Games Club

[MikeFairbrother]

Hey all,

Hope you are well.

I'm wondering how many schools run an after school game club.
I've been asked to run one/volunteered. I'm looking forward to the potential of it, however don't have a clue what games to play.

Essentially, it doesn't "have" to be games. It's been listed as an 'ICT' club, although we're primarily focusing on games.

If you run a similar after school club, how do you run it? What games do you use (if it's a games club) and does it work well? Do you charge and what kind of PC spec are you running?

Our PC's are standard spec, nothing special - so if it was a games club, it can't be nothing too heavy...but I'd like it to be focused around a LAN if possible rather than just unblocking mini clip.

Potentially, I could run two sections...something like a 'games' group and a 'build your own pc' group.

Anyways, be nice to hear from other schools.

Cheers!

[ryxin]

I think that was so cool to join the game club at school. how i wish we have that club in our school.
The students who totally addicts in games, its their opportunity to join this club.

[R0M]

Aside from the isue of licencing, WarCraft 3 and DotA are very good. They don't take much power to run, are fairly easy to learn, are great at getting people working as a team ect... and if you start getting enough people you can have teams and a tournament. You might be supprised how many of the "popular" students turn up for DotA comps at lucnch/after school.

Although good luck finding money in any budget for 8+ copies of warcraft 3, you might have more luck asking if any kids have a key they no longer want that they can bring in

[mossj]

Use OpenSource games so licensing isn't a issue...

Also keep an eye out for the age restrictions of the games. As I'm fairly sure you could be charged with something criminal (Child Abuse under physcological circumstances?) if you show them games that are 'too old' for them. regardless of the parents saying its okay or not.

Games to recommend... Trackmania Nations(free), Age of Empires, and I believe some people use Americas Army(Free) as well. Also Total Annilation (that came out AGES ago is a freaking awsome LAN game!)

The very old Age of Empires is a good one because they have to search for games by ip's, so you can use this to teach them about the fundamentals of networking!

[3s-gtech]

We have Trackmania Nations Forever for this job, will even run on integrated Intel graphics going back to the 945 chipset (same as in most netbooks!) it's free, the kids love it, and it's non-violent/age restricted.