Gaming Guild Halloween event well received

Mike Zhao / The Runner

If you host it, they will come.

Mike Zhao / The Runner
Mike Zhao / The Runner

By Awais Mushtaq
[contributor]

“Please do not feed the zombies,” reads the warning sign on the doors of the Surrey conference centre. It must be time for the Dawn of the Gaming Dead, a six-hour event hosted by the Kwantlen Gaming Guild on the afternoon of Oct. 27.

Interestingly, the event was populated with every kind of ghoul and video game character except for the flesh eating type—Sonic the Hedgehog, wolf-men, manga/anime inspired corpses, cowboys in leather, kitty cats, spotted cows, Links in all their green gowns, Darth Vaders and witches galore.

For president Tashi Barungtsang, the event provided a reason for dressing up in costumes rather than coming to school in regular attire, which, “makes things a lot more engaging, festive and a lot more interactive.”

As Barungtsang explains, “We did this event [because] it was Halloween. We had an event all the way down the road, basically four or five months away, so we wanted to plan something a lot sooner.”

Casual participants and excited event-goers alike were treated with spooky but whimsical decorations, with orange/black streamers, police tape, and tiny skulls hanging from the doorways. There was also a sign-up table for future members, along with seemingly every imaginable video or board game offered on tables scattered throughout the venue.

“The goal of our club is to bring people together in one way or another. I know we’re a gaming club, but we just use gaming as the common ground between all of us,” says Barungtsang. “It gives students on campus something to do instead of just come to school and then going straight home . . . now students are actually playing games with their friends or with complete strangers, but eventually those complete strangers will become their best friends from university.”

Following the success of the KGG’s first gaming convention in April, the Dawn of the Gaming Dead event was designed specifically to showcase horror-themed titles such as Call of Duty Black Ops 2 Zombies, Left 4 Dead, Resident Evil and Silent Hill. Visitors were also able to indulge in all the free pizza and pop they could handle. And, if that wasn’t enough, a Halloween-captioned pixel art photo booth was set up to for individuals to capture the occasion.

“At first it was just people who wanted to play video games . . . but it’s evolving into something that I can’t even control anymore. It’s not even a gaming club—it’s more of a big social club that has people exchanging comic books, costumes, and movies,” says Barungstan.

Funded with support from the Kwantlen Student Association, had nearly 300 students taking part in a wide variety of activities. The trivia portion of the evening, led by students Jassneal Dass and Julia Leal, resulted in a large crowd for whom candy prizes were enough to illicit enthusiastic responses for easy questions, and quirky answers for harder ones. In the costume contest, Katrina Holmes was awarded top costume as Elizabeth from Bioshock Infinite, and John Shkurtaj won the title of fan favourite for his “Boxman” ensemble—a costume made entirely on-site out of cardboard boxes—and finally, the Jack O’ Lantern contest was won by Ezzy Tiu for carving a truly frightening concept—“Student Loans.”