Our game room is even bigger and better this year. Console games, board games, tabletop games will be present in large amounts for everyone to enjoy. In addition, there will be game demos, tournaments and other activities. If you are looking to just unwind and relax, this is the place to do it as well! If youwould like to run your own game demo, feel free to sign up in the space!

Game Workshops

There are some awesome board games out there. You might have seen your friends playing them, but never took the time to learn them. Notacon game workshops highlight some of the best, with explanation of the rules and friendly games afterward to help people get the hang of it.

Yomi - 2 Player Fighting Card Game

At the highest competitive levels, fighting video games like Street Fighter become less about reflex and more about psychology. Second guessing your opponent, knowing their moves before they do, is the key to victory.

David Sirlin has captured this essence in the card game Yomi (Japanese for "reading"). The Paper/Scissors/Rock system of Attack/Block/Throw forces you to constantly out-maneuver your opponent. Let's say you know your opponent's deck is loaded with powerful attacks; do you block? Or is he expecting that and going to throw, meaning you should attack?

Mix in combos, breakers, special moves, unique abilities of 10 different character decks, and years of tweaking and balancing, and you have an exquisite game.

Arimaa - 2 Player Strategy Game

Artificial Intelligence researcher Omar Syed saw Deep Blue defeat Kasparov, and was inspired to create Arimaa. It's a game designed to be hard for computers but easy for humans. His $10,000 prize for a computer that can beat the current human champion lays unclaimed (not for not trying).

Arimaa is played with a standard chess set, but the rules are much simpler. It's very easy to pick up and play, yet can't be solidified into "opening books" and endgame databases like Chess. Come find out what's special about this game that makes it great for humans, and a challenge for A.I.

Puerto Rico - 3 to 5 players, 1.5 to 2 hours

Puerto Rico lands you in a colonial Caribbean setting, where you compete to construct the grandest buildings and ship the most goods back home to Europe. Players take turns choosing what phase of the game will occur next. Scarcity of goods and buildings can be a help or a hindrance, depending on how well you plan for it. There is very little luck involved; almost everything in the game is determined by the players' choices.

Stone Age - 2-4 players, 1.5-2 hours.

In Stone Age, you develop your primitive civilization, procuring resources and using them to build huts. This is a worker-placement game: each round, players take turns placing all their workers on the actions they want, then they resolve those actions. Actions can be used to gain resources, spend resources on points, or increase your future productivity. Die-rolling introduces a fair amount of luck, but strategy still dominates.

Rock Band 1, Rock Band 2, and 128 downloaded tracks aren't going to play themselves. The Rock Band competition is back again this year! Same rules, bands play 1 song from the list announced at Notacon, awards are given out for the following categories:

Highest Score

Simple enough, just get the highest combined score. Harder difficulties have more notes available, long streaks and combined Overdrives push scores into the stratosphere. **

Rockingest Band

Rockingest Band is in the true spirit of Rock Band - having fun and rocking out! Windmills, freestyle vocals, and drumstick twirling are encouraged. The band that impresses the panel of Notacon judges the most will win this award, and crowd reaction will be considered. Show us your inner rock star!

** The band that wins Highest score will NOT be eligible for Rockingest Band, so come compete and have fun, even if you know you're not the best.

In addition, we'll be giving a small prize to the band with the name that amuses us the most, subject to the whims of the Notacon judges. All bands are eligible, including winners of the previous two prizes.

Signup sheets will be available in the game room, and players MUST sign up by Saturday at 2pm. You can signup as a full 4-person band, or as a subset/single person, and we'll do our best to do matchups, with no guarantees (it's best to talk to your fellow Notaconers before-hand and get a group together).

Boss Battle

The 4-headed superbeast known as Team Notacon returns to feast upon the souls of the contestants. The top scoring team will go out of the frying pan, inside the fire as Team Notacon challenges them to one more song. Additional prizes will go to the team if they manage to best the beast! Team Notacon will announce the song at the competition, although hints may be given beforehand.

What's better than giving a talk that you've carefully formulated and rehearsed? Giving one you have no idea about until you hit the stage! Twenty people (including you, if you're brave enough...) will have the chance to take the stage and improvise a five-minute lightning talk based on a short deck of never-before-seen slides. It's guaranteed to be a night of gaffes, laughs, and fun for speakers and spectators alike!

The Notacon Radio project is back for another year. We hit the airwaves on Friday and we don't stop until the ball drops on Closing Ceremonies.

This is a great chance to have some fun while you mingle and BS with your fellow Notaconners. We are looking for people who are interested in doing a live (or even pre-recorded) show. It can be art or tech themed, or just consist of random thoughts about life and the universe in general--it's entirely up to you! The only caveat is: NO MUSIC. Our goal is 48+ hours of solid Notacon-interest radio.

Questions? Ideas? A burning desire to ramble for an hour about the elegance of the CPU scheduling algorithm for the MULTICS operating system? Please email the the Notacon radio station manager at krnlpanik@notacon.org and he will be happy to help.

Also, check out the website: http://www.notaconradio.org/

Members from many national and international hacker spaces combine their powers and talents to create a temporary hacker space within Notacon. From reverse engineering, to hardware hacking to demo design stop by and learn what hacker spaces are really all about and how you can get involved.

Programming and events will be scheduled and posted throughout Notacon. So come on by to learn and create or simply to chill out.

Lock picking is a safe and fun sport that can be shared by anyone. The Cleveland Locksport Group will be hosting a lock picking room where people can learn how to use lock picks. Several locks will be available to test your skills or learn new techniques. Contests will also occur during the weekend.

This event is for demonstration and educational purposes only. FTS Conventures and Notacon do not condone breaking state or federal law.

A lot of people who attend Notacon are amateur radio enthusiasts. As such, we are proud to present our special event station, N8C. If you are interested in amateur radio, stop on up. Everyone is welcome to participate, even those who are not (yet!) licensed.

If you have gear with you, feel free to chat on 446.1 MHz, PL 100!

Find out more about this fun, exciting and useful hobby and, who knows, maybe talk to some new people on the air while you're at it.

Amateur Radio License Exam Session - Thursday Night

Notacon will feature a amateur radio license exam. The exact room is yet to be determined. Walk-ins are welcome. Please register for your FRN the FCC website before coming to the VE exam session, so that you do not have to provide your social security number when registering.

More information is available from arrl.org

Notacon truly believes in the “community” component of our event. Without our participants, presenters and staff, none of this would be possible. This is your chance to give us feedback on what went great and not-so-great with the event. We want your questions and suggestions!

Ideas might include:

• What presentations did you like the most? The least?
• What events should we focus on?
• What did you think of PixelJam?
• How did the badge work out?
• Was the Hackerspace a fun place to learn?

To wrap things up we will give a breakdown of what it cost to run Notacon as well as what we think we recouped to cover those costs. We will also have written feedback forms we encourage everyone to fill out and leave behind so that we can read them to plan for 2012!

Occurring directly after our rant session, we announce our PixelJam winners, as well as the winners of other competitions and contests we might run during the event. Froggy, delirious after a week of literally no sleep making sure Notacon and PixelJam run without a hitch, on top of making sure his new daughter stays happy, might even come up with a few spur-of-the-moment contests or questions.

This is our collective last moment to bask in all that is Notacon before cleaning up and preparing for next year!