The winter 2023 term is nearing its end, with students preparing for final tests and projects; this has not stopped SOU’s Epic Events from putting on social events for students to come and attend to have a fun social gathering before a quiet week and finals week.
On Thursday, March 2nd, Epic hosted Mario Kart Game Night from 5:30 PM to 8:00 PM in the Stevenson Union’s game room in room 330. Epic had used all three of the TVs in the room along with both the Nintendo Switch and Wii in the Stevenson Union’s game room; an epic staff member had even brought their Switch so that way all three TVs had a console hooked up to it. The Wii was ready to play Mario Kart 8, and the Switch, which belonged to an Epic staff member, was set up to play Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. In contrast, the Stevenson Union’s game room Switch was set up not to play a Mario Kart game but for attendees to play Super Smash Bros Ultimate. Of course, there are other games in the game room, such as the ping pong and pool tables, and the recently added arcade games like Star War Pinball, NBA Jam, NFL Blitz, and the AtGames Legends Ultimate arcade cabinet.
After all the gaming ended, there was a prize ceremony for the winners who won in the Grand Prix mode in either of the Mario Kart games. Each winner received a small Mario figure (purchased from Amazon); there were about a couple dozen of them, leaving plenty of opportunities to win one of the figures. In addition, each win let you pick which unclaimed figure you wanted, with a cap of roughly three wins before Epic cut you off from taking another. Though at the night’s end, all unclaimed figures became party favors for anyone who wanted one.
They used a bracket system to keep things fair and in order, allowing players to rotate in and out. You had to sign up for which game you wanted to play and had to wait your turn. Each rotation of players played on Mario Kart’s Grand Prix mode, a series of four races on four different tracks, so the sooner you arrived, the less wait you had to deal with to play.
Epic and SOU catering provided the event with pizza, drinks, and a lovely dining area.
We spoke with the staff member of Epic who organized the event, Kent, and how this all came together. Kent had pitched this event during the late fall term, back during meetings where Epic staff members were pitching events to host to each other. The Mario Kart, game night pitch, had been one of the chosen pitches, and so after a few weeks of planning and preparing, the Mario Kart game night came and went.
As a whole, this event was a success for Epic, roughly 25 people showed up, which met the estimates they had internally for attendance. It was a fun night overall for those that wanted to come together and play Mario Kart with fellow SOU students just before we all had to deal with finals.
