Want to make friends in San Francisco? Play 'Killer Queen,' the latest arcade bar craze

The fourth annual Killer Queen Get Drunk Clash, hosted by Brewcade in San Francisco on March 23-24, 2019. The fourth annual Killer Queen Get Drunk Clash, hosted by Brewcade in San Francisco on March 23-24, 2019. Photo: Michael Dunn Photo: Michael Dunn Image 1 of / 30 Caption Close Want to make friends in San Francisco? Play 'Killer Queen,' the latest arcade bar craze 1 / 30 Back to Gallery

"You're collecting berries," the guy next to me says as I approach a peculiar 10-player arcade machine. We're at Coin-Op, an arcade bar in SoMa. He's wearing an unassuming gray button-down shirt, and he blinks at me expectantly behind his wire-rimmed glasses.

"Got it," I respond dutifully. I have no idea what this primitive-sounding task means, but I'm up for the challenge.

It's a Monday night, just after 10 p.m. Aside from the clinking of glasses and Biggie's "Hypnotize" thumping in the background, the game room's atmosphere of blinking pinball machines and other bygone arcade classics is relatively calm. That is, except for where I'm standing. I look up at "Killer Queen" — the latest strategy game to dominate the arcade bar craze — projected onto the large TV screen above my head for all of Coin-Op to see. Sandwiched between two other mounted televisions playing Game 5 of the NBA Finals, I see myself on the screen next to my four other teammates; strangers who could eat me alive like one of Pac-Man's ubiquitous pellets.

Photo: Michael Dunn The fourth annual Killer Queen Get Drunk Clash, hosted by Brewcade...

Our faces lit up by the glow of the game, we all wear the same expression of anticipation. It's League Night, so they've set up a Twitch live stream so other Killer Queen enthusiasts can watch. I look down at the seemingly simple controls in front of me: a single button and a joystick. I am acutely aware of my lack of strategy — or ability, for that matter.

"It's easy, you'll get the hang of it," the guy next to me says reassuringly.

The screen counts down — 3, 2, 1 — and explodes with 8-bit action. I'm playing as a worker, or "the guy with the abs," as the players around me fondly refer to them. Soon, I will graduate to more laborious tasks, such as riding a giant snail god to my home base, or executing a triple-assassination of my opposing team's queen. These are among the three ways to win. There are seemingly countless ways to lose.

Yet, this video game didn't start out as a video game at all.

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Developer Nikita Mikros was up late one night watching a TV show about nature — think "Planet Earth" or National Geographic's "World's Deadliest" videos. He grew fascinated by the giant, restless African ants crawling across the screen.

"I thought it was interesting how they communicated without language. Using scent trails, they could be this destructive, but coordinated force," Mikros said.

Photo: Courtesy Of Killer Queen The "Killer Queen" characters.

Not long after, he texted Joshua DeBonis and said he had an idea for a game.

The two went back and forth for a bit. DeBonis was more interested in medieval themes, but Mikros was set on insects as characters. Eventually, they came up with the game's warriors, queens and workers. But their sights weren't set on the arcade realm just yet. Initially, Mikros said they wanted to create an outdoor social game that was "a spectacle," something that would be fun to watch. "Killer Queen" eventually found life as a 16-player field game with foam swords and balls, kind of like the real-life Quidditch tournaments that once took place on my college campus.

Mikros and DeBonis brought the game to "Come Out & Play," an outdoor street game festival in New York, and it was such a hit that the video game developers began to think it might work as an arcade game, too.

"I think because 'Killer Queen' was born out of that recipe, the social spectacle aspect carried over into the arcade experience," he said.

Since then, the game has garnered far more success than Mikros ever imagined.

"At first, I didn't even know arcades existed outside of Dave & Buster's anymore," he said.

Since 2013, they've sold about 140 cabinets to arcade bars and workspaces across the U.S. The Bay Area has more cabinets in use than in any other part of the country, with the Castro District's Brewcade leading the charge in 2014. Similarly, Emporium on Divisadero Street began to hold monthly tournaments.

Then, something weird began to happen, Mikros said. The game began to effectively change people's lives. People started getting together to play the game on a weekly basis. Relationships were formed. Friendships, too. Breakups were inevitable. So were hookups, and just about everything in between — including disagreements and disputes.

These have been a cause for concern within wide-ranging Killer Queen communities, which become worried that their scene is becoming a failure.

"I tell them, 'No. You're actually interacting with people on a human level. That's good,'" Mikros said. He's witnessed communities come to terms with — and resolve — such issues, and thinks that the occasional disagreement is a positive part of the experience.

Some anecdotes, however, are a bit more heartwarming.

"Mostly, I hear this one story, and I hear it so many times I can't put a face to it," Mikros says. "It goes like this: 'I moved to this new city, and didn't know anybody. I was really lonely. Then, I started playing Killer Queen. I met these people, and now I have a community of friends.'"

He said it gave him a feeling he wasn't familiar with as a game designer. Warm fuzzies, maybe? It was tough to tell.

"There's nothing we could have done or designed that could have really predicted any of this — that people would find their people through this game. You may be surprised at who you'll meet," Mikros said.

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Andrea Slobodien joined the Killer Queen community in San Francisco in January 2017 when BumbleBear Games sales director Brian Lee scouted her playing on an all-femme team at Brewcade on a Saturday night. When she joined the league, she says she was surprised by how supportive everyone was — it was as if she had made 30 new friends overnight, each of them rooting for her to succeed.

"I still remember queening (playing as a queen) in my first new-bee tournament – we call new players 'new-bees' since it's a bee-themed game," she explained. "The entire SF scene was chanting my name. This type of radical inclusion was not what I was expecting out of a gaming community, and it inspired me to keep queening and playing competitively."

Photo: Andrea Slobodien Andrea Slobodien started playing "Killer Queen" in San Francisco....

After that, Slobodien spent nearly every night at Brewcade, often until bar close, poring over the game. In August of 2018, she says she had the great privilege of queening for an all-femme/non-binary identifying team at the Minneapolis Gate Fair Invitational, playing with teammates from all over the country. They achieved a second place ranking — the first time an all-femme/non-binary team and a female queen had ever placed at a national competition. Since then, she says her teammates have become some of her closest friends, and they continue to compete at other competitions together.

"I have so much love for Killer Queen and all the joys it has brought into my life — self-confidence, lifelong friendships, and a sense of belonging," she said.

It even helped her find love. At her first "Killer Queen" travel tournament in Minneapolis, Slobodien met her boyfriend, Johnmark Faris, at the Airbnb where the San Francisco team was staying. They didn't admit it to each other at the time, but they had already heard about one another through the game, and harbored secret crushes.

A few months later, she visited Portland, and the two met up.

"We stayed up late talking about Killer Queen strategy and expanding into other topics," she said. By the end of the weekend, they were "thoroughly smitten" with one another, and decided to try long distance. Now, Slobodien lives in Portland and the two have been dating for a year.

However, she says she will always have a place in her heart for "Killer Queen" in the Bay Area.

"I'm really proud to say I'm from the SF scene," she said.

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Somehow, I'm able to successfully assist my team in filling our hive with berries — one way to win a round of "Killer Queen." To my surprise, everyone around me erupts with errant cheers. I turn around, and someone fist bumps me.

It's Walshy, or Dave Walsh, a familiar face in the eSports community. He's known for being one of the most successful "Halo" players of all time, professionally playing the iconic military sci-fi first-person shooter for somewhere between eight and ten years. Today, Walshy's just here for fun, staying in San Francisco for an extra day after spending the weekend here for a tournament. He tells me he's been "addicted" to Killer Queen for the past two years.

"I haven't seen anything like it in any other parts of competitive gaming," he says, revealing a wide, toothy grin.

The Killer Queen SF Bay Area gaming community formally began about four years ago, gathering nearly a thousand players who attend its biweekly meet-ups. There are "League Night" practice sessions for competitive players on Mondays, and "Free Play" social nights on Wednesdays for the more casual participants. Typically, they took place at Brewcade, but have temporarily moved to Coin-Op as the Castro mainstay is undergoing renovations for the month of June.

Another burst of applause comes from seemingly nowhere. A new group of players has quickly taken my team's place, eager to get another round of the game going. They smile and joke with one another. Occasionally, someone slams their fist down in frustration, yelling "Oh s—!" Inevitably, there's competitive trash talk from both sides of the gaming cabinet, but it all appears to be in good spirits. A group of bystanders watches excitedly, cheering on the digital workers, queens and warriors. From an outsider's perspective, these people appear to be a close-knit circle of friends, a crew of cool misfits I would otherwise be intimidated to approach.

I walk up to another person observing the action: a software engineer named Gino Miglio. He does not appear to be too keen on talking to me. One of his friends, upon hearing that I'm a reporter, rolls his eyes and walks away.

Miglio's skepticism seems to melt away, though, as I begin to ask him questions about the game. When a significantly quieter round of applause is heard from a different corner of the room, his gaze follows it toward the Warriors game.

"I guess people care about this game, too," he jokes.

Miglio tells me that he's been playing Killer Queen since late 2017, which he was quick to explain "makes him a new player." Since then, he's gone to tournaments in Los Angeles, Portland, Charlotte and Phoenix. His interest in the game was piqued when he got a new job with an office in close proximity to Brewcade. One day, he saw people inside playing on a machine he didn't recognize. The game looked novel and fast-paced. Best of all, he learned, the people were welcoming and seemed excited to teach him how to play.

East Bay resident Devon Ray Williams encountered the game in a similar way. It served a nostalgic purpose, reminding him of LAN gaming, in which a local area network connection needs to be established between devices for a group of people to play together.

"With online gaming, you sometimes end up playing with 12-year-olds who don't know how to interact," he joked.

Already accustomed to traveling around the country for competitive frisbee, Williams says he quickly got sucked into the "Killer Queen" scene at Brewcade.

"What I love about frisbee – traveling, hanging out with people, the scene – is what I love about 'Killer Queen,'" he said. He sees the arcade game growing in popularity in a similar manner.

Conversely, some players joined the community without ever having played a video game before. I talk to a bubbly Dogpatch resident, Miranda Steele. She's been playing since 2014, and first encountered the game when her job in Sunnyvale obtained a cabinet for the office. Even though she says she didn't play very well, she kept practicing. When she moved to San Francisco, Steele thought it would be a good way to meet people.

"Now, it's my main hobby and main source of friends," she says. "I've never been in a scene that's so inclusive, even when we travel."

It soon became clear to me that the people weren't just here for the game. They were here for the community. Skill level and ability didn't matter. Teamwork, on the other hand, does. Consistent communication, too.

Miglio tells me the game is unlike those that can be played from home with an Internet connection, where it could be all too easy to hurl insults at opponents under the guise of anonymity. "There's an enforced civility when you're playing next to people," he says.

Brian Lee, director of sales for BumbleBear Games – the video game developer that resulted from the success of Killer Queen – shares a similar view. He's currently working on bringing the arcade game to college campuses as a networking and community building tool for students, clubs and academic programs.

"In an age where young people prefer to connect digitally rather than in person, an arcade-only game such as ours encourages people to work together and respect one another," he said.

Lee continued to explain that if there is a bad actor in a Killer Queen community, they must "confront, correct, and repent" for their behavior with peers rather than ghosting and running away from their actions, which he calls "an unfortunate trend in the anonymous online age."

In some cases, a game that can't be played online could be considered a hindrance or detriment to its scene. However, Walsh pointed out that it quickly removes any sort of toxicity.

"In fact, quite the opposite," he said. "People are going to be on their best or better behavior. They realize, 'Hey, in order to be a part of this experience, I have to be respectful.' I really do think a game and community like this one brings out the best in people."

Discrimination and especially misogyny in the gaming world is a widespread phenomenon. While just under half of all gamers are women, female players are disproportionately subject to harassment and abuse from their male counterparts.

Lee says "Killer Queen" has a significantly higher population of competitive female players – between 25% and 40%, nationally – in contrast to other eSports communities, where those numbers can be as low as five percent.

"I've personally seen men have conversations with women who share their experiences, and their opinions changed regarding sexism and toxic masculinity in the gaming world," Lee said.

The San Francisco group has also recently encouraged its members to sign the GLHF or "Good Luck Have Fun" pledge through AnyKey, which advocates for diversity, inclusion, and fairness in competitive gaming.

Slobodien has been subject to such discrimination while competing; an exhausting and unwelcome obstacle when she prefers to focus on becoming a better player and teammate. In response, she communicates with allies within the "Killer Queen" community, which she says is made up of more supportive voices than hateful ones.

"I think the fact that this game is played in person forces us to actually have the difficult conversations. My hope for the community is that we can continue to have the conversations, and that we keep learning and growing together," she said.

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Bringing "Killer Queen" to the Bay Area was a "leap of faith," says Brewcade manager Shawn Vergara. But as the first arcade bar in the city, he wanted to do something new and different. He was approached by developers Mikros and DeBonis at the 2015 Game Developers Conference, and "Killer Queen" seemed to be the solution. The cabinet itself takes up a lot of space — it's just over six feet tall and 10 feet across — and he wasn't sure it would do well. As a test, he decided to put the game on free play for three months.

"It was like giving someone free drugs," he said. "Everyone fell in love with it and kept coming back."

Even after they started charging a dollar per play, people kept coming back. On any given "Killer Queen" night — including league nights, social nights, and free play events — as many as 40 players will show up, Vergara said.

"If you're a regular and come in on a 'Killer Queen' night, you'll recognize at least three-quarters of the people there," he said. "People keep coming back because there's nothing better than to see familiar faces that you really like."

Nick Stettenbenz, marketing director of Coin-Op SF, says it's one of the arcade bar's most successful games, alongside "Time Crisis," "Dance Dance Revolution" and a 4-player Pac Man setup.

"People will come in just to play Killer Queen," he said. "It's a great way for people who don't know each other to break the ice."

Now, the arcade bar hosts free play nights for "Killer Queen" every Wednesday, with the aim of including beginners so they can harness their skills. Newer arcades, like Miniboss in San Jose, are hopping in on the trend as well.

"It's like a glorified, 10-person version of 'Joust.' Real old school," Miniboss owner George Lahlouh said in reference to the 1980s platform game. "You'll hear a scream in the corner and know who won."

Miniboss has been around for just four months, but has already made over $6,000 in profits from "Killer Queen" alone. Lahlouh said the investment was well worth it.

"It's cool to see people have a lot of fun with it," he said. "To be a nerd and be a kid again."

But is the game just a fad, among the likes of "Pokémon Go," which reached its peak after just a few months of play? I wanted to know.

"Killer Queen is going to be a staple as long as we exist," Lahlouh said. "I think this game's going to be here for a really long time."

Amanda Bartlett is an SFGate editorial assistant. Email: amanda.bartlett@sfchronicle.com