Theme Rounds for a Casual Match Play Event

A few friends and I did a casual tournament on MatchPlay while at Pinburgh this year. We did it so that Player 1 got to pick the game. At first, I said each round had to be a specific type of machine (EM, SS, DMD), but after a few rounds someone suggested that it should be a theme.

We did a few rounds, like “Animals”, “Sports”, “Space”, etc.

In a casual event, and at show which has a large variety of machines, we found this to be a lot of fun.

Some others I’ve thought of after a quick brainstorm:
Robots
Gambling
Based on a Movie
Superheroes

With that many machines at your disposal, what other “themes” could be fun?

4 Likes

With the games there, you could do animal subsets, e.g. mammals, reptiles, predators, etc.

Could do “get wet” with sea and beach theme, e.g. Fathom, Surf n Safari, etc.

Geography, too, is possible.

2 Likes

Some ideas: https://papa.org/wp-content/uploads/Pinburgh2013/live/machines.html

1 Like

In the league I run over the past years I’ve tried to theme the game choices as well, but some of them are a stretch. They have included:

Halloween
Addams, Scared Stiff, Ghostbusters, Creature from the Black Lagoon, Twilight Zone

Heroes
Iron Man, Avengers, X-Men, Wizard of Oz :joy:,Batman: The Dark Knight

Futuristic
Star Trek, Guardians of the Galaxy, Star Wars, Total Nuclear Annihilation, Attack from Mars

Sport
World Cup Soccer, No Good Gophers, Fish Tales, Getaway, Tron

Bands
Kiss, AcDc, Aerosmith, Party Zone, Monster Bash

1 Like

There are probably many more for each of the following categories. I’m operating from fatigue and not a super robust knowledge of games

Mundane municipal life
Road Show, Night Rider, Diner, Taxi, Crosstown, etc.

Cartoons
Bugs Bunny Birthday Bash, The Flintstones, The Simpsons (Both), Rocky and Bullwinkle, The Jetsons (if you can find it), TMNT, etc.

Carnies
Funhouse, Comet, Hurricane, RollerCoaster Tycoon, etc.

Video Games
Super Mario Bros, Pac Man, Space Invaders, Spy Hunter, Q-Bert’s Quest, Etc.

Spies
Mata Hari, Goldeneye, Spy Hunter (those last two fit in other groups, too, but I bet there are more examples which I am not remembering).

This is a fun idea! There are a lot more possible groups and more in these categories.

Add Street Fighter to the mix and you have the I-would-like-to-throw-a-tournament-but-i-would-like-to-make-sure-the-players-enjoy-the-games-they-are-playing-as-little-as-possibe lineup.

I like it. Oh, the pain, the pain. How can we make this happen?

2 Likes

Ha! Except for the Q-Bert pin. Love that game.