Members of Downtown Rumble explore their new meeting space
Claire Donnan, Siobhan Rollo, Tyler Reis-Sanford, Ben Seabrook
To commemorate Downtown Rumble’s success, we invite you to play our video game, designed by Claire Donnan
Tucked into the basement of an unassuming red brick building in ByWard Market lies the home of Ottawa’s passionate gaming community. Dozens of young adults sit around monitors and screens, balancing consoles in their laps and mashing buttons with reckless abandon.
It’s bedlam, with the shouts and cheers of players bouncing around the room. Tables and chairs splay out, with a wall of tabletop games in the corner. A wall of memes advertises this new, underground space – a space specifically made with this community in mind.
A full bar sits as the crown jewel in the centre of the room. Kitted out and manned by one bartender who slides from end to end, pouring pints and shooting the breeze with regulars.
Perhaps the most unusual addition to this room is a small corner area, tucked away from the rest of the space. Here, Downtown Rumble organizer Alexander Guidone mans his microphone, hosting another weekly gaming get-together here at Level One Game Pub. Only this week, they’re christening this brand new space.
No longer do the members have to share the upstairs bar.
Slinging drinks behind the bar, Dante McKeon was working his very first shift in the basement space. While the space had opened the previous week, this was the first time TKO Tuesdays, their weekly fighting game event, was held there.
The basement, which used to be a different bar, had been under construction for over a year. McKeon was excited to welcome the gamers into the basement as hosting them there had initially been his idea.
“It was my idea to do it here in the downstairs space,” he said. “Think of it more as we’re hosting them. I had the idea of ‘Oh, we should do fighting games at this bar,’ and then it turns out there’s already a really big group already doing it that were looking for a space, so it worked out perfectly.”
At the time he suggested it, Downtown Rumble was already looking for a space to hold weekly meetups. The combination of worlds was perfect.
The fighting game players kept McKeon busy all night. When he wasn’t pouring pints and garnishing cocktails, he could be found chatting with familiar faces, bussing drinks back and forth and playing a game or two with patrons.
McKeon himself is also fond of fighting games. While he hasn’t been competing as much lately, he says he still loves to watch them and enjoys hosting the Downtown Rumble players.
TKO Tuesdays have been going on for longer than this new space has been around. The event exists to allow local gamers to get together and duke it out over fries and a pint of beer. While the featured game ranges from Soul Caliber to Street Fighter, Downtown Rumble elected to break in the new space with a Tekken tournament. Tekken wasn’t the only game underway, however, as Under Night 2 and Street Fighter could be seen on other monitors.
At the end of the day, McKeon is excited to see how the space could increase turnout at TKO Tuesdays.
“I think that now that people know about the space, I’m expecting more and more people,” said McKeon. “I can honestly tell you I know everyone here personally, so whenever someone new comes in it’s always cool, it’s always something new.”
Before long, McKeon’s services were needed again, and he set off to take care of another patron.
McKeon, along with the rest of the Level One Game Pub staff, have received a benefit with this new space for Downtown Rumble. No longer do they have to worry about the bar being overcrowded with gamers, in addition to the rest of the customers visiting just to get a few drinks. They now have a larger capacity with space for everybody to enjoy themselves.
The expansion means more space for all, as the workers in the upstairs bar roam around freely, giving everyone their drinks more effectively. There is still lots to do in that area, with video games for customers to try their hand at and books all around.
The sounds of iconic fighting games, including Street Fighter and Tekken, can be heard from down below, along with the noise of joy from gamers.
Those working at the bar enjoy the presence of the Downtown Rumble group, bringing a sense of positivity into the space. One of these employees is a server by the name of Shannon Belanger, who is happy that their business is being used for this kind of experience.
“They’re always great to have,” Belanger said. “I know we like having them around.”
From the staff’s perspective, the gamers seem to be loving the new space. They are very happy with it, making it a great experience for everyone involved.
Belanger is unsure of whose idea it was to move the club to the basement area- the answer being McKeon- but she gave him credit.
According to Belanger, the pub got pretty cramped before the renovations were made, barely able to fit everyone. She likes it more now that the club has their own space, making it more accessible.
Alexander Guidone holds the title of the club’s head organizer. He is also a regular host of the club’s competitive stream, which is recorded live every time the club gets together.
As McKeon previously mentioned, the decision to move Downtown Rumble to the basement was his idea. However, the basement renovation opportunity was a surprise development.
“I know that initially, there was a bar under here called the Dragon Fang Tower or Dragon’s Fang. I’ve never been, they were down here for a while. A few months ago, they scattered. And ever since that, Level One has kinda had more full control over the building and renovating the space,” said Guidone. “Luckily the sweet people that we have… they work for Tuesday because they want to hang out with us, and they’ve been really venturing and making sure that this space became ours when they realized there’s gonna be a space… I have nothing else to say except that I’m extremely grateful.”
Guidone spends most nights popping between the club’s livestream, talking with fellow club members, and trying to play a round himself.
“Ever since pretty much I moved to Ottawa two and a half years ago… this is something that I wanted to be more involved in,” he said. “Fighting games just [have] the culture that people kind of meet up in person. It’s the best way to go about that. And I just love that. I fell in love with both concepts. Fighting games kind of became a thing that I grew to love.”
When Guidone takes his first break of the night, he is bombarded by fellow club members trying to grab a game with him.
Kieran Steeves stood behind two competitors, bent over watching with bated breath at the match going on before him. With a drink in his hand, an arm around his friend and a smile plastered to his face, he let out a cry of anguish as the fight came to an end.
”Things can get pretty intense down here,” said Steeves. “There’s reputation on the line.”
Steeves is one of the many gamers who come to Level One for their weekly TKO fight nights. He’s a long-time fighting game enthusiast, and TKO Tuesday is home to the best of the best. Steeves says that TKO Tuesday regularly has brackets of more than 50 fighters, and this particular Tuesday boasts a full bracket of 64 contestants looking to fight their way to the top.
”A lot of guys are getting ready for Frosty’s (short for Frosty Faustings, a yearly high-level competition),” said Steeves. “There’s all these big tournaments, our guys usually do pretty well. A few guys have gotten fifth, sixth at some big ones. Some guys have even gone to EVO.”
EVO, or Evolution Championship Series, is considered the biggest fighting game tournament in the world and is something of a badge of honour among fighting game competitors. EVO attracts thousands of players, and the 2024 tournament had a prize pool of over $200,000.
“I wouldn’t say I’m at that level,” said Steeves. “It’s more about getting to play with my friends and having a good time.”
Sometimes a friend is just the thing to get people invested in a community. When that fails, an enemy might be even better.
”Everyone has a bracket demon,” said Zach St. Pierre, who goes by his Gamertag SpookyMemes. “It’s someone who no matter what you can’t get past. You can be having a great tournament, you can beat someone who is one of the best there, but then there’s just this one person, maybe they spam a character you hate, or like, maybe they just have your number. You’re praying you don’t have to face them.”
He shrugs.
”They’re just your bracket demon.”
As the night continues, friends, bracket demons and everyone in between get their chance at a round or two of gaming. There’s laughter, cries of anguish, and more than raucous chant echoing through the low ceilings of the new space. Steeves sits down to a steaming plate of poutine, perfectly melted cheese curds and hot gravy on fries paired with a cold beer to make a perfect combo for a night of gaming. After another chant breaks out he smiles and says with a knowing nod,
“We like to have fun here.”
The plans for the basement expansion had been a hot topic amongst club members for a while, with long-time member of Downtown Rumble Cameron Little mentioning that the initial anticipated date was November 2023.
“We would reach capacity of the space that was upstairs often, so they had been hoping that once the space was renovated we could come down here,” he said. “As a result of our growth… it’s a suitable expansion.”
For Little, the basement provides immediate benefits, since more space allows for more playing capabilities.
“This space in particular [has] way more setups and stuff. On a night where we were really crowded upstairs, there was not a ton of room to walk around,” he said.
The basement space provides members with more chances to create proper gaming set-ups, including consoles, PCs and easy ways to wire multiple sets of controllers. While the upstairs area is occupied by an organized seating area, the basement provides more opportunities to move and make space for what the club needs on any given night.
With the initial launch of the downstairs space being a success, Downtown Rumble looks to continue to grow with the space they’ve been given.
For Luc Gaudet, a member of Downtown Rumble since 2021, the basement expansion means that he’s able to attend more group events.
“The development, it’s super exciting because I moved [apartments] very close. It’s actually a few blocks out,” said Gaudet. “I couldn’t come upstairs all the time because it was too busy. So a room like this, well, it’s huge because more people can come in.”
Gaudet predicts that the larger basement space will allow for better events and more participants.
“For me, it means more engagement for future events as well, like Capital City Clash, Tidal Waves, Perfect Storm,” said Gaudet. “Sometimes it can be hard for people to keep up with it because they might not be able to go to every weekly meetup… but a big room like this in the basement, it’s great for a gathering place.”
Capital City Clash, Tidal Waves and Perfect Storm are all annual fighting game events that pair up gamers from across the globe to prove their skills.
On top of this, he also says that the comfort and stability of the new space will encourage regular participants.
“People are interested in [fighting games] and having a regular meetup space where everyone is welcome and it’s nice, it’s cozy,” said Gaudet. “It’s just been growth and growth only.”
The club continues to meet on a regular basis on top of hosting seasonal events.
“We have a big event coming up in February, The Perfect Storm,” said Gaudet.
The Perfect Storm, otherwise referred to as simply “Perfect Storm” is an annual e-sports event for fighting games.
At the end of a successful first night, McKeon gets in on the action and plays a couple of board games from his post behind the bar. Placing tiles on his game board for another round of So Clover! he reflects on how to combine the words on each side.
His friends and girlfriend are sitting at a table across the room, so he quickly darts over, drops off his board, and returns to his post to serve players. It’s after 10 p.m., but the room is still as full as ever, and the bar is anything but closed.
Organizers and players get beers together, laughing and sharing stories. They look ahead to upcoming competitions and events, cheering on and razzing their friends.
As the hours tick on, most players make no moves to leave their new space. While the stream ends and the kitchen closes, players order glasses of water and shuffle around, playing against other friends. This is a far cry from the upstairs area, which is looking more spacious by the minute
Despite it being a Tuesday night, nobody is in any sort of rush to go anywhere. After all, they don’t want to leave their new space any time soon.
These Downtown Rumble participants already can’t wait until next Tuesday.
