Enigma is rolling nat 20 in community and fun.
As a social and board game club, Enigma at UCLA opens its party to anyone looking to bond over niche and non-mainstream interests, said club president Kevin Nguyen. From casual gaming nights to Dungeons & Dragons campaigns in Enigma West Marches to science fiction and fantasy discussions in the book club, there is a little something for everyone, and more so for people who are excited to pick up new hobbies, said the fourth-year business economics, mathematics of computation and statistics and data science student.
“This campus can’t have every possible niche interest club available,” Nguyen said. “Sometimes we don’t even know what kind of interests we do like until we’re exposed to them … Part of the biggest experience of UCLA in general is learning new things, exploring more about the world, exploring things you don’t know about yourself. And I think Enigma provides that.”
Sreyan Sarkar, one of Enigma’s vice presidents, said the club’s weekly events include structured game events on Tuesdays, open board game nights on Fridays and opportunities to explore Los Angeles with other members during Saturday socials. The third-year molecular, cell and developmental biology student said some of Enigma’s most popular quarterly events are zombie tag nights and a campuswide murder mystery called Murder in the Coop. Participants enjoy the interactive aspect of the experience, he said.
“In these events that we run, you’re physically moving around, you explore the campus, you find clues, you get physical things, you get to act out the character,” Sarkar said. “I think people have fun just breaking out of what they regularly do.”
Another ambitious project is the West Marches Dungeons & Dragons sessions, which feature one-shot sessions that build an overarching plot and culminate in a grand finale boss fight, Nguyen said. Sarkar said the herculean task of planning begins in June, as core planners for the year write lore, draw maps and build documents – all of which currently adds up to around 80 pages. Nguyen added that West Marches provides the unique opportunity to meet a diverse range of people, with 60 active players. That is a scale, he said, he was unable to witness while running solo campaigns.
In general, Enigma is committed to creating a welcoming and inclusive environment, said Kaiwen Xiao, an Enigma vice president and a third-year mathematics and philosophy student. They said past and current board members have extensively discussed the topic of inclusivity, pushing Enigma to become a queer-friendly space, in particular. Xiao added that the officer team has made a habit of putting their pronouns beside their roles in Enigma’s Discord server, as well as encouraging members to introduce themselves with their pronouns if comfortable during board game sessions.
“Whenever I’m discussing things in the Discord, I’m very open about my own queerness and discussing queer topics,” Xiao said. “I think having it be visible, loud, is a good way to get people who identify in a similar way to feel comfortable within the club.”
Nguyen said he finds an overlap between the students who gravitate toward Enigma and those who gravitate toward other video game and social clubs. He added that these spaces become less about the hobbies and more about the community formed throughout the journey of finding new hobbies.
“What drew me to Enigma was that there’s a lot of different events going on, and you don’t feel pressure to show up to any particular one of them,” Xiao said. “You can pick and choose the ones you enjoy. Over the summer, I did tabling for New Student Orientation, and when people hear about what we do, it’s like, ‘Wow, this is all the things I enjoy. These are my people.’”
Xiao, who is in charge of planning the club’s 40th anniversary celebration, said Enigma will host four days of events during the weekend of Martin Luther King Jr. Day in winter quarter. She said members can expect a session of zombie tag on Friday, a house party on Saturday and free time on Sunday and Monday for current members and Enigma alumni to make plans and catch up. They added that the emphasis will be on strengthening the connection between past and current generations of Enigma. The club is also planning a crowd-funded group dinner that facilitates this, Nguyen said.
“My favorite thing (about Enigma) is the people that I meet,” Nguyen said. “We have the anniversary where I’m meeting people (from) 20 years ago, and in 20 years I’ll meet the people who are at UCLA (then). I will always still be connected to this community in the world.”
Sarkar said the Enigma community feels captivating and close-knit, as people are not necessarily engaged with the same activities as a homogeneous whole; rather, friend circles formed around specific interests can coexist alongside a general sense of belonging within the club at large.
“You have people who like this specific board game, and they’re very close to one another,” said Sarkar. “But there is this feeling that because we are both a part of Enigma, we can both be friends.”
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