News from Vermont Public
Vermont's fighting video game scene spurs competition — and camaraderie
If you've spent time playing video games, you may have memories facing off against a friend while sitting next to them in your living room. Now, more and more games are played online, but some hardcore gamers still gather in person to compete against each other at the highest levels, including in the Green Mountain State. Vermont Publix Bryant Denton stopped by a recent tournament for the game series Super Smash Bros., and found that competition is not the only thing driving people to show up. Button mashing, belly laughs and players yelling over each other, you'll hear it all at a video game tournament, including Smash Crash, a Super Smash Bros. gathering held recently at Burlington Beer Company. Wunuski resident Duncan Hacker is no stranger to the chaos. He was a frequent fighter at Vermont-based Smash event since the mid 2010s onward. Duncan hasn't been able to play as much lately. He welcomed a child into his family last year, but mom's babysitting today, so he gets to come out and see some friendly foes. As Duncan is alluding to, sometimes the community side of a tournament takes precedence over the competitive part. This was the second tournament held at Burlington Beer Company, put on by Champlain College and the Wednesday Night Fight Club, esports dojo. That's a place where members of all ages learn how to play fighting video games at a competitive level. For the uninitiative, the original Super Smash Bros. was released in 1999 for the Nintendo 64. It featured combatants from iconic Nintendo games like Link from the Legend of Zelda, we've got "We've got two!" from Pokémon, and of course "Myo!" "Here we go!" Well, you know who that is. Vermont's competitive Smash Bros. scene has been around since 2015, starting on Champlain College's campus. There have been a handful of sequels to Smash Bros, but the recent off-campus tournament featured Melee and Ultimate. Smash Crash was a bit different than the typical tourney on Champlain campus, as the esports dojo I mentioned earlier trained students from grade 6 to 12, so there were a handful of players who were on the younger side. What games do you guys like to play? I like to play Minecraft, Rocket League, Among Us. I like to play Slime Rancher. They told me more about games I'd never heard of, and then they started asking me the questions. If you could choose a character to be in Smash Bros. who would it be? I remember having the exact conversation with my brother and friends at their age, and still today with the latest iteration of the game. Events like these have a way of bringing long-time gamers down a trip on memory lane. It takes me back to like, I came up in the late 80s, early 90s to like Street Fighter II popped off when I was like in third or fourth grade, and I remember my entire life curved around that whole moment in time. That's Grant Patterson, who opened the esports dojo in Colchester last year. That place, and tournaments like this, are a passion project for him, and a way to help bring the next crop of gamers into the fold. You see it from a different vantage point when it's a generation or two younger than you, and you're just like, that's how it was, and that's how it's always going to be. And if you're there to like, facilitate a gathering of that, I think there's something really magical and profound about it, and I'm just happy to have helped bring that about. About 50 players competed in the Burlington beer tournament, myself included, but even with hundreds of dollars of prize money on the line, it was a friendly environment, and the competitive spirit was good-natured. Another Wannuski resident, Sean Succone, gamer tag Joe Mozo, was unsure how he'd fare in the tournament, not playing the game for some years. I have no expectations coming into this. I'm just here to have fun with it, you know, so. Smash Crash was a double elimination tournament, and as fate would have it, Sean and I played each other in the Loser's bracket. He was shocked to get knocked out by the reporter in the bracket, revealed in a post-game interview. It was short-lived success. I lost my next round. I chatted with another player, Grant Matthews, who was modest while awaiting the next round of matches. He already placed in the top eight of the tournament. I should have known something was up after he said he'd been playing in tournaments since age 14. Thankfully, I didn't face off against Matthews, gamer tag Orango. He plays as the space-faring bounty hunter Samus Aron from Metroid. Going forward, there may be even bigger brackets at local Smash Bros tournaments. Apart from being one of the best players in Vermont, Matthews is part of the contingent of local gamers visiting neighboring New England states to help build connections between local scenes. We've got a huge tournament coming up where like people are coming out from Massachusetts and Connecticut and Rhode Island and Maine to all come to this one Vermont tournament, which is going to be super cool. Orango says the Massachusetts scene is much larger and more competitive right now, but the Vermonters are on the way up. We're doing very well for ourselves with our small little scene. A lot of our guys are taking sets off big name players. This is the year of Vermont. Champlain College hosts Smash tournaments on a weekly cadence. You can find more info on Discord, Twitter, or Facebook. For Vermont Public, I'm Bryant Denton. [BLANK_AUDIO]