I made the complicated, unrealistic fantasy Oak Games tournament. Since then I became a bit embarassed by it (including prize). I looked at it just now. It's neat! Gets the imagination going. Note that people will tend to play the games they had selected.

Imagine the first morning, playing fun group games (various social deduction, Better Letter, certainly Stand By Me, cards, certainly physical games, liar's dice, Safari Race) and wondering which players will be on your team. After the first morning you get your big team together and meet mostly strangers, and sort out leadership structure and plans for meetings. Also the mystery games are revealed. What kind of weirdness is that? You'll come away with a story. Think of the games you could play on the normal days, mostly abstracts. Or the intensity of the hero games, say one game each of Go and ping pong. I like having a heavy abstract plus a sporty spectacle. Playing the set of GIPF games at once. Or participating in an individual contest (ironically with multiple people) for a game, say fanorona, Atlantis Chess or Hive, if that is what you want to do. The individual contests go from 8, then 4, then 2 players, to one champion.
 
 

Poker. What would we do about poker? Thinking number of players, duration, points. Some people like it. Poker is out.
 
 

Mystery games are mysteries, until the end of the first morning. Except for a minority of these games, which are truly a mystery right up until you start playing them. For one reason or another.

What if you were taken to your mystery game and it turned out to be axe throwing? Unlikely but interesting.
 
 
 
 

Meanwhile, here on planet Earth, you could have two teams of six players each playing mostly abstracts over one day. Players play an average of at least six games. Because it's fun to ponder, which games would they play? Through the Desert, Dvonn, Runners, The Royal Game of Ur, fanorona, crokinole, Space, Better Letter, dominoes, backgammon, Chase the Base, some mancala, Forma O Colore could be a mystery game, Atlantis Chess, Hive .. Not too many; this isn't the big version. Some games are more prominent than others.

You won't have the evenly skilled teams you would get from randomly selecting players for huge teams. Some bigger games are out because of player count and collusion. Other bells and whistles from the bigger tournament would not be done, although mystery games are possible (and even desirable, fewer games to learn beforehand).

You know, instead of having everything planned out in advance, just the game schedule is mapped out, not the players. Players can be tossed into playing a game if the player is available and wants to play/is good at the game.

Get a dozen people, kind of friends, and attempt to divide them into two equally-skilled teams. Do so in advance, so they can get coverage in terms of players learning the games.
 
 
 
 

The Thesaurus Canada book project is ambitious, and really not likely to succeed. Starting off with a limited local project to get things up and running was suggested. I analyzed this, listed the pros and cons, then decided against it, for convoluted reasons.

But I have at least the concept for a new treasure hunt. Cute as a button if it works. It's flavour y, not flavour x, so that avoids the problem of associating flavour x with Manitoba. This would get a website going, which would have to happen anyway. As for money, well, you only live once. Then you collapse in a heap and die. This would be a respectable, worthwhile money prize, not a couple of trinkets.

Constructing a treasure hunt for a future Thesaurus Canada is a lot of fun. There is a hypothetical supportive group to eventually work with.

The local project is different. It's intimidating. That's because