The Mana Bar officially opened to the public at midday today and with a lot of buzz around this venue, Facebook photos tantalising us as to what this bar could look like and the occasional conversations with Australian Gamer's Guy "Yug" Blomberg about the bar, I was excited to finally check it out the previous night.

I have just realised how a "little" bit hopeless I am at Guitar Hero which I will lay blame to the Mana Potion, Angel Island and Breath of Fire cocktails (it has tabasco in it!) that I tried out before.  And the house wine/beer/etc that they also offered. The awesome thing that I have found out, and one would maybe think that games and being social doesn't mix (PS: this was from someone's comment btw.  Games and being social do mix - just ask my mum and Cafe World), is that I was playing alone at Guitar Hero and then was suddenly joined by a group of people that I haven't talked to.  Next thing I know, I was battling out some sort of rock song with this guy.  Both of us were a bit horrid at it, then I gave the guitar to another person in the group (who actually know how to play Guitar Hero) and then I ended up joining them for drinks later on.  How. Awesome. Is. That. 

The Mana Bar is a small, intimate venue with a capacity of 60 people.  Large, LCD screens line the walls of the bar and there was a projection on the ceiling-wall area above the bar itself which showed screenings of upcoming games.  Cocktail tables and chairs scatter the venue in case people want to sit and group together to chat. 

I ended up spending most of the night doing the chatting bit while I occasionally wandered off to watch someone play Just Cause 2 or watch a couple of music photographers (@stillpixels @kyza) be awesome at Guitar Hero.  There was also presence from game developers/game development companies including the Brisbane based game development company Halfbrick Studios which developed one of the games that can be played in the Mana Bar (!) and there is definitely more to come after this big launch.

With the opening of digital culture centre The Edge (part of the State Library of Queensland) and now the Mana Bar, am definitely looking forward to see what is in store in these two new venues.

Where is the Mana Bar? It is next to the Judith Wright Centre of Contemporary Arts, 420 Brunswick Street, Fortitude Valley.

If you loved this: The Future of (Serious) Gaming, Games Pt 2 // {XMediaLab} {Eidos}, Mark White of White Crow Productions // {Production} {Design} {Online Learning}, On Storytelling // {XMediaLab} {42 Entertainment} {Animal Logic}, Brisbane's Bigfish.tv {Animation} {Festival}, Kelly Chapman in SPAA Fringe // {Keynote} {KCDC}, Tim Hill of Hoodlum // {Q&A} {Braindump} {Film & TV}, Public Sphere #3: Australian ICT & Creative Industries Development