Host โข 2016-2020
Gamezilla began as a board game meetup at Izakaya Chuji Japanese Restaurant in the Melbourne CBD. The nights continually grew to capacity, expanding from one to two nights per week.
In 2016, I was brought in to launch another night dedicated to RPGs.
Thanks to its central location, the meetup attracted crowds of roleplayers of all experience levels, willing to run and play a huge variety of games.
I was there to find out which GMs had empty seats and introduce walk-in attendees to a table. When there was an overflow of players, I would run a game from a selection of my favourite one-shot scenarios.
In addition to the regular night, we hosted special events such as International Tabletop Day, Tal’Dorei Day, and a multi-week LARP-inspired Shadow of the Demon Lord campaign for 30 players.
While many of the groups we hosted were pre-formed, I was incredibly buoyed to see how many players met for the first time at Gamezilla and continued to play together week after week.
Although the event and Izakaya Chuji were forced to close in February of 2020, I suspect many of the bonds that formed over dice and donburi are still strong today.
