The Save Spot

The Origins of GAUGE

As we explained in a brief introduction, The Save Spot came about as a fun way for three college roommates to keep in touch and find time for gaming in our busy lives.  It’s been years since our shared experience at Gettysburg College, a small school in Pennsylvania, and we now live far apart – one of us in the East, one in the Midwest, and one on the West coast of the US.  Remarkably, we’ve kept in touch over the intervening years and had a lot of fun in the process.  Recently, we’ve made it a priority to get together for an extended weekend once or twice a year for a concentrated dose of video games, movies, great food, and adult beverages.  As this extended-weekend get-together became a tradition, we gave it a name – GAUGE. 

Our Gettysburg Alumni Ultimate Gaming and Entertainment events (Nerdy acronym?  Check!) are a way that we make time for friends and for games.  A typical day in GAUGE involves video games interrupted only for food and movies (and, grudgingly, sleep!)  Since we’re all way too busy to enjoy gaming binges like this in our ‘regular’ lives, GAUGE gives us something fun to look forward to.  It’s also a lot of fun to plan for and to look back on afterwards (What games should we play?  Old-school, portable, shooter, rpg?  What movies and food?  Remember how we skillfully utilized three televisions last year to meet as many of our gaming goals as possible?)  Basically, it’s just a whole lot of fun!

In our case, GAUGE has always meant travel for two of us and recently it has meant long plane trips (we used to live closer together).  There are a lot of ways we could make time for online gaming together, but being all in the same place really opens up a lot of possibilities: co-op games or retro games that you can’t play online, the shared experience that includes the movies, food and drink, and a chance to catch up in person.  If you can make time to get together in person with your gaming buddies, we highly recommend it!

We’re in the process of preparing for GAUGE VII right now, actually, having set aside a five-day weekend around Memorial Day for this year’s event.  So, expect to be seeing more details about our plans in the coming weeks!  First, we’ll offer some more details on past events: what has made for a successful GAUGE event, and some of the innovations in recent events that have been especially fun.  So, keep an eye on The Save Spot for more information to follow.  Do you have a gaming tradition with your friends?  If so, tell us about it in the comments!