Carleton College hosted its annual Game Night on Thursday, May 28, an event at the Cave where visitors enjoyed a variety of games with friends while also blowing off some steam during the final few weeks of spring term. In the past, the event was run solely by Carleton College’s Super Smash Bros. Club, but this year, the club hosted the event alongside the Splatoon Club. Both groups revolve around video games released by Japanese gaming giant Nintendo that can be enjoyed competitively and casually, but the two clubs have different histories at Carleton.
The Super Smash Bros. series debuted in 1999 on the Nintendo 64, one of the earliest 3D video game consoles. The series was a pioneer in platform fighting games and it took many creative liberties compared to traditional fighting games like Street Fighter. Each installment in the Super Smash Bros. series has been directed by Masahiro Sakurai (fun fact: Also the creator of Kirby), and the series stands out particularly because of its roster. Rather than using original characters, the series took pre-existing video game characters and pitted them against each other. Initially, Super Smash Bros. had 12 characters from 10 distinct Nintendo video game series;: Across Super Smash Bros., Super Smash Bros. Melee, Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Super Smash Bros. for 3DS/Wii U and, the most recent entry, Super Smash Bros. Ultimately the series has 89 fighters from 40 series.
The Carleton Super Smash Bros. Club was founded in 2013 and initially specialized in older installments from the series. When Super Smash Bros. Ultimate was released in 2018, the club split into two separate groups. One specialized in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate and the other specialized in Super Smash Bros. Melee (one of the most popular competitive installments). This latter branch, however, fizzled out, leaving only the Super Smash Bros. Ultimate group to steer the club’s future.
The current president of the club, Carlos Trejo ’26, said “The biggest challenge I’ve faced in leading the Smash Bros. club is figuring out the kind of game scene the club should represent. Obviously, there’s the existence of Esports, and, in fact, there are colleges that run their own competitive Smash Bros. teams and do the things that any competitive sports team would do.”
“I’ve always prioritized the casual, noncommittal aspect of the game,” Trejo continued. “Especially since Carleton does not really have a big video game scene, I’ve always aimed to make Smash Bros. more inclusive for people who barely know anything about the game or about gaming generally.”
Club meetings welcome both casual and competitive gameplay, with multiple stations for each play style.
The club has hosted multiple events with external organizations. A common collaborator is the St. Olaf Video Game Club, a group which represents multiple video games rather than a specific game.
“We’ve had a good relationship with the video gaming community at St. Olaf,” Trejo said. “Occasionally, some of their members will even drive over to our campus to participate in our weekly meetings. We even collaborated on a first-ever crew battle event last term between Carleton and St. Olaf students.”
The Super Smash Bros. club often helps organize Game Night.
“We’ve hosted a Game Night every year that I’ve been at Carleton, and compared to my first year, we try to cast a wide net when it comes to choosing Nintendo games to feature,” Trejo said.
This year, however, the Super Smash Bros. Club did not organize the event alone; instead, they are partnered with the Splatoon Club.
Splatoon is a more recent video game series produced by Nintendo. It features kids who can turn into squids and fight with weapons holding ink-like ammo. It was created under Nintendo EPD Production Group No. 5, with the first entry releasing in 2015 on the Wii U. The series is a competitive shooter and features multiple modes of gameplay. The most notable mode is Turf War, where the goal is to cover as much of the map with your team’s color. The series has spawned three entries, with two additional Downloadable Content (DLC) packs that expand upon the franchise’s deep lore.
“This group was truly a happy accident,” said Asa Grumdahl ’28, Splatoon Club’s current leader. “The origins are that one of the friends I met here and I eventually realized that we both really liked Splatoon.”
Grumdahl continued, “Typical meetings comprise [of] every team member bringing their [gaming] setups out to the CMC (Center for Mathematics and Computing), which has some of the only spaces on campus with lots of monitors in the same place. We connect our setups to the monitors and play games for several hours. The tone can vary between a more serious competitive angle [and] more laid-back and relaxed.”
Cruz Cortez ’28, a member of the Splatoon Club, expanded on this club experience. “We always begin with the intent to practice seriously, but as the night progresses, we always lose sight of that and simply have fun playing the game,” Cortez said.
The club is still planning future events. “In terms of other events the team will pursue, there’s a bimonthly LAN (local access network) tournament hosted in the Twin Cities that I try to get us to attend when we can, and there’s a collegiate league (the Collegiate Cephalopod Association) that we play most events from,” Grumdahl said.
The tradition of Game Night allows for a mix of video games, something that isn’t usually the case. As Grumdahl discussed, “I think the lack of a general ‘video game club’ on this campus makes sense, as it would be reductive, somewhat akin to the proposition of a ‘music club’ ignoring the existence of an entire music department.”
Even so, Grumdahl said, “I’d find it interesting if some sort of book club for video games existed.” Trejo similarly added, “I guess I would really want an open-ended interest club where people get to talk about cool games they’re into! I would also want a space for people to talk about cool video game music they are into, as I feel that not enough people appreciate the high quality of video game OSTs [Original Soundtracks].”
As it stands, the two clubs have provided great bonding experiences for students. As Cortez said, “The late nights studying together and playing games in our meeting room have been a nice escape from academic pressures. The Splatoon team has also become a great little friend group.”
This expressed interest alongside the expansion of game night indicates a vibrant future for video games on Carleton’s campus.