous tournament, there was a good sense of mutual enjoyment at having a chance to spend a day playing pinball with a bunch of people who also really like pinball.  The Arena is a good place for the tournament because there is plenty of space and beer and tvs.

We got home much later than expected, but had a very good time.  Thanks to Chris Newsome and Joe Said for organizing and hosting the tournament.  I am looking forward to playing next year.  I’m also looking forward to seeing most of you again at Taylor’s house for The Pin(t)s for Kids Tournament.

We learned on the way up that Joe Cummins is now a pinball owner.  Joe now has a Raven in the basement which is soon to be joined by many more..

With the Charlottesville Pin Crawl coming up, I was thinking about location pinball in Richmond.  I thnk the only place we have with more than one machine is Putt Putt on Midlothian.  The last time I was there, they had a Rolling Stones and a Stern Indiana Jones.  There is a Lord of the Rings at the Ashland Skating Rink and South Park at the Lakeside Laundromat.  Both chuck e cheese locations have pins, but they are so poorly maintained that they don’t really count.  The Elvis at the River City diner is about as bad as the machines at chuck e. Cheese.  I’m sure I have forgotten or don’t know about a few.  If you know of one near Richmond, please post. 

Thinking about getting together at Putt putt to play a little.  Let me know if you are interested.