Teenage competitors filed into the computer lab and found their seats before logging in to a virtual battlefield. All of them belonged to the same district team of Anythink Libraries Wright Farms, but very soon they would all turn on each other.

“Much like ‘The Hunger Games’ books, kids play through the various servers, or arenas,” said Wright Farms teen/tween guide, Sean Gilmartin. “The main goal is for our tributes to do their best to stay alive.”

These “tributes” were no strangers to the rules of Minecraft Hunger Games, a popular online gaming module that uses the distinctive cubist “skins,” characters in Minecraft to simulate a battle to the death in the style of “The Hunger Games” books and movie series.

The 24 teens and tweens stationed at Wright Farms in Thornton represented just one district out of six competing Anythink libraries that had five private Minecraft servers for two hours of networked play Nov. 20. The servers were donated by Minecraftsurvivalgames.com.

“This is the first time that anything like this has ever happened,” Gilmartin said. “The whole idea to do this was because we had so many kids in our branches that play Minecraft, and we wanted to unite them.”

Gilmartin said on any given day there are at least a dozen kids who rush after school to use the library’s own, personal Minecraft server. Anythink branches all have the game loaded onto every one of their computers, and are among the only libraries to maintain a dedicated server for Minecraft.

For the tournament, Gilmartin and a team of information technology employees planned for more than 100 kids at all six Anythink locations to battle each other for a movie pass to the see the premiere of “The Hunger Games: Catching Fire.”

After time was called for the game, Erik Kennedy, 10, playing at Wright Farms, was proclaimed the one with the fewest collective deaths, and was awarded the movie pass.

Kennedy didn’t look up when he heard that he won. His monitor was still letting him play past the end of the game, and he wasn’t about to surrender for some petty victory.

When Gilmartin announced that other people wanted to use the computer room, Kennedy’s face dropped, but his eyes stayed fixed on the screen. Then Gilmartin said:

“You can play Minecraft on any of the other computers in the library now.”

At the news, Kennedy lifted his face upward and said “yes” in a drawn-out, desperate way that made it seem like he was at sea for many months and just saw land ahead.

Megan Mitchell: 303-954-2650, or mmitchell@denverpost.com