Level Up

Brown County Library is set to revive Level Up: A Celebration of Video Games.

On Saturday, Feb. 21, attendees will be able to kick back and play games on a variety of both old and new consoles, alongside a series of various activities for kids and adults.

Youth Services Manager Katie Guzek commented on the process of putting the event together.

“We’ve held it here in the past, last in 2020 right before everything shut down. We tried to run it a few times since then, but unfortunately we were very unlucky with the weather,” she said.

Some might be quick to question the connection between the library and video games, however Guzek shared her insight on why gaming.

“It’s only growing in popularity and pop culture, we wanted to continue to connect with gamers and show them the resources the library has to offer. We also wanted to encourage bringing the community together and have people learn something new from that experience,” she said.

Although countless games have based themselves on alternate worlds or exaggerated realities, ironically the biggest challenge the celebration faced was the physical limitations of our world.

“Since we’ve had to keep canceling in past years, making sure we had an event prepped to go was most important,” Guzek said. “Obviously we can’t control the weather, however one of the biggest challenges is finding all these great consoles. We’re very thankful to have Game Trade help supply all the consoles for the event.”

Alongside Game Trade’s Support, Level Up is also sponsored by the local non-profit Friends of the Brown County Library.

“This event wouldn’t be possible without either of them. I think it’s just really great to see all these people with that interest. We hold Pop Con every year and it’s overall somewhat similar, but being able to see the parents who enjoy gaming and see them bring their kids, there’s a lot of intergenerational joy with each other,” Guzek said.

In addition to the various video games available, the library will also lead a series of special events for all ages.

“We have The Weird, Wild, Wonderful Technology of Pokémon, a live edition of the Serious Fun podcast with UW-Green Bay professor Bryan Carr where he discusses how the games pushed certain technologies and created odd experiments. That’s 11:30 a.m. There’s also trivia starting at 1p.m.,” Guzek added.

One particular event Guzek highlighted was the Adopt-a-Pokémon — an art station set up for kids to decorate miniature monsters and even bring home an adoption certificate.

Guzek said she hopes that people ultimately remember the community that third spaces like the library provide.

Visit the Brown County Library website to see the full schedule at browncountylibrary.org or by calling (920) 448-4400.