FurtheMore 2019
How exactly does one write the name of this furry con? Their website has "FurtheMore", "Fur the More", and "Fur The More". Their social media adds "Fur the 'More", with the apostrophe, which I think was the original way to spell it. Anyway, that's where I was for this past weekend, from March 14 to 18.
No trip to DC would be complete without a little side trip to a place of interest. Since I was getting some Flagstack dice flags (actually a lot of them!) in Fort Hunt, I went a bit farther down the road to take a look at Mount Vernon, George Washington's home. My overall impression is it's a nicely preserved piece of history but the mall-style food court in front of the property looked really out of place.
Like last year's FurtheMore, I didn't fursuit much this year. I participated in the fursuit parade and the fursuit games, and wandered around in fursuit a bit on Saturday but that was about it. There weren't too many other fursuit-oriented activities if you aren't into dance competitions. The fursuit games this year were set up as a set of carnival games that you can play in any order you want. (Last year's FA United had a similar setup but with an olympics theme instead.) I thought some of those games were difficult to play in fursuit but still, with some luck and a whole lot of flailing, I got four prizes out of the five games.
I seem to be getting more and more into gaming activities nowadays. On Friday, I joined an escape room session. This is where my team had to figure out codes to unlock boxes and a safe. We got stuck on some puzzles and needed a couple of hints but with a two-minute extension, we completed the mission. Then in the evening, I played some Jackbox games in the video gaming room. These were all party games where you watch the monitor and answer questions on your smartphone. Somehow I did the best at the Patently Stupid game. This is a mock startup / venture capital game in which each player is given a problem and has to draw an invention to solve the problem. Then everyone decides which inventions to fund. On Saturday, I went to the loot brawl, a gift swap game. Then later, I went to the tabletop gaming room to play Telestrations. This game is a combination of Telephone and Pictionary, in which we take turns drawing something and guessing what was drawn, with hilarious results. On Sunday, I visited the tabletop gaming room again to play Spyfall 2. This game is similar to Werewolf, except we have to figure out which one person is the spy by asking questions about a meetup location while the spy has to figure out which location is the meetup location. All in all, there was a good variety of games at the con and I enjoyed those a lot.
Next year, FurtheMore will move from the Sheraton Tysons to the Hyatt Regency in Crystal City, near the Reagan Washington National Airport and closer to downtown Washington DC. I thought it would be an interesting change until I found out that hotel parking is valet-only and costs $40/day! I heard FurtheMore will try to negotiate a parking discount, so I'll have to see what the parking rate they settle on. At the same time, this may be a nudge to try a different local con next year.
No trip to DC would be complete without a little side trip to a place of interest. Since I was getting some Flagstack dice flags (actually a lot of them!) in Fort Hunt, I went a bit farther down the road to take a look at Mount Vernon, George Washington's home. My overall impression is it's a nicely preserved piece of history but the mall-style food court in front of the property looked really out of place.
Like last year's FurtheMore, I didn't fursuit much this year. I participated in the fursuit parade and the fursuit games, and wandered around in fursuit a bit on Saturday but that was about it. There weren't too many other fursuit-oriented activities if you aren't into dance competitions. The fursuit games this year were set up as a set of carnival games that you can play in any order you want. (Last year's FA United had a similar setup but with an olympics theme instead.) I thought some of those games were difficult to play in fursuit but still, with some luck and a whole lot of flailing, I got four prizes out of the five games.
I seem to be getting more and more into gaming activities nowadays. On Friday, I joined an escape room session. This is where my team had to figure out codes to unlock boxes and a safe. We got stuck on some puzzles and needed a couple of hints but with a two-minute extension, we completed the mission. Then in the evening, I played some Jackbox games in the video gaming room. These were all party games where you watch the monitor and answer questions on your smartphone. Somehow I did the best at the Patently Stupid game. This is a mock startup / venture capital game in which each player is given a problem and has to draw an invention to solve the problem. Then everyone decides which inventions to fund. On Saturday, I went to the loot brawl, a gift swap game. Then later, I went to the tabletop gaming room to play Telestrations. This game is a combination of Telephone and Pictionary, in which we take turns drawing something and guessing what was drawn, with hilarious results. On Sunday, I visited the tabletop gaming room again to play Spyfall 2. This game is similar to Werewolf, except we have to figure out which one person is the spy by asking questions about a meetup location while the spy has to figure out which location is the meetup location. All in all, there was a good variety of games at the con and I enjoyed those a lot.
Next year, FurtheMore will move from the Sheraton Tysons to the Hyatt Regency in Crystal City, near the Reagan Washington National Airport and closer to downtown Washington DC. I thought it would be an interesting change until I found out that hotel parking is valet-only and costs $40/day! I heard FurtheMore will try to negotiate a parking discount, so I'll have to see what the parking rate they settle on. At the same time, this may be a nudge to try a different local con next year.