Retro Games at St Mary in the Castle

St Mary in the Castle held a Retro Games Night that featured many classic consoles and games. Vanessa Alves went along with friends and family.

As I was searching for a surprise birthday gift for my partner, I happened to click on St Mary in the Castle just to see if by any chance they might have something going on. I am glad I did. The event was Retro Games Night and I knew that he would love it. I organised a little group of us to attend on Thursday 28 November.

I must confess that I am not much of a serious gamer and I proved that when I participated in a knockout tournament on Mario Kart on a giant screen. I lost…badly, partly because I was looking at the wrong screen! But there were plenty of other games on offer, like a ping pong table, Jenga and foosball that I could fully enjoy.

Tekken tournament on the giant screen.

Our group moved happily from game to game, console to console. There was a game cube, gameboys, PS1, Segamega Drive, Nintendo 64 just to name a few. It was a lovely evening spent reminiscing about our childhoods and what these games meant to all of us in way or another. It was also lovely to see children at this event, enjoying these classic games and it was clear that everyone who attended was there for the social aspect of gaming as well.

I asked one of the event organisers, Thom Kofoed, about how it all came about.

“We started Three Amigas last year after realising we each had such brilliant memories about certain consoles from our childhood and teen years, and really wanted to re-live that somehow. We all still had the consoles tucked away somewhere (a Sega Mega Drive, Playstations 1 and 2, Snes, N64, Nintendo Game Cube, Gameboy, Nintende DS) and thought that St Mary in the Castle was a great venue to host a retro games night.

“We’ve just had our fourth night and it’s been honestly heart-warming to see so many people of different ages (from six years old to people in their seventies) enjoying the games and coming together to have a great time. We have a knock-out tournament on the big cinema screen at St Mary in the Castle (the biggest in Hastings!) and everybody gets involved, cheering each other on. It’s honestly just a really lovely, positive night that we’re hoping will get bigger and bigger.”

The next evening is Friday January 31 and tickets are on sale here. They cost £5 per person, so it was a really good birthday experience gift that was kind on my bank account. I have already booked our tickets for the next one!

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