This Homecoming weekend featured many events, but Game Night may have been the most jam packed of them all. Students of all classes, along with alumni and families, came to the HUB on Saturday night from 9:30 to 11:45 for games of all kinds.
There was a Pokémon trainer RPG (or “role playing game”) going on in the Student Senate room, a video game truck parked outside the building, decked out in color-changing lights, laser tag and escape rooms in the Courtroom, and tables piled high with many different board games lined up in the passageway, from Cards Against Humanity to LIFE.
Laser tag in the Courtroom was one of the main attractions, with several groups waiting at the entrance to be admitted even before it opened. The escape rooms were also popular, providing challenge-seekers with varied opportunities to break out, including a Game of Thrones-themed room.
The most popular card game seemed to be one called Utter Nonsense, a game similar to Cards Against Humanity except that the cards must be read in whichever accent card is chosen by the judge. There were varying hilarious impressions, from Russian “wine mom” to Southern gentleman. The most popular video game, as the Gaming Club had anticipated, was Fortnite (of course) – there were many excited mentions of the popular game as players headed toward the den-like video game truck.
I sat down with Gaming Club president Amelia Berube, along with a few other members of the organization, who taught me how to play Chutes and Chutes, an interesting take on Chutes and Ladders where the ladders also serve as chutes – several members told me that it’s almost impossible to win and were very correct.
What’s up next for the Gaming Club? Starting on October 8th, the club will be running a week-long, campus-wide game of Humans vs. Zombies. This is a “zombie tag” game in which players will have Nerf blasters (“One of the rules is that you can’t play in class,” Berube says, “but outside it’s a lot of fun”). They will have missions 3 nights of the week.
In addition to this, the organization is holding their Game-On-icon in April. Berube hinted at a “possible horror theme” and said that there will be games (including the board games and video games seen at the Homecoming event, and with the addition of live action role-playing games) and a big-screen video game setup, and members even mentioned people bringing their own games from home. There will also be vendors and a raffle. The date is yet to be decided, but anyone interested can attend the Gaming Club meetings on Thursday and Saturday nights from 7 pm – 12 pm in the HUB.