Game Den Unleashed Brings Together Various Gamers

Photo Credit / Ayanna Totten Over a hundred students attended this year's Game Den Unleashed event, playing games that ranged from NBA 2k20 to League of Legends, and even to several board games.

Shavonne McLamb 

Contributing Writer

Video games were on the rage this weekend? If you were a gamer and did not show up to this week’s Warrior’s Den, you missed out on a great time.

As soon as participants are walking in, they are greeted by the committees who presented the event, Creative Media Factory, DMT, and SAA.

Smiling faces ask you to complete a survey on the type of games you played, and you are ready to enter the game den.

There were a plethora of games provided for the attendees. These games included Fortnite, League of Legends, Call of Duty, Mario Bros, and Rocket League.

The Game Den, which was held in Rosenkrans, had an amazing setup. As you walk in, you are bombarded with four rooms of video games.

One room filled with excited men playing Madden and NBA 20. Across the way, a room full of students playing on computers. As you leave that room, there is a small room crammed with students with a big screen playing Super Smash Bros. and Call of Duty.

The last room had people playing on computers again, but there is also food (pizza, quesadillas, cookies, brownies, and chips/salsa) and a DJ.

What if I’m not into video games? You did not have to be into video games to attend the game den. The lobby had old fashioned games, Uno, playing cards, and Jenga.

They were also prepared with dominoes for people to play. At one point, there was a massive game of Cards Against Humanity, which was humorous and fun to observe.

Throughout the night, there were multiple tournaments to entertain the bystanders for the night. The tournaments were Pacman, Pinball, and NBA 2k20.

The prizes included items from the bookstore and e-dollars. The winner of the Pinball tournament was Senior, Sean Crowley, who is majoring in Computer Science and Math, with a score of 84,190.

“I honestly came for the free food” chuckled Crowley. “I’ve been gaming since my sophomore year of High School and came to the League of Legends tournament last year. This event was better.”

The last event was the 2K tournament. Senior, Alexander Washington, whose major is Criminal Justice, won the event. “I’ve been gaming from 18 years and came to support my friend, Khalil Jones’, event.”

“How did this event start?” Ayanna Totten explained, “As a part of the grant Dr. Otto and Dr. Engerman received, they wanted to create a gaming environment for ESU”.

Dr. Engerman further explained, “We are here today to implement the National Science Foundation Grant, which allows us to explore if Esports and where it relates to STEM competencies. So, as we build a pathway between high school into college and career development, we want to understand what the community is doing. What draws them out? What keeps them engaged? And if they are able to see any connections between what they do in the game space and Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math.

We had the ability to bring the gaming community out, holistically, and allow them to show us and communicate to us, what are the foundational elements that make it engaging, to engage in organically STEM-related activities and how we may be to take those principles and implement them to strategic STEM learning opportunities for our participants for our grant.”

All in all this event was a success, with 126 attendees in this Friday’s Warrior Den. If participants enjoyed this event, they can attend Game Den in Rosenkrans from 1-4 PM.

Email Shavonne at:

smclamb@live.esu.edu