A first person report by Nicholas Sparkman an ambassador and spokesperson of Gamers.Online.
A gamers experience
Last week I had the privilege of competing in Gamers.Online first BGA tournament hosted by the Spain-based YouTube channel RDJ. While I’m still licking my wounds a bit after only making it to second place, I did want to share my experience with you all and hope that this tournament brings to light a number of things we can improve on to make Gamers.Online tournaments more accessible and fun internationally.
The tournament from joining to finishing
How to join the Gamers.Online MLEM Tournament
First and foremost is the way that you enter into a tournament. You search for “Open Matches” on G.O and it will show you any games or tournaments that are upcoming or looking for players. From there, on the tournament’s dashboard, you can see the host, the number of players in the tournament, and the number of seats available.
For this particular tournament, it required me to sign up for the Gamers.Online event, then go to the Board Game Arena event, and join RDJ’s Discord.
The last part was a little nerve-racking being one (if not the only) U.S. based person in their channel who doesn’t speak Spanish. Those nerves were relieved when RDJ responded to me in English and assured me that I would be ready to go for the tournament though.
The tournament experience
On game day, this did pose a bit of an issue since the first two matches I was assigned had players that didn’t show. I wasn’t sure if they were late, got busy, or if I would be waiting indefinitely. Luckily, BGA picked up on it and advanced me into the third round automatically (I promise, I did want to play those matches) so I was left to watch the other matches.
It’s important to note that MLEM: Space Agency is the kind of game that plays very differently based on the player count. Even after only playing one game for practice, I realized that at a two-player count, it was very important to get my cats on the board as quickly as possible to end the game before any big moves could be made. I noticed other players were doing their best to get their cats higher on the board which told me that my suspicions about the game were correct.
I took that strategy into my first game and it paid off, leading me into the final. On my second to last turn in the final, I had everything going for me and thought that my parachute cat would let me land even if the ship crashed, and then the ship crashed and I lost my cat… Still not sure what the issue was there, but it lost me the game. You can see the video of my final moments on the G.O Instagram and TikTok… Needless to say, I was a little hurt that I lost the game by ONE POINT
And the winner is
What can be improved:
Communication: I’ve thought a lot about this over the past couple of days. The main thing I feel could be improved on is communication during the event. Because it is an international platform, I think it’s important to create a place where all the participants can converse and meet during/before the event. Obviously, translation programs would be helpful as well, but even a monitored Discord server for the event would make things a bit easier in terms of communicating. A G.O Discord or in-app group messaging for each event would be the simplest solution to me. (The G.O. Discord server will be tuned for the next event!)
In-App Brackets: BGA offers real-time looks at the bracket of the tournaments which is a really fun and interesting feature. Eventually, I think it would be amazing to see something similar on Gamers.Online for tournaments that are not on BGA. Personally, I would love to host a multi-round/day tournament of Dune: Imperium but as of right now, will have to make the brackets myself and figure out how to monitor people who don’t show up for their matches. Something in the app to help track this would be amazing! (The tournament mode is in development 🙂 )
Requirement Links: For ease of use, I would love to see hyperlinks present in the places that are required for me to participate. Obviously, Gamers.Online isn’t required if you’re finding it there, but having accessible links to the Discord server, BGA server, etc. would be super useful in a specified “Requirements” section of the tournament’s dashboard. (The functionality is available, but currently threatened by a mean bug…)
Prizes Section: This tournament offered some prizes for the winners that included some Amazon Gift Cards. I don’t recall seeing anything on the tournament page relating to prizes, but I think it could be a wonderful addition so people know what they’re competing for! (Are part of the tournament mode)
Regardless of winning or losing, it was nice to share the experience with people who I knew were outside of my area and country. I think the best part about Gamers.Online is that it really is a way to make genuine connections over shared experiences like this tournament. I immediately sent a friend request to the winner of the tournament and know that if I ever want a rematch I can reach out even if we don’t speak the same language. I think that having a centralized platform that unites all of the ways we enjoy gaming is a really unique and special thing. I’m excited to compete again, and hope to see you all there!
We’re all gamers here! Happy gaming!
-Nicholas Sparkman