There is one organization on campus that never gets bored because they game. To be specific, they play board games. You Game? is a board gaming organization on campus that was developed during the Fall of 2014. You Game? meets every Thursday night in the Parkhurst Classroom starting at 7 PM.
The first question that is usually asked about You Game? is what is it? When asked to explain what You Game? is, Senior Liz Lohrmann said, “You Game is the board gaming club on Georgia College’s campus. We have about 200 board and card games for anyone to play.” When Liz says that there are about 200 board and card games available to play, she is not exaggerating at all. Sophomore Brad Benton describe You Game? as, “a club in which students of university and also faculty and staff come and enjoy board games with people who also enjoy board games.”
You Game? has every board game that you would imagine a board gaming club could have. They range from having the basic games most people know such as Chess, Scrabble, and The Game of Life, to less known games such as Mysterium, Survive, and Shadows Over Camelot.
You Game? is like a safe haven for those looking for likeminded people and those who just want to get away and have good clean fun. The people you meet at You Game? could potentially become some of your best friends, which is the reason why Brad Benton, is and continues to be involved.
When you come on Thursdays, you don’t have to come right at the time it starts, or stay when it ends. It is more like drop in, see how it is, play a game and then you can leave. Everyone is more than welcome to stay for however long they like which if you haven’t been to You Game? before, you will find that people stay well into the night.
When asked why she was member of You Game? and how she got involved, Liz said, “I’m a member of You Game? because I am obsessed with board games. I started [gaming] my freshman year of college, for the most part. [Freshman year] is when I got really into gaming, but I played all the time when I was little as well. This just lets me play games once a week and have guaranteed people to play with.”
Liz Lohrmann is the President of You Game?, and she got involved with You Game because Trapper McLean, herself and Kevin Blanch started the group within Housing. They noticed that there wasn’t a board game club on campus, so they wanted to fill the role. Trapper McLean and Kevin Blanch are the staff avisors for You Game?. When asked why Trapper wanted to start You Game, he said, ” I just wanted other people to play board games with. I really like playing board games and if you don’t have other people to play with, then it’s kind of boring, and then I just have all these board games just sitting there not getting played. I tried to recruit as many people as I could to come play board games with me”.
During the process of starting You Game?, Liz, Trapper, and Kevin had to ask themselves, “how many people would want to play,” “what games do we offer,” and “how are we going to get games.” Luckily they did figure it out. Both Trapper and Liz have an extensive amount of board games, so figuring out how to get games wasn’t going to be that hard. You Game? will also often reach out to companies that make board games and tell them how much they like board games and their company, and often times that company will send them free games.
The best compliment that I have heard in favor of You Game? is that they are one of the few organizations that consistently have dedicated people coming back each week and the numbers just keep growing. Starting off You Game? would get around 30 to 50 people a night and now they have grown to have 50 to 70 people a night.
When Liz was asked why she keeps coming back to You Game each week, she said, “I think You Game? is my stress reliever for the week. I have guaranteed people to play with every time, whenever I come. Games for me is a way to get out the stress for the week.” This is a common response to why most people come back to You Game? each week. When Benton was asked why he continues to go to You Game?, he said, “[It’s] definitely the bonds with the people that I have met here and those relationships that I have made, and also it’s a lot of fun.”
The people who are involved with organizations on campus are involved in with them because they provide some type of meaning to them. Liz said, “You Game? has brought me a lot of friends that I probably wouldn’t have met otherwise, so I love that about it. It’s taught me more games than I could imagine. It let me become a little bit nerdier in the way that I like being nerdy, and brought me to people that like the same sort of thing.” Brad Benton, had the same type of response. He said, “You Game? to me is, a meeting place. I’m very introverted so this is a place I can come and feel comfortable socializing. It’s an outlet for me.”
They people who are involved in You Game? are involved in it because they truly love being there and want to see it develop in the years to come. When you meet people who are members of the organizations their faces just light up, because they are so passionate about it, and want to be successful. When Liz was asked how You Game? has developed since it has started and how she would like to see it change, she said, “It was basically me [Liz] and Trapper, and the occasional extra person for months on end. We actually met on Sunday nights over at the Village when it first started. We realized that the Village wasn’t really working as a location and neither were Sunday nights. We kept it at the Village for a while, but switched it to Thursday nights, and that got a little bit of attention, but not nearly as much as we had been getting. Then we switched it over to Central Campus under the Maxwell Student Union, for a little while and we picked up a little more traction. We started doing some occasional Saturday events, and that picked up a little more people. Then finally we got the Nerd Nest, which was formally World of Wings, now the Phone-A-Thon, under the side of Sanford. That’s when we really started getting noticed, because it has glass doors so people can see through, and had time to see what we were doing. Also we started really advertising and pushing more than to just housing people, and because of that we got more attention. We ended up starting to get thirty, forty, fifty people. Now this year we are up to a good sixty to eighty people a week.”
In future years You Game? is hoping to do more than just Thursday and Saturday events. They want to possibly do drawings for prizes to try and get more faces coming to them. They also want to expand beyond just having board and card games, and have video games there to play, and possibly get people who want to play Dungeons and Dragons.
If you want to have a unique experience with some really cool people and play some really interesting games, drop by one Thursday night at 7 PM in the Parkhurst classroom and join a game! Everyone is always welcome.