The Craftiest Workshop

Last fall our local board game café had to shut its doors for financial reasons. We were regulars at the café and got to know the owner quite well. We discovered that another person tied to the café wanted buy the name and re-open the café in a different location but not right away. They needed a place to store the contents of the game café. This meant many tables, booths, chairs, couches and, of course, over 1300 board games. This was the café set up in the previous location.

Our basement was pretty much empty with a large open space and a bedroom virtually empty. We offered to store everything as long as we could set some of it up to play the games we were interested in. It took only a day with the help of many volunteers to pack and move everything to our basement last September. It took Chris and I about a week to get our basement set up like this.

We hosted a Christmas party for our Wednesday night strategy group and quite a few Wednesday night game sessions. Other Wednesdays were hosted by others in the group partly so we didn’t have to host every week and partly because we live so far out of town.

In the last year, the new owner of the café has been selling new games at the local farmer’s market, hosting board games at a local pub and having puzzle battles once or twice a month at different locations. After a recent fundraiser to help with re-opening, it was announced that the café will re-open in October 2024 in the basement of our local United Church.

They finally got the keys a week ago Thursday and last Saturday was moving day. I boxed up any games that we had taken out and we moved the shelving to make it easier to move them out first.

It took three trips with the moving truck and lots of volunteers but all of it got moved to the new location that day. Many hands make light work really does hold true.

Although we have been playing board games for years, we learned some interesting things about ourselves and gaming in general in the past year with so many games at our disposal.

1. It is so much easier to learn a game by playing with someone who has already played it. We had to watch so many videos and read so many rule books to learn any game we decided to try from the collection. It sometimes added another hour onto the playing time.
2. Not everyone will like the same game as you. You should have games that appeal to the masses even though they may not be your favourite games. Dicetown, Riff Raff, CV, The Mind, Lifeboats and Rukshuk are some that we cold play with almost anyone. Dexterity games, ones with more luck than strategy or those with negotiating tend to work for most people.
3. Longer complex games often play just as well with two players as they do with four. While there are a few shorter two player games that we enjoy, we now tend to pull out Ark Nova, Terraforming Mars, Planet Unknown or Tapestry when it was just the two of us playing.
4. If you have played enough different games, playing a new game for the first time is no longer daunting but exciting. We now prefer a new game over one we have already played especially if their someone to teach it to us.
5. Some older games are still better than the newest popular game out there. We still love to play Bohnanza, Puerto Rico, Lost Cities or Alhambra.
6. Having an huge collection tends to cause Netflixitice. You know how you scroll through Netflix, sometimes for an hour, before deciding on what to watch. Having too many games to choose from invokes a similar “deer in the headlights” feeling. It takes forever to make a choice and then you might even have to learn how to play it.
7. However you decide to store your game collection, make a sign that explains it. Our game collection is sorted by player count and then alphabetical. Some collections are sorted by genre. Some are shelved by game publisher. Whatever you decide, make a sign so others looking at it won’t ask…again.
8. It is okay o take a break from your game collection and focus on a legacy game or campaign game. This winter we started playing Pathfinder The Adventure Card Game together. We played almost every day for a couple hours in the dark evenings. We ended up finishing the six adventures then started again with different characters and almost finished a second campaign. We also played through Sleeping Gods with a friend, getting together once every couple of weeks.
9. When you really enjoy a new game, add it to a list of games you might want to buy but hold off buying it till you try it again with a different group or just as a couple. It might change your mind. I tend to be the one that gets excited and buys a game right away. If a game takes longer than an hour but is too easy to play, we shouldn’t buy it. You need some less than an hour games to either start with or when it is too late to play a longer game. We need meaty games that have many ways to win; games that really make you think.
10. Storing a game café in your basement, for a true board gamer, feels like a gift and not a burden. We thoroughly enjoyed having the games at our place. We have added many games to our want list even though some are sadly out of print.