Submitted by Jessica Harris, River Ridge High School intern
Press start to begin. Ready? 3…2…1…GO! From 9 am to 9 pm the game is on! Teens from all over the Tumwater-Lacey area are drawn like moths to a flame, determined to prove their gaming skills and see who has what it takes to claim the title of Alpha-Omeganaut. Hearts will be lost, carts will fall off the Rainbow Bridge, and life points will be reduced to zero, but in the end only one can be the very best; only one can be the GDOC Champion.
GDOC is located at the Mountain View Church in Tumwater. It is a palace for paladins, a training ground for teams. It is the “where” that level 30 wizards go when they need EXP. Most importantly it is the place teens go to get together and have tons of fun. GDOC is not a typical church event; there are no sermons or pews, but instead soda and pizza.
Like all of the finer things in life this event started out as an idea: that in our modern day and age there are not enough opportunities for people to come together in a safe environment and partake in some good “old fashioned” digital decimation. The father of this idea was J Kent Rudeen, a pastor at the Mountain View Church: and little help from his friends Ryan Moore and Ky Vann eventually they turned transformed that idea into a reality.
And thus the doors opened one Saturday in September 2012 and the very first GDOC event officially commenced.
In the beginning the event was little more than systematic chaos, more along the lines of one gigantic sleepover than an epic tournament. From 9pm to 9am a small group of teenage boys would chug their energy drinks and duke it out in various action packed games. Sometimes the battles continued even after the winner was crowned.
“The fun got a little out of control sometimes. It got to the point where the Church didn’t allow us to spend the night anymore. The staff had to change a lot of things in order to make it safer and those changes also ended up making it better,” explained Tristan J-H, one of the technical staff at GDOC, as he shed some light on the past.
The road they traversed has had more than a few bumps. From an invite only sleepover to an open all day event, from an all-male turnout to a gender equal audience, the technicalities may have evolved but 12 months later the dream has remain unchanged. September 21, 2013 GDOC celebrated its first birthday, with 7 different games consoles, 5 board games, 3 card games, about 13 close friends, and no glitches.
When the doors open at 9:00 am the previous champion’s reign comes to a close and the battles begin, well maybe not immediately. It is literally all fun and games; a little friendly competition on Wii-Bowling, maybe a little campaigning on the PlayStation 3, and three or four songs on Rock Band. For the first several hours of the event the sportsmanship runs high and the competition runs low, until about 12:00 pm when the tables turn. The contestants for the tournament are announced and now that people are acquainted, it is time for the players the put on their Mythril Armour, grab their Lightbringers and go level up!
No one tournament is like the last, for each month is a new edition of the Alpha-Omegathon. The general rules of the tournament are as follows. Everyone plays in the first four rounds in order to earn points; which are allocated according to highest scores-10 to first place, 8 to second, and so on.
At the end of the fourth round the two with the highest scores move onto the finals. A tie breaker, if needed, is chosen by the first place contestant. The finals are sudden death; whoever wins or has the highest score at the end of the round is crowned the new champion. Depending on the theme of the tournament additional rules may apply, such as how points are allocated to teams.
A previous tournament consisted of the typical five rounds of four contestants at a time. Each round had several sub-rounds in order to accommodate the various 12 participants. The first round was a board game called King of Tokyo in which the players selected a monster and fought against one another to gain control of Tokyo City and level up. The beasts ranged from the giant mechanical Cyber Bunny all the way to The King himself. The first monster to reach 20 experience points won. Each monster had 10 health points, and should those health points reach 0 the contestant controlling that monster was out of the game. Each participant had a different strategy as to how they could win; one participant in the first sub-round focused solely on gaining as much exp as she could and blew the other three contestants right out of Tokyo. Another contestant, Ana Vaiasuso, decided that the best way to win was to be the only player. She relentlessly attacked her opponents, abolishing their health points. Both secured 10 points from the first round. Other players toggled between other unique strategies; everything from buying power ups to winging it.
Round two of the tournament was Konami’s very own Castlevania. Many players lost a heart upon their first encounter with the Giant Bat Boss, but a few veteran players succeeded the first time. In order to beat the boss and gain access to Dracula’s Castle, players had to find the Axe and throw axes at the boss while he was flying.
Round three was a fairly simple board game, Scooby Doo Clue. Though fairly simple, the game provided a means for some of the lower ranking players to gain some easy points, as well as act as a tie-breaker.
The fourth round was an individual task on the iPad. GYRO, an app for iDevices, was more difficult than it appeared. The goal of the game is to get the colored balls to hit their designated portion of the wheel. If the ball did not reach its portion of the wheel then the color of that segment would significantly reduce, the game was done when one segment was empty. Despite the difficulty, at the end of round four something happened for the first time in GDOC history. There was a three way tie for second place! And the first place holder was a girl!
In GDOC girls are “Red” and boys are “Blue,” and in all of GDOC history every winner has been a Blue. But for the first time, “Player 1” was Red! Ana Vaiasuso, the vicious attacker from round one, pulled above the rest. Her choice for the second place tie breaker was Super Smash Bro’s for the Nintendo 64. All three players had to play as Kirby. In a sudden death match they fought tooth and nail to claim the spot as “Player 2.” In the end a boy named Arron emerged victorious.
The final round’s game is not announced to the audience, only to the two contestants. For what appears to be hours, people bide their time cooling down and trying to relax. But instead excitement begins to build. Only after dinner has been devoured, do the finals begin. During dinner, table groups are formed and the ultimate test of gamer knowledge commences. The quiz gives people who may not be participating in the finals a chance to still win prizes.
Once bellies are full it’s off to the stage where the finalists get their chance to shine. The finals this time was one of the scariest ranked games of 2012: Slender. The contestant who collected the most notes won. For those who don’t know, the goal of Slender is to roam around in a forest and try to collect all eight notes, without Slender Man catching you. The lights went out and the volume was cranked up to 10 as the final two scoured the forest for notes. Arron kept his cool in the darkness and played it smart by turning off his flashlight in the game when he wasn’t actively searching. Then once he found a note, grab it and run. His strategy resulted in four notes. Ana, struggling to keep it together, decided it would be best to go and locate all the notes before grabbing them, then retrieve them in order to have the shortest path. Unfortunately for Ana, Slender Man caught her before she could collect any notes. And so once again the winner’s seat was claimed by a Blue. Though neither contestant left without some sort of spoils, Ana laid claim to a Pokémon X and Y poster and Arron nabbed a wallet designed as a game controller.
Like a shaken Etch-A-Sketch, every month is a blank slate just waiting for someone to carve their name into the list of people who have the honor of calling themselves the Alpha-Omeganaut. Who will be the next person to engrave their name and take the title? Who can take the crown? Will it be you? If you want to accept the challenge then you can search for “GDOC: Gaming Disciples of Christ” on Facebook and like their page to get updates and invites to the event.
If you think you’re geek enough for it then, let’s duel!
