Aidan Kelly reaches across the table, making a play for the win. Photo by Trey Copeland

By Tomas Alonso
Staff Writer

Some of my earliest memories come from playing board games. Either huddled up on the floor with siblings or in the library in elementary school, but as I grew up, I spent less and less time rolling dice and stacking cards.

But on Thursday from noon to 1 p.m. in room 225 at the Wacheno Welcome Center, a group of friends brought the joy, confusion and unparalleled rage that can only be found when playing a game back.

Fellow staff writer Trey Copeland and I spent an hour with the motley crew of board game lovers where we were welcomed, dealt in and beaten mercilessly in a game of Uno.

Ky Dixon was voted in as president of the club early last year and has been running it ever since.

“Last year the old president left and everyone voted me in, so now I drive around with board games in my car,” she said. She unveiled a half dozen boxes, including Codenames, a group favorite. While waiting for the others to arrive, the small group began a game of Uno Attack, where a card dealing machine ruled over everything.

“The machine is God,” said Taylor Stannis. A “plus four” card meant pressing a black button on the top of the Uno machine four times. And from there on it was up to the machine to decide if you would be given four cards, no cards or a dozen.

Club president Ky Dixon. Photo by Trey Copeland

Not long after, the rest arrived: Liv Stannis, who had been at the club the second longest after Dixon then Taylor Stannis, who sat down eating a burger from the cafeteria, and finally Aidan Kelly, wearing a tricorn leather hat.

With a full table, Codenames was broken out. Codenames is a game that relies entirely on communication between your team and your leader. Rows and rows of cards hold seemingly unconnected words, Stadium and Copper, Diamond and Water. It was during this game I began to understand the reason the club worked.

People screamed in anguish when their teammates guessed wrong and gave points away to the other team and jumped in joy high fiving when they guessed correctly. But as they all worked together sharing a common goal, and becoming a community.

As club founder and CCC counselor Juan Cortes said in an email, “I would hear from many students in my FYE classes that it is difficult to meet new people at college, and because board games make you focus on the game, it reduces the social anxiety we feel when we are getting to know each other. Rather than worrying about what others might think about us or if we said something odd, we focus on our actions in the game”

Dixon had first heard of the board game club when looking for something to do between classes and in doing so, she found some good friends. Liv Stannis found people who didn’t make fun of their Optimus Prime figurine and Aidan Kelly found a place where everyone loved his pirate hat.

Admittedly, when I first heard of the board game club and was told to go report on it, I was pretty sure I would find a group of people with nothing better to do taking Monopoly way too seriously. But in the end I found a charming group that had found a group of other people like them. And I would recommend to anyone with an hour to spend from noon to 1 p.m. on Thursdays to stop by and play a game with some people you don’t know, just like we did as kids and remember to never judge a book or a board game by its cover.

The group laughs as a game of Codenames gets heated. Photo by Trey Copeland