Experimental corner · 11:00 AM to 5:00 PM

Brett's Lab

New, creative, and sometimes weird ways to play and compete. One corner of the ballroom is set aside for formats that have not been tested, rules nobody asked for, and games played on the wrong hardware on purpose.

No bracket, no seeding, no entry. Something runs every half hour and anyone standing there can join it.

Standing rule

If it fails, it was still worth running

Half of what is on this page has never been played in front of a room. That is the point of the corner.

Experiments on the board

The whiteboard at the corner lists what is running next. These are the formats planned so far. Some will be cut on the day, and something not on this list will replace them.

Two players, one controller

Split hands

One person holds the left half of the pad, one holds the right. You cannot see what your partner intends to do, and you cannot stop them. Cooperation is the whole difficulty.

Runs every 30 min · 2 players per run

Wrong hardware, on purpose

Instrument swap

A racing game on a guitar controller. A platformer on a dance pad. The department has the adapters, so the only question left is whether anybody can finish a level.

Open queue · one attempt each

Sixty seconds each

The gauntlet

Six games nobody at the table has seen, one minute on each, no explanation before the timer starts. The score is how much you worked out while playing. Spectators get the screen and the reactions.

Runs at 12:30, 2:00, and 4:00

Handicap match

Sight unseen

One player faces the screen, one faces away and plays on called instructions only. Then you swap. It is the best argument in the room for how much of a game is communication.

Runs on request · 2 players

Tabletop, rewritten

House rules roulette

A familiar board game, and one rule pulled at random from a jar before the first turn. Some of the rules break the game. The table plays it out anyway and the good ones get written on the board.

Rolling table · 3 to 5 players

Empty slot

Whatever you pitch

Two slots on the board are held open for ideas that arrive between now and April, including ones that arrive on the day. [CONFIRM: final experiment list and run times.]

Pitch an experiment

How to join in

Walk over and put your name on the whiteboard. Whatever is running next takes the next names on the list, and a run takes five to ten minutes. If you would rather watch first, there is standing room behind the screens and most people do that for a while before signing up.

Nothing here needs skill at the game. Several of these formats actively punish knowing what you are doing, which is why the corner tends to be won by somebody's parent.

Pitch an experiment

If you have a format, a rule set, a handicap, or a bad idea you want to see played in front of a room, send it. Say what the game is, what the twist is, how many people it needs, and how long one run takes. The lab runs it if it can be explained in thirty seconds.

Ideas go to lab@uceaglecon.com or to the whiteboard on the day. [CONFIRM: address.]

Send an idea See the real brackets

House rules of the lab

Anyone can play, including people who have never held a controller.
A format that stops being fun gets cut mid run. No arguing about it.
The crowd decides ties. There is no appeal.
No prizes. Winning here gets you your name on the whiteboard until it is wiped.
Everything is all ages. If a game is not, it is not in the corner.

PHOTO NEEDED
Two people sharing one controller, crowd laughing behind

Needs confirming

Who Brett is, in one line, for people who do not know. The corner is named after somebody and the page should say so. [CONFIRM: name, role, and whether they are running the corner on the day.]

Every title played in the lab is a legitimately obtained copy provided by the department, per University of Charleston compliance requirements. Modified rules are ours. Modified games are not.