MARYSVILLE — Pokémon started as a gaming franchise in the late 1990s, and in the decades since, multiple generations of parents and children have taken up the game, sometimes together.

Wandering Havoc Games in Marysville has hosted four citywide championships. Dec. 13 marked 9-year-old Andy Lienesch’s first city tournament, but he and his mom, Marysville’s Heather Ross, have been coming to Wandering Havoc for the past couple of months for Thursday league nights. Andy was inspired to research the card game after he fell in love with the video game through his dad, and Heather took up playing to spend more time with her son.

“Along the way, I’ve gained new experiences and new friendships in real life,” Andy said.

Heather added: “I’ve grown to love the strategy aspect of it. Even if you’ve been playing for a long time, you can still learn new things. It blows me away.”

Mousa Abdulaziz is 27 now, but he was 13 when the Pokémon cartoon caught his eye. Between his school friends taking up the hobby, and receiving a pack of cards for his birthday that year, he was hooked.

“The characters, the strategy and the camaraderie all made it super fun,” Abdulaziz said. “The Thursday night sessions are great for testing your decks and making sure they’ll work before you get into big league play.”

Kris Arocha, one of the sales associates at Wandering Havoc, credited the annual city tournaments with bringing in more than 70 players that day, the largest number yet, with an average of 10 players stopping by every Thursday.

“We get a lot of people we don’t usually see here,” Arocha said. “It introduces a lot of folks to the store, and allows them to make bonds that make them want to come back.”

Tournament organizer David Nelson, who’s supervised the city championships for years, spotted players from Spokane, British Columbia and even Missouri. He estimated that the youngest was 7, while the oldest was a father in his mid-40s.

“It takes a lot of work to get into the world championships, but it has become easier, so more people see it as an attainable goal,” said Nelson, who explained that players are divided into age categories of “juniors” for 10 and younger, “seniors” for 11-14 and “masters” for 15 and older. “My son started playing when he was six, and he’s twenty now.

“The basic mechanics are simple enough for any child to pick up, but the interactions of the cards are what keep their interest,” he added. “Every game is different.”