It's a beautiful, sunny Saturday morning in September, with not a cloud in the sky and temperatures expected to climb close to 30 C. A perfect fall day to be outdoors, but for a select few there's no place they'd rather be than indoors at one of St. Albert's most iconic businesses.
These people are board gamers and for them, Mission: Fun and Games — located in a strip mall along McKenney Avenue — is their mecca. And the three-day Gamealot convention, which marked its 11th edition when it was held last weekend, is their annual pilgrimage.
They sit around tables with people they know and those they don't, all drawn together by the love of games. Lively chatter and laughter fills the silent spaces between turns or explanations of the rules. No one is overly competitive; when a game is over, it's handshakes and compliments all around.
These aren't your childhood board games, however. The old standards like Clue, Monopoly and Scrabble may get broken out a couple of times over the weekend, but they have largely been eschewed for titles like Break the Safe, Oregon and Airlines Europe. Others sitting on the rack waiting to be played are based on popular video games like Doom or World of Warcraft.
The remarkable thing about Gamealot, though, is how much the players themselves drive it. Some games are spur of the moment, while others have had a timeslot and a table booked weeks or months in advance. Either way, they're playing the game because they want to play.
"I call it, 'By the gamers, for the gamers,'" said Mission: Fun and Games owner John Engel, "the guru of Gamealot," according to his nametag. "They decide what to play. They can play out-of-print games. They can play games I don't even sell, as long as it's in good taste."
Players have plenty of chances to take home some "swag" from Gamealot as well, with hourly draws, door prize draws and random draws throughout the weekend for copies of games provided by Engel's suppliers.
Engel said he came up with the idea for Gamealot more than a decade ago in perhaps the unlikeliest of places.
"I was on a camping trip near Westlock, and it was all I could think about," he said. "I had talked about it for about a year, since we moved into the new space and had the room. We cut the camping trip short because of the weather, so I had some extra time and went after it, starting calling regular customers saying, 'We're going to make this happen. Hope you can make it out.' "
Since then, Engel estimates the event has grown by about 10 per cent each year, and with recent store renovations adding more gaming space and washrooms, he hopes that trend will continue.
"Some things come and go, some people come and go … Some people book it off, make sure that weekend's available and they're not going anywhere," he said, adding that attendance on Friday night this year was above average, and Sundays continue to get stronger each year.
One gamer who hasn't gone though, is Jesse Day, one of the many who were in the store bright and early on Saturday morning.
"I've come to every one," Day said. "You see a few people you haven't seen in a while, try out games you haven't heard of before and just hang out for a weekend."
On the flip side, this year's Gamealot was the first for John Fischer, as he was encouraged to attend by friends with whom he plays games on a regular basis.
"I like it," he said matter-of-factly, adding that his favourites tend to be deck-building games like Dominion. "It's fun to play a whole bunch of games, that kind of thing."
Sense of community
Another remarkable aspect of Gamealot is how it gives back to the community. The St. Albert Food Bank used to be located next door to Mission: Fun and Games, and for a number of years, the convention has helped out by collecting non-perishable food items as an admission fee. This year, the event collected 431 pounds of food and $1,295 in cash donations.
"We were always happy to have the food bank as neighbours, and when we initially started Gamealot, we were driven by an admission fee, but I didn't like that. I didn't like collecting money. But I wanted it to be charitable," Engel said. "Very shortly after, we approached the food bank about working with them, and they were happy to have us. It took a little experimentation with the structure as to what would work best, how much food do you bring."
There is a great, tight-knit sense of community among board gamers. Engel is on a first-name basis with many of the customers who come through the door, cheerily greeting them as they enter.
"Once you start gaming with somebody, for the most part, you have positive experiences and look forward to encountering that again, embracing that again, meeting with those people, getting some more memories and having some more great experiences," he said. "Interacting with people on a social level and taking a break from life is important, and we can nourish that and encourage its growth here at Gamealot."
Many of the board gamers on hand agree that the social interaction is a major part of their appeal.
"You get to hang out with different people all the time," Day said, "and sometimes you get to play your strategic mind where, in other places, you can't."
"It's about spending social time with your friends," added Fischer. "You can catch up, play a game, have a lot of fun and have some actual social interaction. Yeah, you could play something on the computer, and some of the games work better with that … but when you get some of the ones that are quick and you can [move on and] play something else, that works pretty well."
Running the gamut
As evidenced by the thousands of shrink-wrapped game boxes piled to the ceiling in the store, board games can be inspired by just about anything — sports, war, history, mythology, pop culture, you name it.
On Saturday, Day was busy setting up a board game based on A Game of Thrones, the bestselling book by George R.R. Martin that was recently turned into a television series on HBO.
"This board game, really, has been out for five years, because it's based on the book rather than the TV show," he noted. "Sometimes, because of the pop media, some of this stuff will gain momentum."
Engel said that variety is not only vital to bringing more customers into his store, but also to the survival of board games themselves.
"On the one hand, you have people thinking, 'How can board games be surviving when there's so much Internet gaming going on and the proliferation of video games and consoles, iPhone games, iPad games — how can board games be doing so well?'" he said. "Well, it's for the same reason, the technology. The Internet has given us the access we need to get information about the games: what they are, how they play, where to find them."
Family affair
The youngest gamer on Saturday morning was four-year-old Delilah Gould. Her parents, Allan and Kimberly, are avid board gamers who have started to pass that passion down to the next generation — not only for fun, but for education as well.
"[It's] not as much as I expected, actually. I was hoping that, by now, she'd be able be add her dice more easily," said Kimberly as she and Delilah played a game of My Precious Presents — a game that is for kids eight and up, according to the box — which she eventually lost. "She still counts dots. But that's still better than a lot of kids her age.
"Her reading skills were good before board games, but I'd say they're improving. She's definitely learning the cognitive [skills] — do I want this, do I want that — because you have to make choices."
Almost everyone at Gamealot has a nametag pinned to his or her shirt, an easy icebreaker that identifies what genres of games they're interested in. Many of those nametags, though, have the name "Engel" printed on them. John's wife, Tracy, has one that cheekily proclaims: "Don't ask me how many games my nutcase husband has!"
John and Tracy started out in business in 1990 running a video rental store, but they soon phased out movies and phased in games — board games, collectible card games, even poker and bridge supplies.
In October 2010, they were named Small Business of the Year at the St. Albert Chamber of Commerce's annual Small Business Awards of Distinction ceremony.
"Gamealot isn't just about my family; it's about other families, too, who come out and have a break," he said. "I really enjoy seeing my family get together and participate, and I'm also very lucky they're able to help me out on a volunteer basis with the event. I'm glad it's turned out to be a venue that my daughters look forward to participating in."
