I alluded to it already on the bava, but I’ve been all smile since Saturday’s Tetris Tournament at bava.studio this past weekend. It was an absolute blast, and folks turned up to play some Tetris, the world champion Giogi was awesome, and Riky made it all happen. I just want to give a special thanks to everyone from coming and having fun.
Paolo and Giogi talking Tetris strategy
I already posted about doing my part to promote the event by creating a Tetris console in the window. It was really generative, and I think that whole ongoing console/tech feature in the diorama over time has legs beyond this event. But event is where it was at, and Riky had the idea to bring Giovanni (“Giogi”) into the space and make it an event. It was a good idea, and people showed up and had fun.
Riky and Zeno working for the prize
We did no social media—I’m still a hippie hold-out—but there were stickers for the front door, posters above the door, and an e-mailer sent through bava.studio site (built on Ghost and sends event info to subscribers).
The Tetris door sticker (all Riky!) and the poster hyping Giogi above the door.
But to my surprise folks showed up over the course of the afternoon and evening and played games and had fun. The Tetris tournament was key. It really anchored the event with a shared object of desire, and the play was both fun and competitive—although I sucked. We also got to see Giogi casually break 1 million a few times throughout the afternoon and evening.
Watching someone that good at something is inspiring, and he really brought that energy. He was just fun to be around. Filled with passion and more than willing to share everything he knows about Tetris so you can get as excited as he is. An absolute gem of a human being, and everyone there fed on that energy and it was just a delightful afternoon and evening—so Giogi really brought his A game, and we were all the better and happier for it. I AM A BIG FAN! See image below for visual evidence:
The cornerstone of the evening was the tournament, and that was its own thing entirely. Folks came out and were quite good. I was particularly happy that a fellow GenX’er Cristina showed up and took home the gold.
The GenX grand champion! Yeah!
It is pretty cool because Cristina is Riky’s mom, so there was a definite “proud son” moment going on in the audience. Playing Cristina tough was Claudio, who I believe was the first one on the scene and he closed it done well.
Giogi and Claudio celebrated second place
Coming in at #3 was Andrea, who was also at the Haunted Arcade event on Halloween, so we are starting to get some critical mass. Congrats to all three of you for making it so fun, and being so cool all the while.
Andrea brings home the third place award
The other part that was cool is when you were waiting for your turn, you could wander over to the video games and get a few reps in.
They are so beautiful!
And we had the line-up pretty strong, but Dig Dug and Make Trax were down with monitor issues. I fixed both already given minor issues, but it viscerally hurts when I have to take any one of my babies out of the line-up.
The success of this event has me really excited to figure out what’s next. We are working on a They Live diorama next, so the idea might need to be to tie something fun to that for an opening. What kind of Carpenter-themed game might we be able to make out of it? Maybe try and figure out who is a “Thing”? Take everyone’s blood and start heating up some wire and preparing the flamethrower. It was really a lot of fun, and thanks again to Riky for both conceiving and executing so well. And to Giogi for being so open and willing to share your passion, you exemplify everything I want bava.studio to be.
