Autumn Maracon 2025 - Unhinged card games, here we come!

 Hello people~!

It's about time I wrote this con summary; Maracon, which this is all about, was held at Oulu on 3rd-5th of October, also known as half an eternity ago ^^' 
Shortly about Maracon: unlike the cons I usually attend, this one's focus is on board games, card games and tabletop games. The people behind Maracon belong to CRYO ry and they host four Maracons in total during the year - mad respects for that! There are two bigger events and two smaller, and the autumn event we went to is one of the bigger ones. 
And now to the actual summary!

We - meaning me, Shiro Samurai and Joni - had decided to go to the event on 4th of October, also known as Saturday. Because my car was acting up at the time we decided that Joni would be our driver; he'd spend the night before at Shiro Samurai's place and they'd pick me up in the morning. Sounds like a plan, right?
...except that in the Saturday morning, when I texted Shiro Samurai that I was basically ready to go, he told me that there was unforeseen emergency and they'd have to take care of that first. For a while it was a bit unclear if we'd leave for Oulu after all but after an hour or so I got a text message that they were on their way to pick me up. Soon they got to my place, I made sure Joni could drive and after that we begun our drive towards Oulu.

None of us had eaten any breakfast so we decided to stop at Haukipudas and grab something to eat.

Kebababababababa.

I sure wasn't hungry after that, in fact I couldn't even eat it all lol :'D Läskin ammattiylpeys kärsii.
Oh, at this point I'd like to mention this: this post contains quite a lot of pictures. Some of them were taken by your truly, some by Shiro Samurai - I won't specify which one was taken by who but now you know that there are two photographers to give credit to.

While we were eating Joni suddenly got a phone call. We got a bit scared - considering there had just been an emergency - but it turned out to be a false alarm: Joni's friend, Pete, called and informed he'd like to join us. So yeah, after we were done eating we continued our drive towards Oulu, more specifically Raksila, where we picked up Pete and drove to the event venue, also known as a youth center of Kaijonharju.
I must admit that we had a bit of trouble with finding the right door; at first we went to the library, half by accident, half by the will to check out if there was anyone to help us. I soon realized that the self-service hours were going on, shared this information with my company and got quickly out of the building. We found the right door very soon... Because it was literally just around the corner lol.

The entrance.

As someone who is almost solely powered by caffeine I was a bit disappointed when I saw this sign, no energy drinks for the tired :c

As soon as we got in we realized that we would need to take our shoes off. This is pretty normal with many youth centers these days, easier to keep the building clean and all that. So yeah, we obeyed the sign saying that... And were met by this sight :'D

Muutama kenkä usko jo!

As you can probably guess from the amount of shoes there were quite a few people - and nobody in cosplay. This made me and Shiro Samurai sigh in relief: we had been going back and forth with trying to decide if we'd cosplay at the event or not and eventually decided to not to. Would have felt a bit overdressed for the occasion had we actually cosplayed lol. Then again, the CRYO guys we talked to at Matsucon told us there had been people cosplaying in the events before so yeah, maybe a more casual cosplay would be a good choice for this event!
The first thing we noticed was this bigger room right next to the hall where people were sitting in a circle. It soon became clear that there was a d'n'd session (or at least something of that sort) going on. Not gonna lie, I was thinking about joining the next session but it soon became very clear that we wouldn't have time for that. After all we were supposed to leave Oulu that evening meanwhile Maracon is one of those events that go on through the night.

So yeah, we started checking out our surroundings instead - after all nobody had been to this event before so we all must have looked like walking question marks lol.

Maracon info wall, including the rules. I'm sorry for the quality, I'm not sure what happened when I edited the size of this pic but nothing in my favor at the very least :S

There was a guest book! The only other convention I've seen doing this is Mericon but it's always a nice bonus.

As I mentioned in the beginning, Maracon is an event that focuses on board games, tabletop games etc. And there sure were many games to choose from! I'm not that much of a board game fan myself but even I found myself being bit by the hype fly :'D
At this point I must mention that these games are basically everything Maracon offers. There are no other programs at all; no panels, no cosplay stuff, nothing of that sort - and I found myself enjoying it more than I could have imagined. It was just a small event where you were just supposed to chill out with your company, make new friends and play board games with them.

Did I mention there were a few board games? :D

These signs were so handy!

There was also a flea market/merch table. And yeah, in the former there were mostly board games for sale.

We didn't have to wait for long before someone approached our group and asked if we'd like to play The Crew: Mission Deep Sea with him. I had no intention of playing but I followed everybody anyways; I'm more of the sort to watch the other people play when it comes to board games, if that makes any sense? We occupied one of the small rooms down the corridor and the others quickly engaged in playing the game... Meanwhile I was reading a novel called Blanka - Itämeren tytär (lit. 'Blanka - The Daughter of the Baltic Sea') by Ulla Rask. And yes, this totally is a reading recommendation, already waiting for the next book of the series!
And yes, I basically never go anywhere without a book with me lol. If I don't engage in an activity but everybody else does, I'll at least have something to do meanwhile - and reading is a dear hobby of mine anyway.

The corridor leading to the smaller rooms.

People playing The Crew: Mission Deep Sea. To this day I still have no idea what the rules actually were, all I realized was that they were quite complicated (or at least went over my head).

They played this once and I think after that the guy who originally asked us to play with him had to leave to run some errands or something like that? At least that's what I remember so yeah, it was time to go back to the hall to see if there was anybody else who would have wanted to play something. And, of course, to take more pictures since I happened to spot a couple of very... Interesting games :'D

This is, hands down, one of my favorite games ever :'D And yes, I do have a pretty dark sense of humor lol.

We found this legend xD Didn't end up playing it tho.

Oh, here's a better pic of the hall - there wasn't much going on upstairs but you could see basically half of the venue from there.

I think it was at this point that we got asked to join a figurine painting... Not sure if a competition is a right word here but yeah, anyway. Shiro Samurai and Pete decided to join, meanwhile Joni asked if I'd like to play a round of Yatzy with him. I agreed, we grabbed the game and started our search for a free table. Eventually we found one and could start playing - and the beginner's luck was on my side immediately xD You see, I had never played Yatzy before but managed to do the hardest trick in the game with my first couple of rolls - I probably should have taken a pic of the face Joni made when we realized that since it's half impossible for the others to win after that :'D Well, we still played the round - at some point Pete came to watch what we were doing - and I did end up winning. Not that I really cared about that, it was a fun game to play! :'D

And if you're not familiar what kind of a game Yatzy is, here is a pic of it c:

After the game of Yatzy we walked back to the main hall. Shiro Samurai was still painting the figurine and Joni and Pete went to check what games were available at the time. I occupied a seat on the couch and was about to start reading again when I spotted a familiar face - namely Ina who I've met a few times in northern cons! We were both surprised to see each other there and chatted for a while before I saw Shiro Samurai approaching us. Apparently he was ready with the figurine - just in time because Pete and Joni had found a game for us to play, said game being Trial by Trolley from the makers of Cyanide and Happiness :'D Ina decided to join us and our now group of five went to search for a table so we could play - and in the gymnastics hall was one unoccupied table, yay!

Yeah, most of the tables were occupied by the point we got to the gymnastics hall.

Decisions, decisions...

Yeah, it was pretty unhinged :'D

Soon a couple of Ina's friends joined us and we played a couple of rounds of the game above before switching to Cards Against Humanity with an extension pack called Crabs Adjust Humidity. One of the Maracon guys also came to play with us - and it was indeed pretty fun! :'D  And highly inappropriate xD

We played this game for almost an hour before it was time for us to go; both me and Shiro Samurai were getting quite tired and Joni and Pete were - or at least seemed to be - a bit laggy so yeah, after saying goodbye to our companions we drove to buy some energy drinks and then begun to drive back to Kemi. 

So what did I think about Maracon?

It was amazing. Loved every second of it; so chill and comfortable! I'll definitely attend it in the future too when my schedule aligns with it c: 

I have a couple of event summaries hanging so yeah, it was about time this one was written since I've already attended an event this year, oops. I've just had a lot on my plate and really haven't had the energy to write - after a day at work I usually just come home and start watching Netflix or playing on my PS5, that's how much energy I have lol. But now, since I'm on a sick leave this week (tooth removal was a bit more challenging than originally thought) I might actually get something done here.

Oh, a bonus pic! 

Beware of the leaning tower of pizza! Well, there wasn't one at that very moment but I could assume there were quite a few pizza box towers during the weekend :'D

My next blog post: Terucon (former Northern Lights Anime Party) summary!

Until next time.

-Firith