Students Develop their Skills at Gaming Club

Two Gaming Club members play Pokemon on Nov. 28. (Photo Credit/ Edwin Ryan)

Many teenagers have seen the critically acclaimed Netflix series, Stranger Things. In the series, the characters play Dungeons and Dragons, a game in which they can develop skills they use in events throughout the series. Similarly, the students in Walpole Gaming Club play many challenging games and compete against each other, leading to the development of skills they can use in real-life situations.

“I can use the situations I face in Warhammer to develop problem solving techniques,” sophomore Andrew Kirton said.

Gaming Club meets every Wednesday for about an hour and a half in Gabriel Bakale’s room. This is Bakale’s third year running the club, which this year consists of about eight students. Board and card games are the most popular because they tend to be the most competitive and challenging. The students also really enjoy games involving magic. Currently, the club is in the midst of a game called Warhammer. In the game, students create warriors and try to defeat their opponents’ warriors. The game consists of at least two players and one mediator or leader who runs the game.

“My job is to give them a story and let them go through it and give them a challenge to complete the game,” said senior Collin Hay, the leader of the game.

Hay has jurisdiction over what the players can and can not do to try to eliminate each other. The game has extended over multiple weeks because of its competitiveness the students’ enthusiasm in the game. Warhammer is one of the more popular games because it allows the students to have more control of who they are, giving them more room for creativity. The creativity, competition, and challenges the students face in the games is not the only reason the students joined the club. The club is obviously a tight-knit group of kids who just have fun being around one another.

“I enjoy doing it because I have a lot of friends there,” Kirton said.