CARD games were the biggest drawcard for players on Saturday night, at Sunraysia Tabletop Gamers’ first event of the year.
About 26 participants pulled up a chair at Mildura’s Church of Christ to try their hand at a range of games, including card, dice, role-playing and board games.
“Last year was horrible — there were months where we didn’t get to play a game with anybody, so it’s really good to be back,” the group’s provisional president Jamie Blefari said.
“There was a lot of laughter heard — especially down the back where people were playing Codenames.
“There were recurring faces and some new faces, and some people itching to get back and play some games.
“I think the big, burning question of the night was ‘when are you going to hold the next one?’.”
Originally set up by gaming couple Sharon and Stuart Middleton in 2016, the group has garnered a social media following of more than 200 people.
Mr Blefari, who now runs the group with fellow gamer Ross Pendock, said they were planning to make the group an official, incorporated club after the success of Saturday night’s event and one held at Espresso Drive cafe in March last year.
“We were actually talking about becoming a club last year, but due to the restrictions we’ve had to wait,” he said.
“I decided at the start of this year that it was time to go for it and Ross agreed, so we put out the call and all of these lovely people put their hands up and showed interest in joining.
“I’m not going to lie, it’s kind of confusing and a bit difficult to navigate around the COVID stuff, but it’s just another hurdle to overcome and I feel that we overcame it pretty well on Saturday.
“Our goal at the moment is to hold more weekly events and really push towards becoming a fully recognised and incorporated club of Sunraysia.”
Mr Blefari said there were many enjoyable aspects of gaming, such as socialising.
“I think a lot of people just enjoy playing games, whether it be sport or video games and, in our case, tabletop games,” he said.
“I think the real wow factor with tabletop games would be that you’re sitting across from the person you’re playing with, working together as a team or working against each other, and that’s the fun.”
The group will hold its next event on March 20 at the Church of Christ before taking a short hiatus from March 27 until after Easter.
People interested in joining the group should visit the Sunraysia Tabletop Gamers Facebook page or sunitabletopgamers@outlook.com. People are welcome to bring their own games to share and teach to others.
