Tabletop players, Smash Bros. enthusiasts, and a hundred-plus members of Stevens’ gaming community gathered last Saturday for the Computer & Console Gaming Society’s “Jan LAN.” Students played some of the “over a hundred video games” and “well over fifty board games” Vice President Alex Massenzio detailed that the club had at their disposal, alongside many that members had brought, until 7:00 a.m. the following day.
The first Epic LAN of the semester, referring to the local-area networking system that helps make communal gaming possible, took place after being postponed by the recent blizzard. This delay had no effect on the event’s momentum, however, as Babbio 122 and 104 were packed with students’ desktops, CRT monitors, consoles, board games, and several tournaments of Duck Game and StepMania. The latter, a Dance Dance Revolution clone, crowned Chris Byrne with first place and Amy Hans with second. The increasing popularity in the past year of the Epic LAN events, which occur once a month alongside the smaller, weekly events, has resulted in a larger turnout. Massenzio called the LAN events “a nice place for people to unwind and find similar players to hang out amid classes.”
The introvert-leaning, community aspect the LAN provides becomes more apparent after talking to many of its members. While on line for pizza — a reliable draw for any campus event — Ryan Flynn, a 3/4 Mechanical Engineer, echoed this. “It’s fun to sit in a room where everyone else is on their computers.” Emily Raque, a 2/5 Civil Engineer playing Magic, the Gathering, remarked how she “knows enough people here” to attend regularly, adding that this was “her second LAN this week.”
Massenzio said C2GS’s events are “a great way to get a good sample size” for collaborations with Stevens Game Development Club, which sometimes brings in-progress games to test out. With weekly LAN’s and another Epic coming up on the 20th, C2GS and the Stevens gaming community will have many opportunities to showcase what 3/4 “and a half” B.M.E. Kat McGuire describes as her reason for being there: “Gaming is socializing without anything to say.”
