A Summer Retro Gaming Meetup

[shockingblue]

Students moving through the common rooms of Aube and Lumiere over the past week or so may have noticed a flyer or two on the various floors recently. The fliers are simply designed, honestly unimpressive and clearly made by someone who has no idea about community outreach, but are still functional enough. They advertise that on Saturday, June 22, that GV will be holding a "retro gaming" meetup for multiplayer games. There's a picture of a Nintendo 64 on the flier too, and a listing of multiplayer games to play (including such classics as SilverEye 007, Super Crash Bros., Superlative Dark, and... uh... Mario Kart 64) but a handful of single player games that can be tried by people too. The flier welcomed anyone who wanted to come, and that it'd be nice if people brought stuff to snack on, or extra drinks.

Either way, Saturday morning, a couple of hours before the event was set to start, Gunvolt took over the first floor common area of Aube, and got everything ready. He'd gotten a few snack foods and a few bottles of various drinks for people himself, and set them up on a table. Beyond that, he'd procured the right connections to make his dated N64 work on the TV in the common room, and quickly set up the device, controllers, and stacked the games by it. Being in a magic school was awesome; rune devices helped negate the need for CRT televisions to make older consoles work, among other things. Universal connectors were truly universal.

Gunvolt himself will dig into playing some single player games in the couple of hours before the stated meetup time, and anyone who happens by and pokes their head in will be greeted with a wave and a smile.

"Hey, come on in if you'd like! I wouldn't mind the company, if you've got time."


[OOC: Though this is a GV post and he'll be meeting with everyone who comes, feel free to mingle with others too if you'd like, considering it could theoretically be a party if people are interested enough in coming at the appointed time. And have fun, gameplaying can be as nebulous as a thread requires!]

Comments

[alreadyhuman]

Vivi doesn't have any idea what video games are - it's not something he picked up on his travels through the Outlands, which tended to be high in magic and certain life lessons but not terribly advanced in technology.

So, when something is happening - on the first floor of his dorm, no less - he's bound to go and check it out. He pokes his head around the doorway, clearly shy.

"Um! Hello!"

He certainly looks like he belongs at a magical school, this kid. Giant, floppy hat and all. He gazes at the array of devices with clear wonder.

"What are all of these for? They look pretty complicated."

[shockingblue]

Gunvolt smiles at the young boy and his floppy hat. ...And those glowing yellow eyes, but those don't actually bother him in the slightest. It's now far from the strangest thing he's seen at this school, and the kid not knowing video games didn't even faze him for a second.

"Oh, those are how the video games work. That black one there's the console, which runs the games, and all those gray ones are cartridges with the different games on them. And these," he said, holding up the frankly odd looking tri-pronged controller, "are how you control what's happening in the game."

He motioned for Vivi to join him on the couch.

"Never tried a video game before, huh? Think we should fix that."

[alreadyhuman]

"I don't know what a video game is," he admits, sounding embarrassed. But he does edge into the room, after being given permission, and sits on the couch before he can second-guess himself and change his mind.

"I've been on Earth for, um...two weeks! So I don't know a lot." He leans forward to look at the controller, clearly intrigued by the shape.

[shockingblue]

"Two weeks?" Gunvolt parroted, looking actually pretty surprised. "Are you from the Outlands originally?" He definitely didn't look like he minded though.

"And that's okay, I can show you how to play 'em. No worries if they take some time to pick up. This thing's the controller, and... well, it's got a lot of buttons, and it may look like a lot at first, you do get used to it."

He held the controller out for Vivi to look at and examine, even hold, if he wanted to.

[alreadyhuman]

"Yeah. I fell out of an airship and lost my memories and then a nice person helped me go somewhere safe. And I wandered a lot and then Miss Lin brought me here!"

This somewhat disjointed story is, apparently, the best he can shorten it to. If he's going to say something else, he's quickly distracted by the controller, which is an entirely new object to him.

He handles the controller carefully, turning it over in his hands. He's never seen anything quite like it.

"So you press buttons and move things on the controller, and stuff happens, right?"

[buddinghopes]

The fliers were pretty unimpressive, but they managed to get Lia's attention anyway. A retro gaming meetup... well, she certainly wasn't going to pass that up!

So, on June 22nd, about an hour earlier than the time stated on the flier, Lia showed up at the Aube dorm, carrying a decent amount of snacks and drinks. At the greeting, she simply beams. She'd wave but her arms are... a little occupied at the moment.

"Hi! I'm not too early, am I?"

[shockingblue]

"No, not at all!" Gunvolt quickly paused his game to get up. "Need a hand with some of that?" Her arms looked pretty full, and while it was clear it wasn't a problem, a little bit of help setting it down to deal with the bulk? Figured that'd just be a good thing to offer, at least. Either way, he continued.

"I was just playing around with a couple of single player games while I waited for people to arrive. I hadn't had as much time as I'd like to give them a try."

[buddinghopes]

"It'd be appreciated, thanks." The load she had was pretty bulky, and it would be tricky to get set down. She flashes Gunvolt an appreciative smile.

"Oh, cool, find anything you've really liked so far?"

[shockingblue]

Without a moment's hesitation, he helped take a good half of the load out of her hands carefully, and moved over to the table to start setting it out for others to get to as well.

"Actually, been playing this game starring a lazy bear and a smart-aleck bird that lives in his backpack. It's just like, a platformer? But it's pretty funny. The witch in the game talks in rhyme all the time."

[buddinghopes]

She makes a small sound of appreciation at half of the load being taken, and follows him to the table. She looks over, pausing in setting things up as well while she listens to him.

"That sounds great! I bet there's a lot of neat gems in older games like that... I bet even just platformers are charming in their own ways."

[stavros]

Kokoro smiles and waves, walking in. "Oh, old games? Is this for something, or just a party?"

[shockingblue]

"It's just a party. I found this old thing for sale in Soleil... and I figured, why not? And it's more fun with others, right?"

He paused the game to look at her more directly, and then pointed to the table with all the snacks and stuff.

"Feel free to help yourself to any of that while you're here! Got a favorite game?"

[stavros]

"I've never played any of these, actually." She started looking them over. "You've got a lot, though. It looks interesting. What are you playing now?"

[shockingblue]

"It's called Secrets of the Empire. It's one of those Space Wars games. This is the first time I've played it, actually."

And sure enough, the game on screen is totally not depicting the Battle of Hoth in glorious 64-bit. Complete with janky walkers and flight effects.

[stavros]

Kokoro perches on the couch arm and looks at the screen. "This was supposed to look good at the time, right?"

[heartofasamurai]

Seiji had seen the flyers, but had not decided until that very day whether to attend or not. It seemed like a typical social endeavor for students to take part in, but he also knew nothing about video games, so perhaps it was not something suited to him.

But the more he thought of it, the more he decided it may be exactly what he needed. Something out of his typical routine, something unexpected. He would meet new people and perhaps he would continue integrating himself better into how people his own age find entertainment.

So he came to the lounge and looked at the equipment set up. It seemed rather...intricate.

"I hope I am not too early?" he asks, because he cannot help being early to everything.

[shockingblue]

"Not at all, a few people have shown up early, actually! But come on in, help yourself to anything at the table too!"

Gunvolt was actually surprised people took him up on his offer, but frankly, it did make him pretty happy. This was the first time he'd ever tried to organize a party like this, and like Seiji, he didn't have all that much experience with making something like this work. But it felt good, and GV's good mood was quite infectious in his voice.

"Good to have you here! Are there any of the games listed that you might be interested in?"

[heartofasamurai]

Seiji smiles because the exuberance is infectious, although it is also a shy smile, because he has no idea what he is doing or where to begin.

"It is good to see so many faces so soon," he admits, because at least others being there early allows him to feel less out of place for doing so himself. "Yet I cannot say which of these game...consoles, I would prefer to try. I have never played a video game before, so I would not know which one best suits the skills of one who is wholly a beginner."

[shockingblue]

If anything, Seiji's honesty in his skill level seemed to help Gunvolt relax even further.

"Don't worry, you're far from the only one. I only really started getting into this stuff about a month ago, so. I'm still learning it all myself. There's still a curve to it all, but that's part of the fun."

Gunvolt looked over to the console on the table, in thought for a moment.

"There's a good racing game on this system that I was planning on having as a major event. That feels pretty easy to start with, if you're interested?"

[heartofasamurai]

"Racing?" Seiji is intrigued by the concept. "How do you race using these remotes? They do not have steering wheels."

[nevernoaction]

Ren looks around, peering at the games and the systems. Usually he seems rather detached from a lot that's going on around him, but this time he's eying everything with curiosity.

There were so many things he never got to do because the wandering life he'd led. Or things that were common knowledge to a lot of students that just went over his head. Playing games like this was one of them.

Gunvolt already looks like he's having fun, so Ren stays quiet to let him play.

[shockingblue]

For his part, Gunvolt didn't actually look terribly apt at doing a single-player race in Mario Kart, though he definitely was having fun. Somewhat amusingly, he'd picked Bowser instead of Mario, but he wasn't putting in the strongest performance.

"Still can't believe Coach Bowser and Mario had a game like this they were in. This is actually kinda wild."

And as he said that, he got pummeled by a red shell and knocked into 4th place.

"...I think Coach Bowser might be upset if he saw me doing this bad when I'm playing as him, though."

[nevernoaction]

"He would definitely yell something." Bowser was certainly not afraid of telling someone how he felt. Not to mention confidence for miles.

Definitely more interested, Ren sat down to watch Gunvolt's progress.

[shockingblue]

Doing his best to get back up to speed and back on the track, GV still laughed.

"WHERE DID YOU LEARN TO DRIVE, YOU'RE MAKING ME LOOK LIKE A CHUMP. GIVE ME THE CONTROLLER, YOU'RE DOIN' IT WRONG. Something like that, right?"

He definitely said it in a sense of good humor. He was having fun, and really, while Bowser was rough around the edges, he was still pretty cool.

[nevernoaction]

The impression was so spot on, it startled a very rare laugh out of Ren. Then he covered his mouth and coughed.

"Something like that, definitely. Is...is it hard to play at all?"