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Thursday, March 28
The Indiana Daily Student

Bear's Place hosts Mario Kart game night

Patrick Donaldson, Ivy Tech student and Bloomington resident, competes with players from other groups during a video game tournament at Bear's Place. He said he comes to play for the "glory of winning."

Cords dangle from controllers as players shift in their seats. They stare intently at a screen in front of them, eyes locked on target. Tonight, they’re playing Mario Kart. But not the most recent version; they’re playing Mario Kart on a Nintendo 64.

Kris “Krispy” Popplewell said he brings his N-64 collection of consoles and games to Bear’s Place every two weeks for tournaments in the back room. They change each week. Next week, players will be competing against each other in the original Super Smash Brothers.

Popplewell said the game nights draw crowds so large that it’s hard to push through the people packed into the room.

“This place gets so loud for a game that started 20 years ago,” he said.

Poppelwell started the game nights back in September. He said he used to be really good at both of them.

“I used to run Ubercon, a sister convention of GenCon — the gaming convention — in Indianapolis,” Popplewell said. “I used to compete at the different tournaments around.”

Popplewell runs his game nights in a tournament style as well. David Johnson, a friend of Popplewell’s, is in charge of running a bracket that eliminates players down to the final winner.

“Krispy makes sure everyone comes in, I make sure everyone leaves happy,” Johnson said.

Johnson said there were a lot of regulars, but they are always trying to recruit new people.

Patrick Donalds said he’s been coming since he heard about it in January and he and his three friends came in first, second and third place in the last tournament.

“I’m good at Super Smash Brothers,” Donalds said. “I really like meeting people that aren’t as good as us and then getting them on our level. There’s something about that.”

Although the room fills with more than 100 people regularly, not all of them are players. Johnson said each group of players comes with a following of cheerleaders.

“They always have an entourage,” Johnson said.

Popplewell said he loved hosting the tournaments.

“This is the only tournament where we encourage drinking and driving,” Popplewell said.

Johnson said he felt the same.

“I remember when we got back from winter break, you could hardly push through the people,” Johnson said. “You see that, and that’s like why you do this.”

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