Villains were wreaking havoc in the city. Some were above ground, robbing banks and terrorizing the streets, while others slinked and slithered in the sewers, plotting and planning their next scheme. Superheroes joined forces to defeat the enemies and take back the city, but to no avail. Evil triumphed over good.
It happened on a colorful piece of cardboard, in the middle of a food court.
More than 20 board-game lovers attended the monthly “Spiel Samstag” (German for Play Saturday) All Day Board Gaming event on Saturday. It was hosted by Gainesville Gamers, a club that brings together gamers of all ages and levels in north central Florida. The free event is held every second Saturday of the month from noon to midnight in the Reitz Union Food Court at UF, located at 686 Museum Road.
“Some of us are stupid and stay all day long,” said Neil Edge, the club’s founder.
Edge, 47, started Gainesville Gamers in March 2004. His reason for creating the gaming club was simple: he needed someone to play games with, he said.
“Neil is really the patriarch of the Gainesville gaming community,” said Daniel Ferguson, avid gamer and close friend of Edge.
Over the years, the club’s size snowballed from just a handful of friends to almost 500 members on Facebook. Club meetings are held every Wednesday starting around 5:30 p.m. in the food court of the Reitz Union, where time is spent playing mostly board and card games. There are no fees required to join.
Board games played on Saturday included Forbidden Stars, an interplanetary war game set in the Warhammer 40,000 universe, a dystopian science-fiction society; Blood Rage, a game based on Norse mythology involving Vikings, battles and quests to gain glory by securing a place in Valhalla; and Whistle Stop, a game where players travel west across the country by railroad to deliver goods and expand their network of whistle stops.
Most board games are competitive, with each player fending for him-or-herself; but some games are cooperative. Cooperative board games require all players to work together to achieve a goal. They win or lose as a group.
In the cooperative game XCOM: The Board Game, players take on four roles: central officer, chief scientist, commander and squad leader. Together, they assign soldiers to missions to defend their base from alien attack.
The game, however, is a little different from other cooperative games. It incorporates the use of technology into its gameplay by way of a mobile app.
“The app tells you what the invasion plan’s gonna be and what aliens are coming in,” Edge said. “It’s really a clever game.”
Board games weren’t the only games played on Saturday.
Ryan Freels, a gaming club member, had his own table hockey game set up, with a familiar team in the rink. The team had on orange and blue uniforms with the Florida Gators logo on the back. The goalie of that team wore a green alligator mask with yellow eyes and sharp teeth.
“I hand painted all those myself,” Freels said with a hint pride.
Each table hockey game lasted five minutes until an alarmingly loud buzzer signaled the game’s end. The game was played one-on-one and in teams of two.
Freels said he’s been coming to the gaming club for about five years and hopes his own club, the Gainesville Table Hockey Club, takes off soon.
The monthly all-day gaming event has been around since the club’s inception in 2004. Edge’s long history of enjoying board games played a part in giving the event its German name.
“Most early modern board games were all German designed,” he said. “For us who have been around for some time, [we] are used to seeing German words and rule books all these years.
“It has correlation when we see spiel Samstag. We know to play Saturday.”