Instead of having Gaming Club in person, the club is going virtual to still have fun but also be safe. Virtual Gaming Club meetings began in early October.
These club meetings are hosted on Discord, an app popular among gamers that allows messaging and video calls.
“Discord has been really helpful while setting the virtual club up,” co-advisor Patrick Murphy said.
The meetings are on Wednesdays starting at 4 p.m. The meetings last somewhere between 1 to 2 hours.
Members begin each meeting by coming together to do any daily announcements.
“After the intro together, the club [members] go to their own lobbies to play whichever games they want to play,” co-advisor Daniel Deitsch said.
There is a wide variety of games that are played during meeting. “The games that are played the most are some of the more popular and current games,” Murphy said.
The club has still lost a couple of games during the move to virtual. “Since the club is now virtual there are fewer card and board games,“ officer Patrick Hinckle said.
Even though they have lost some cards and board games, there are still many games that can be played.
“Personally, I am part of the Dungeons & Dragons group, but on days that I don’t meet with the Dungeons & Dragons group, I have played everything from Risk to Bomb Tag,” officer Thomas Updike said.
So far there haven’t been many difficulties with the meetings online. To keep the club secure “the kids have to get their name approved by a moderator,” Deitsch said.
They do this to keep anyone who is not a student from Souderton Area High School out of the club. It is also used to let kids know that they are accountable for their actions.
According to club member Ryan Dunlevy, one of the hardest things for club members is “losing connection to a call.”
Even though there are a couple of small problems with the club and technology., there are also some benefits to the club being online.
“I like that it’s not as loud and you can definitely hear people better. With six Dungeons & Dragons groups going on, all at the same time, it’s a little hectic to be able to hear everybody,” Updike said.
Since the students, officers, and advisors all enjoyed having a virtual gaming club they are thinking of keeping it as an option for future years.
“Making the club virtual was originally only a plan to keep people safe from Covid, but I think it was a good idea and will probably still be used in the future,” Murphy said.
Club officers think that the Discord servers will continue to be used in the following years.
“It’s nice to play with friends and new people whenever I want to since the server is always active,” Updike said.