Quick Poll!
The NKU Game Room offers a multitude of different systems, games, and activities for students to use free of charge.
Super Smash Brothers: Melee, a very popular competitive game, is played with controllers seen below.
Competitors play the game "Super Smash Brothers: Melee" on old, CRT TV screens, which helps reduce the time it takes for the inputs on the controller to reach the television, as opposed to newer, LCD/Plasma screens which take a longer time for the input to reach the television.
Click on the profiles below to read.
Gamertag: playing with feet
Preferred System: PC (PS4)
Favorite Video Game: Metroid, Castlevania
Favorite Video Game Character: Samus Aran (Metroid)
AJ Ryan can remember buying his first Nintendo at that age 2 or 3 and spending hours trying to figure the best games to buy for it.
He has pursued a career he loves – designing video games.
Being the founder of Inclusive Games, Ryan hopes to increase the options of video games and the features in video games for disabled gamers.
“I’m the first company I know of that’s really centered on gamers with disabilities,” Ryan said. “I still want to make full games, I don’t want to make different or specific games for specific types of disabilities, and I just want to make fun games that happen to have all the options people with disabilities look for. Nobody has that ideology in the game industry right now.”
Ryan uses his feet as his hands, and does so remarkably well.
Gamertag: LinaOkamiHime
Preferred System: All
Favorite Video Game: Final Fantasy
Favorite Video Game Character: Alphinaud Leveilleur (Final Fantasy)
Despite losing, Jay Goines, had an amazing time competing in her first Mario Party tournament at Arcade Legacy.
At the age of 7, Goines began playing Nintendo’s with her sister.
“It was kind of like this weird tradition that we started,” Goines said. “My sister and I, after getting home from school and finishing our homework, we would spend hours linking our Game Boys and playing.”
Goines is into vintage video games so Arcade Legacy is one of her favorite places in Cincinnati.
“I usually go, probably four to five times a week when I’m not busy,” Goines said. “When I have a lot of stuff going on, I try to go at least once or twice a week.”
Goines says that continuing to play there and compete in the tournaments is not about the prizes or winning, but about socializing and forming new friendships.
“I’ve had the best time with my friends there,” Goines said. “There are other frequent people that go, that I also like to touch base with. And the employees are so nice. It’s just one of the best places.”
Preferred System: Xbox
Favorite Video Game: Halo
Favorite Video Game Character: Solid Snake (Metal Gear)
Nicholas Zeman played games religiously when he was a kid for hours at a time. When he was in college, Zeman became interested in 3D features.
“3D games were just starting to become known,” Zeman said. “It was so cool, I’d never seen, never been able to manipulate anything like that. So I said that’s what I want to do with my life. I moved to California and got a job, working with Sony doing 3D game development. I started from there and became hooked.”
Now he makes video games and teaches students about animation and gaming.
“People want to make apps and games, and talk about the ways they are going to do it but when it really get to the guts of development, I’d say about 5 percent of people who are enthusiastic about it can actual do it,” Zeman said. “Making games and playing games are not the same thing.”
Professor Zeman uses his years of experience in the video game industry, to teach students the fundamentals of game design and devolopment.
Gamertag: Iflex26
Preferred System: Playstation 4 (PS4)
Favorite Video Game: Fallout 4
Favorite Video Game Character: Master Chief John-117 (Halo)
When Alexis Pulos was in college he played video games a lot, especially Halo. It was those late nights, trying to complete a new mission, where he figured out what he wanted to do the rest of his life.
“But it’s, you know, fundamental to being a college student,” Pulos said.
Pulos, now teaches a Games and Culture class at NKU, and plays video games occasionally.
“Games function as a cultural ratchet,” Pulos said. “The games that we play reflect society and society is reflected in the games that we play. Those are a tool to help move us forward. They are even often seen as pre linguistic; we play games according to rules, structures and actions in a focused attention.”
Zynga, one of the scholars the class discusses, introduces a magic circle where people can participate in games and are freed from other contexts.
“It’s that active playing in a game, Zynga is like a magic circle where we can focus solely on gaming,” Pulos said. “Games in that sense are a way to play out culture. They’re fundamental to the structuring of society.”
Professor Zeman teaches a multitude of diffrent classes, ranging from web design to 3D modeling.
Board & card games help teach the fundamentals of all game creation.