The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) club hosted their annual Video Game Festival last Tuesday. The festival hosts different games that were brought in by various students that wanted to participate in the event.

“So I actually started this last year and this is the second annual festival,” Megan Mandeville, president of ACM Club, said. “We just wanted a community event for students who miss their gaming consoles at home.”

The festival was entirely free and was open to all students, Mandeville even had prizes for participants that had received tickets from playing games. Set up for the festival began at 3:00 p.m. followed by the event at 4:30 p.m. Students could even bring in their own consoles and games that they would like to play.

“Last year is the first year of me being President of my club, so my club wanted me to do a big community event to make aware of our club since we’ve been kind of dormant these last few years,” Mandeville said.

With the new game clubs being made this year, Mandeville felt it appropriate to ask the Table Top Club for assistance in expanding the variety of games that are present at the festival.

“Megan actually asked me to get involved because there was a huge space last year in the middle of the room, so she asked us to fill in,” Marcus Tofflemire, president of Table Top Club, said. “We brought in some board and card games that club members donated and also helped set up.”

Students were happy to have some time to game, meet fellow gamers and get to know other people that have interest in games as well. Students held small tournaments with each other to see who could beat who in some well-known multi-player games such as “Mario Party” and “Mario Kart.” There were also chances for students to try out an Oculus (Virtual Reality) set.

“They saw that I was in ACM and they asked me to bring my Oculus,” freshman Garret Wells said, “It’s been a lot of fun, it’s been a good chance to meet new people.”

Mandeville and Toffelmire encourage students to join them next year for their festival and aid that students can bring whatever game they would like.

“It is functioning as a community event so we want to aim for more community-oriented games— so a lot of party games such as ‘Mario Kart,’ ‘Super Smash Bros.,’ ‘Mortal Kombat,’ ‘Super Fight,’ ‘Red Flags,’ and ‘Cards Against Humanity,’” Toffelmire said.