We are once again back at the question of: why?

The idea of a LAN party came from one of my colleagues, who has what I can only describe as a clinically concerning level of interest in the hit 2004 game Unreal Tournament 2004. To be fair, the game was revolutionary at the time, introducing the new Unreal Engine 2 and its capabilities. As a child, I never really indulged in shooters. I became a connoisseur much later, like a fine wine enthusiast who discovered alcohol at 15.

My colleague is turning old, meaning he finds less enjoyment in life day by day (the classic academia effect, publish or perish, but mostly just perish inside). He felt the same about video games as well. Therefore, my motivations became twofold:

1. Try to bring back the joy of gaming in his life, at least for a day. Maybe he’ll find something to hold on to. Maybe he won’t spiral further into the abyss of teaching material minmaxing.
2. Organize a LAN party in the office, which is something I’ve always wanted to do. Even as a teen, if my career didn’t end up in research and AI, I would have loved to be a game developer. So this was my chance to get a glimpse of that world, and also to absolutely destroy my colleagues in a controlled academic environment.

I had every motivation to make this happen. So I started planning. What the fuck do you need to pull this off?

The Games

Probably the hardest question. Everybody is familiar with different games. Not everybody shares Viktor’s nostalgia, and some of us are frankly too young to remember when games came on physical discs (horrifying first release content vibes).

I solved this issue with a 3-way tournament featuring a voting system for the department. Staff could vote on games from a curated list of 15 classic titles released between 1999 and 2006. Democracy in action, just like how we do it in Hungary.

We came to the conclusion that we would be playing:

• Unreal Tournament 2004 , Viktor’s spiritual home
• Counter-Strike 1.6 , I do not have to explain this one hopefully
• Worms Armageddon , For those who prefer their violence turn-based and with exploding farting grannies

But how do we actually play? Just sit down and create a lobby like animals? Absolutely not. We need a framework. A tournament protocol. Something to wrap this whole thing neatly with a bow on top.

Hardware

The issue is, most of us are using cloud resources for research on hardware not capable of running anything more demanding than a terminal window. To find a common divisor, I went with old games, so even modern hardware with proper iGPUs could run everything. Intel UHD Graphics, I never thought I’d depend on you.

Since we’re playing shooters, and some of us have laptops while others have desktops, I had to ensure everybody had a 60Hz monitor to keep things fair. No 144Hz advantages here. This is academia, we suffer equally.

Other peripherals the department could provide: keyboards and mice of varying levels of disgustingness. It was kind of half BYOD, half provided, half hoping nobody notices the shit stains.

Pro tips:

• Make sure you have enough power sockets for everybody, and invest in some extension cords. Nothing kills a gaming session like a circuit breaker.
• Food is essential. I found crowdsourcing snacks works best. Thanks Csenge for the biscuits. You are the MVP.

Network

A switch. A big ass switch. That’s genuinely all you need. One that supports around 20 ports with gigabit bandwidth. Worked perfectly.

We created a map of our IP addresses written on a large sheet of paper so we could easily find each other. Very high-tech. Very 2004. No internet was required at all, which also meant no excuses about lag from people who were simply bad.

The games were distributed through a local FTP server, containing only legally acquired, DRM-free copies. Obviously. Please don’t contact me.

Timing & Scheduling

To avoid conflict with your employer, I highly recommend organizing such events on a weekend. More specifically, on a weekend without compulsory work days.

We did not follow the second rule. But what can you do when the university decides Saturdays are for working? At least we found a loophole: technically, this was team building.

Make sure to send out the date as soon as possible. I also created flyers about the tournament containing the games, schedule, and every detail. Marketing matters, even when your target audience is 12 researchers who can’t escape the building anyway.

Prizes

To make things interesting and boost attendance, I created separate prizes for each of the three games. Nothing motivates academics like tangible rewards instead of just experience or exposure.

Unreal Tournament 2004:

• My colleague Viktor Varga was generous enough to offer 50,000 Ft (≈€125) for the winner
• I also found an original sealed CD of the game on Vinted for the winner. Vintage. Collectible. Probably still has that new paper smell from 2004.

Counter-Strike 1.6:

• The winner received a custom 3D-printed bomb from the game, complete with custom text reading “1st AI Department LAN Party Champion”
• Second place got a smaller trophy, our first (slightly failed) attempt at 3D printing. Character building for both the printer and the recipient.

Worms Armageddon:

• The winner would receive an original digital copy from GOG.com, purchased from my own pocket because I believe in the arts.

The Schedule (And Its Spectacular Collapse)

We started with CS 1.6 at around 14:00, planning to start UT2004 at 16:00. This was adorable optimism.

As it turns out, tournaments take time, especially with people using different operating systems, hardware configurations, and varying levels of technical competence. We had several issues connecting to the server. Someone’s Linux install was being special. Someone else forgot they had a firewall.

But eventually, we managed to get everything running. The CS tournament took 4 hours to complete. By then, our numbers had dwindled from the initial crowd. For UT2004, we only had 10 brave souls remaining, the hardcore, the dedicated, the ones who had nowhere else to be on a Saturday.

Sadly, we didn’t even have time to start Worms Armageddon. The exploding sheep will have to wait. But I think we can still call this event an overwhelming success.

The Tournament Manager

Now, here’s where my software engineering brain couldn’t resist. To track our progress live, and thanks to GitHub Copilot for being my rubber duck, I created a custom tournament management system in Svelte with some Redis flavoring.

Everything is stored temporarily in memory and can be saved or downloaded later in JSON format. The website currently only runs locally, but it supports a ridiculous number of features:

Features include:

• Support for 15 different classic games
• Tournament sizes up to 16 players, with exotic setups like 7 or 11 players handled gracefully
• Player profiles with actual photos of department staff members (for maximum psychological warfare)
• Both 1v1 and team tournaments
• Playoff mode with group stages and live leaderboard
• Bracket system with 3rd place matches
• Round tracking with kills, HP remaining, and other custom stats based on the game
• Live updating leaderboard with comprehensive statistics
• JSON export/import for tournament history
• Clean, minimal UI (because we’re academics, not savages)
• Custom stat tracking: kills, MVPs, deaths, assists, close matches, “interesting” matches, and more
• Different visualizations tailored to each game

The project is open source and available on my GitHub: AI Department LAN Manager. Feel free to use it for your own office LAN parties. Your IT department will love you.

Conclusion

I sincerely thank all the members of our department who participated in this event. You made it worth the weeks of planning, the cable management nightmares, and the existential dread of wondering if anyone would actually show up.

Special thanks to Viktor Varga for his generous prize and for being the inspiration behind this whole endeavor.

Thanks to all attendees: Viktor, Imre, Zsolt, Bálint, Gábor, Zoltán, Thausif, Arron, Benedek, Kaan, Csenge, Balázs, Natabara and Márk.

I hope you all had a great time, and I look forward to our next gaming session together!

I’m planning to continue developing the tournament manager and hosting these parties every quarter of the year. Stay tuned for more updates, more games, and hopefully, one day, we’ll finally play Worms Armageddon.

Coming Up: Team-based tournaments. Because nothing strengthens workplace relationships like blaming your colleague for losing a round.

Until then: GG WP.

P.S.: If you’re a bachelor’s student looking for a thesis topic in enterprise-grade tournament management solutions or just want to write Svelte for fun, my DMs are open. Unpaid, of course. This is academia.

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