In 2023, when esports made its debut as a medal event at the Asian Games in Hangzhou, it inspired a group of Delhi University students to start ARCADE, the varsity’s first esports and gaming society.
“One day, I’m sure students of DU will be wearing the Indian jersey at international games and bring home laurels for the country,” ARCADE’s founding member Apoorva Anand had told HT City back then.
Two wins and a quarter-final finish
Now, three years later, the sentiment has finally manifested into reality. Paritosh, a first-year BCom (Hons) student at Deen Dayal Upadhyaya College and a member player, recently represented India in Puyo Puyo Champions at the ongoing Asian Games in Aichi-Nagoya, Japan . The full-circle connection was not immediately apparent to Paritosh. His game of choice may appear deceptively simple to someone encountering it for the first time. Puyo Puyo Champions is a competitive puzzle title in which pairs of coloured blobs, called puyos, fall onto the screen. Connecting four or more of the same colour makes them disappear, but its real challenge lies in creating chains that trigger consecutive combinations and send nuisance puyos onto an opponent’s board. You have to know when to attack, when to bait them with a small chain and when to counter their attack with your own chain. “We’ve tried to connect with the university dozens of times and get permissions for our events, and it’s still zero.
The Rohtak-based gamer reached the quarter-finals, where a 0-5 defeat to South Korea’s Kang Dongshin on Saturday brought his campaign to an end. He learned that the Asian Games had inspired ARCADE’s formation, upon reading HT City’s 2023 article .
Reflecting upon its members’ prediction about a DU student one day wearing the India jersey, he said, “The seniors who said it so shows that they were sure about the players and truly believed in their talent. “It’s easy to learn but very hard to master,” Paritosh had said before of the event, explaining: “It needs quick hands, planning several moves ahead and constantly reading your opponent. There’s no support from the university or the admins,” he said.
For its founder, Ishwar Prakash Yadav, who now guides the student team while working as the COO of Metanova Esports, the moment felt surreal, but not entirely unexpected.“Somewhere, I was sure this would happen one day. “It’s an organisation by the students, for the students.
We even said as much in the article published when the society was being created,” he said, adding, “I just didn’t expect it this soon. It gave me a community and support,” said Paritosh. Yadav added, “This community has given me what we give all our members: support, cheering and help in whatever way we can as students and friends.”
