Chris Banyas
Life Editor
Ever wanted to build an intergalactic empire from nothing, micromanaging every aspect of the economy and industrial war machine before unleashing your forces upon your peace loving neighbors?
Perhaps desperately trying to survive a variety of vicious monsters and plots while trapped inside a uniquely haunted house is more your speed?
Whatever fantasy you dream of living out, there is probably a board game developed specifically to scratch that itch and the Gamerz club can help you find it and bring it to life.
Gamerz began life about a year and a half ago in the wake of another club’s inactivity, and as the name suggests, reflects an appreciation of all kinds of gaming.
“We were trying not to alienate any type of game,” said Kendall Rahill, vice president of the club and general studies major. “We primarily play board games, but we took over the Video Game Club because they were inactive and they already had some money, and we all like video games too.”
While the actual number of members is hard to define at present, there are 60 individuals signed up to receive the club newsletter and about 10 who routinely show up for game nights.
The club has a wide array of games at its disposal, but has recently been focusing on several unique games.
“The one we’re really into as a group right now is called Euphoria. It’s a competitive worker placement game which means each player has a pool of workers, small little people that you get to tell to do one action per turn,” said Rahill. “So each worker gets one action and you use those actions to gain resources and then gain influence in the game to try and earn more points than anyone else.”
Another recent favorite of the club is called Betrayal at House on the Hill, in which players assume the roles of characters who must navigate a haunted house.
One of the many unique aspects of the game is the way the house is revealed. Whenever an explorer enters a new area, a room tile is drawn and connected to the tiles and rooms already present.
“That’s a competitive cooperative, depending on the game, that has 50 different endings,” said Rahill.
These different endings each represent a unique scenario, many of which will be familiar to fans of horror films, which all have specific rule sets for the explorers in the house.
Game nights have been held on Friday nights but the club is in the process of moving this to Saturday. The club usually gets together for game nights in the quad lounge.
Some board games have reputations for being very complicated and difficult to learn but members of Gamerz take steps to try and make games accessible to everyone.
“I’ll bring a game and I won’t even play it, I’ll just sit there and kind of monitor the whole thing and it’ll be a completely full table of new players that have never done it before, and I end up kind of watching and guiding,” said Rahill.
For many, the term board game brings up images of an elderly man in a top hat and the words Monopoly printed on the slim side of a white box.
According to Rahill, it’s nothing personal, but Monopoly is just not a good game.
Anyone interested in meeting up with the Gamerz can contact the Campus Connection for their meeting times, as well as Rahill at ude.usinull@dnekihar or Junior Zamora, club president, at ude.usinull@inujomaz.
