Every other Friday, a group of students meet in the science building to battle each other. The students meet “wiikendly” in room 200 to have fun and fellowship while playing Super Smash Brothers for Wii.
Senior Barrett Montgomery created the group and organizes the semi-monthly meetings. Montgomery said he designed the group to give students the opportunity to hang out and get better at Smash Brothers.
“We hope everybody can come and enjoy it and just hang out, because it’s one of our integral goals of the thing is not just to play Smash Brothers, but also to fellowship with one another while we do it,” Montgomery said. “We don’t have devos and services and stuff, but we’re trying to maintain a good atmosphere.”
Along with the meetings on campus, Montgomery also schedules tournaments in Little Rock that give Harding students the chance to compete with players outside of Searcy.
“A few of us are interested in playing on a competitive level,” Montgomery said. “We go to tournaments around the state, but most of us come to just hang out and play Smash Brothers.”
Since the group’s creation, attendance has been anywhere from 20-50 people per meeting. According to Montgomery, even people who have never played Smash Brothers before are welcome.
“Everyone there is perfectly willing to teach if you want to learn,” Montgomery said.
Senior Patrick Waites helps Montgomery organize and judge events and help set up by lending consoles and controllers and designing posters for tournaments. Waites said the group occasionally holds tournaments to raise money for good causes.
“We have had two tournaments and, knowing Barrett, we will have more,” Waites said. “We have these tournaments to help purchase Bibles for a mission group, which Barrett is a part of, that gives them to kids in Ukraine.”
If you would like to challenge experienced players to a game, or just want to hang out and chill on a Friday night, Montgomery encourages everyone to come to the science building for the next meeting on Nov. 22 from 5 p.m. to 12 a.m.
“The first thing that people say when I invite them is ‘Oh, I’m not very good,’ then I have to explain that we just want everyone to come and hang out,” Montgomery said. “So I think the biggest thing is that we would like for people to understand that it’s a friendly, welcoming, fun environment and you don’t have to be skilled at all to play.”
