MALRIF--To celebrate the grand opening of the En Garde Arena, Procyon Games is hosting a fencing tournament this Sunday at 5 p.m. SLT. The tournament which will award more than L$10,000 in prizes, is attracting several visitors to the Arena on Malrif.

 Aside from Sunday's competition, En Garde offers fun and challenging game play. Case Cagney, who has fenced in real life while attending college said about the game, "I've played several times now and it seems like there is common ground in terms of having to think about distance." Though Cagney hasn’t had a match in years, still does the routines from time to time. He began fencing in his Freshman year, reflecting on that experience he says, “We all started off with a foil to learn the basics and I stayed with that weapon my first year. The next year on I took up a saber. I went to tourneys here and there, but I was with a club, so mostly I just went for the few hours twice a week."

 En Garde is based on a fencing-inspired card game developed by German game designer Reiner Knizia. Second Life game developer Rifkin Habsburg a collector of games in real life. En garde is his fourth developed for Second Life, "They are all based on some of the best games in the world. Most of these games are known as `Euro-games' because they are made from European game designers. One of the things I liked about En Garde is how it captured the feel of a real fencing tournament. It was actually endorsed by the German Fencing Institute.” Though a turn-based game, En Garde “captures the feel of a real fencing match,” says Hasburg; and buying the game allows owners to set the scoreboard to display only the rankings of their friends. “Every game you play is tracked on the Procyon server, so every game is ranked. If you buy the game, you can set the scoreboard to show just your friends' rankings.”

While fencing may not seem the most obvious sport for Second Life, there is at least one group devoted to real life fencers on SL, the En Garde Fencer Troop (despite the name, this group is not related to devotees of Habsburg's game). The spirit of chivalry, level of strategy and social aspects all make fencing a suitable fit for a virtual world. As Habsburg states, "My games are for people who like something more strategic, that requires more thought."

 Habsburg owns Procyon Games headquartered on Malrif. His first game, Danger Zone was one of the winners of the 2006 Second Life Game Expo.

 The tournament will be single-elimination. All players will face off against randomly selected opponents. If a player loses a match, he/she is out. The last player standing wins! Grand prize for the competition is L$7,500, second prize is L$1,500, and third and fourth place winners will receive L$500 each. The top four finishers will also receive a personal copy of the En Garde