Telling ‘A Gamer’s Story’ In Chatham

CHATHAM, NJ — It all started with two parents locked down during the pandemic with their two kids.

Tonya Horton said she and her husband Leonard Gicas wanted to make sure their children Kennedy and Noah Gicas, were each doing something productive with their time in the lockdowns.

“You’re doing a lot in your room alone,” Horton said the couple told their children. “You have to do something with your time.”

Kennedy Gicas, 15, and a student at Chatham High School and her brother Noah, 13, who’s in the Chatham Middle School, each brainstormed.

She decided to start a fashion blog, design t-shirts and sell them on Etsy and Instagram. Her younger brother, Noah Gicas, however took a route that involved his love of gaming.

Horton said in pre-pandemic times, their son enjoyed playing cards at comic book stores like New World Manga in Livingston, as well as Satellite Comics, which had been in Chatham on Main Street, where Scoops the Chatham Creamery is now located.

After working through ideas with her son, Noah Gicas decided he wanted to create a podcast for gamers.

The podcast, now named “A Gamer’s Story,” features influencers from all areas of gaming, with the podcast on Google, Apple, Spotify and Stitcher.

Neither mother - an attorney by trade - nor son had ever done one before, so Horton said she signed she and Gicas up for a virtual podcasting class with an influencer from California.

The class was once weekly for eight weeks, with about 25 students in total on Zoom, Horton said, from around the world, some of them famous people. Every week, students were given new challenges, from designing their logo, to picking their podcast’s theme song. Their final project was to record their first podcast.

Out of all the budding podcasters in the class, Horton said, about 60 to 70 percent of their podcasts are active, with Gicas' “A Gamer’s Story” among them.

One of the greatest challenges for mother and son as students, Horton said, was the day that one of the students in the class asked their professor - a well-known podcaster herself - if she could handpick their theme music for them. The professor instead became upset by the request, realizing how behind many of the students were on their project, Horton and Gicas told Patch. In turn, she upped the deadline for the theme music portion, making it due that night within a few hours, which Horton said landed in the middle of the night in Chatham.

Those who didn’t complete that leg of the assignment, Horton and Gicas said, were told they might be cut from the class.

Never having created a theme song, Horton went right to work, she said, looking for someone who could help them. She made an offer on a creative website to hire a musician, with a person from Morocco responding, who had the clip for A Gamer’s Story theme song finished, within two hours, she said. Though it was nearing the middle of the night in Chatham, it was daytime for the musician.

Their first episode “Getting to Know the People Behind the Gamers,” has Horton interviewing Gicas about what sparked his podcast, giving listeners the opportunity to get to know him better. Here is the first episode.

With the tables turned and Horton asking Gicas questions, he told her during the episode that his podcast would differ from other gaming podcasts, because it wouldn’t necessarily focus on what gamers actually play, but delve more into who they are as people.

Since the first podcast when mother and son bantered back and forth about different topics on April 27, he's posted seven podcasts, the most recent on July 28.

Their first video of this podcast is also on A Gamer’s Story’s YouTube channel.

Among things they discussed, Gicas said, was the choice of the podcast name, which he told his mother “really resonated.” He picked it after presenting the name to his father and others.

When Horton asked Gicas why he felt he’d be a good interviewer and put on a show people will want to listen to, he replied, “I think I’m a little bit quirky, I think I’m a little bit exciting, I think that I’m a good chuckle.”

Horton and Gicas discussed his early days in gaming, going back to when he was about six or seven years old. He says he spends about three hours daily on card games now, but if he does play video games, he spends about two hours.

In fact, Horton told the audience, their phone number is programmed into one of the local comic book store’s phones, so the store knows when they call.

Gicas said what he embraces the most about gaming, is the community.

“It’s just amazing,” Gicas said about the gaming community. “I’ve been in it [the gaming community] for so long.”

“I think if you come onto my show and I interview you, you’ll be very welcome and hopefully, you’ll have a great time,” Gicas added.

He’s since interviewed gamers from the United Kingdom, Canada and Singapore, among countries.

When he’s not gaming or podcasting, Gicas said he practices Taekwondo with Apex Tigers in Florham Park and also likes to play volleyball.

He's also planning a book that's three-quarters finished about a kid who likes gaming, was bullied - something Gicas said he never has been - and gained more confidence as the story progresses.

For all of Gicas’ podcast episodes, click here.

Find A Gamer’s Story here on YouTube.

Check out A Gamer’s Story on Instagram here and Twitter here.

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