About
Gamescape North is the prime gaming location in the Northern San Francisco Bay Area. We carry a massive selection of non-electronic games of all sorts, including board games, role-playing, card games, miniatures, traditional games, and hobby supplies. We also feature a great selection of traditional games, puzzles, and wooden abstract strategy games. Gamescape North prides itself as a bustling hub of activity for our local gaming community, and we have a busy schedule of events, including demos, tournaments, open-gaming nights, and classes to offer our customers. Feel free to browse our calendar page, check out our community forum, or contact us for info on products, services, and community!
Our Employees
Darren Layne, Owner
Darren has been working and playing in the industry since 1991, whereupon he realized that the institution of the LGS (local game store) was the perfect confluence of geek and chic. He’s worked at Gamescape in San Rafael since 1995, running operations and managing the store when it was still linked to the other Bay Area Gamescape locations. He graduated from Berkeley in 2000 and then studied abroad in Scotland, where he received a Master’s degree in Scottish History from the University of Edinburgh. He returned to San Francisco in 2004 to purchase the store from the original owner, Bob Hamilton.
Darren’s gaming focus is based on historical board games and wargames, as well as strategy games and miniatures simulations of all eras. He’s also an accomplished miniature painter who never seems to find the time to paint anymore. He’s currently on a grand tour of the libraries and archives of Scotland as he undertakes his PhD program at the University of St Andrews, but he is still very involved in the regular operations of the store.
Current Favorite Games: Carcassonne, Flames of War, Hive, Conflict of Heroes, Cutthroat Caverns
Current Favorite Music: Cranes, The Twilight Sad, Glasvegas, Tom Waits, Iron Maiden, Austra
Favorite Brands of Hats: Bailey, Borsalino, New York, Biltmore, Goorin Bros.
Will lecture you on: Entitlement and obliviousness as well as the resurgence of nationalism as a vehicle for the elitist mythology.
Andre Sisneros, Owner
Andre had been a long-time customer of Gamescape while he worked as a high-school Physics teacher in Napa and Novato. He approached Darren with the idea of engaging in a joint business opportunity at precisely the right time, and thus, the new Gamescape North was born. Thanks to his teaching background, Andre is one of the best game instructors you’ll ever have, and he brings an air of warmth and joviality to the store that has become iconic.
Andre’s favorite games are those steeped in strategy, though he really just likes playing anything at all. He can often be heard in the store emitting high-pitched squeals of enthusiasm, scrambling for new games even though he already owns them.
Current Favorite Games: Infinity, Combat Commander, Garibaldi, SPQR
Current Favorite Music: U2, Tom Waits, Nickel Creek, Peter Gabriel
Favorite Hobbies: Aquariums, Photography, and Camping
Will lecture you on: The physics of Medieval combat and the virtues of pinning models during their assembly.
Nick Lundback, Store Manager and Organization Overlord
Our man Nick is a whirlwind of ideas and action, simultaneously taking care of the store and doing all the things that the rest of us never seem to get enough time to do. He’s a serious workaholic with a penchant for detail in everything he sets himself to. Graduating with a History and Classics degree from the University of Arizona, Nick’s taken his love for the past into his gaming hobby, both tabletop and video, and has a great enthusiasm for anything at all to do with historical simulation.
Nick is our assistant manager, holding down the fort and keeping us on track, and he’s also one of the more congenial, well-raised members of the Gamescape crew. He greatly enjoys long, quiet drives in the country with his wife and reading military history of all eras.
Current Favorite Games: Combat Commander, Munchkin, Double Shutter, D&D 4.0
Current Favorite Music: Breaking Benjamin, Three Days Grace, James Horner, Howard Shore
Favorite Cities Abroad: London, Vienna, San Gimignano, Edinburgh
Will lecture you on: The best ways to organize ANYTHING at all, even the ways that you organize your organization.
Jordan Walraven, Community Herder and Miniatures Rules Maven
Jordan literally grew up at Gamescape, obsessing on Warhammer and other miniatures games since he was of counter-height and below. He’s been a part of the game and toy industries for about as long, working at his parents’ store and helping people have fun in countless different ways. It only seemed right that he join the team and add to our roster his amazing understanding of rules systems (and how to exploit them), and we’re very happy to have him around.
He’s a massive, unabashed comics geek, and has a near-photographic memory about most things related to the drawn multiverse. You might also see Jordan at KublaCon, where he works fervently as the Miniatures Coordinator to the acclaim of that community.
Current Favorite Games: Infinity, Monsterpocalypse, Warmachine, Uncharted Seas
Current Favorite Books: Three Musketeers, Without Remorse, The Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, Ender’s Shadow
Favorite Comic Book Characters: Green Lantern, Blue Beetle, Deadpool, Taskmaster
Will lecture you on: Why Candyland is the worst game ever made, and will bring about the fall of society as we know it.
Max Sterner, Painting Maven and Games Workshop Man-Whore
Young, fresh-faced Max is a splendid chap; perhaps the kindest employee we’ve ever had. He’s dutiful and eager to help on both sides of the counter, and it only took a month of constant pressure for us to convince him to turn in a résumé. He’s also a quick learner, ever-concerned about the cleanliness of the store and the happiness of our customers. Max currently heads up our Warhammer 40k community on Tuesday evenings, bouncing around the room like a seasoned boxer and making swift rules calls like the very finest of referees.
Max is also a blisteringly amazing painter, and as long as we give him some time away from the store, he’s promised to paint all fifteen store armies to exacting detail. Why don’t you come by and give him some enthusiastic support?
Current Favorite Games: Warhammer 40,000, Settlers of Catan, Carcassonne, Caylus
Current Favorite Music: Interpol, Joy Division, New Order, Modest Mouse
Favorite Colors of Paint: PIP Thrallmar Black, GW Bleached Bone, GW Scorched Brown, GW Necrite Red
Will lecture you on: Why learning three different ways of painting non-metallic-metals is simply not sufficient.
Mike O’Brien, Devourer of Role-Playing Games and Resident Military Consultant
We call Mike the “New Fish”, a term with which he’s quite familiar from his days in the Army. Mike came to us after serving two tours in Afghanistan, moving from Florida to the Bay Area to marry his wife. We’ve found him to be unbelievably enthusiastic about every aspect of the game industry, and he’s an absolute voracious consumer of game rules and settings. We’ve given Mike trusted command of some long-running communities here at the store, and you’ll generally find him here on Board Game Nights and Friday Magic events, representing the best qualities of gamesmanship – when he’s winning.
Mike also enjoys writing his own pieces, and he’s one of our most favored Game Masters at our role-playing events. Keep your eyes on the calendar and make sure to give one of his sessions a try!
Current Favorite Games: World of Darkness, Magic: The Gathering, Battlestar Galactica, Victoriana
Current Favorite Music: Staind, Breaking Benjamin, Cold, Daft Punk
Favorite Authors: Ray Bradbury, Chuck Palahniuk, H.P. Lovecraft, George Orwell
Will lecture you on: Why role-playing games are essential tools for the balanced development of your child.
Gamescape Alumni
Yoshi Creelman, Magic and Board Game Expert
Yoshi is a perfect example of one of those guys who would show up so often on game nights that we simply decided to bring him into the fold. He put up little resistance, and soon became an incredibly valuable asset for his encyclopedic knowledge of board games and his acumen for hosting and running events at the store. He graduated from UC San Diego with a Computer Science degree and is largely responsible for the success of our Magic community here at the store.
Yoshi is keenly interested in all types of games, and is a staple of our Board Game Night, where he’s always willing to dip into his own extensive collection and teach something new to even the most seasoned of gamers. In addition to being an avid outdoorsman, he’s also probably one of the best healers the game of World of Warcraft has ever seen.
Current Favorite Games: Caylus, Dominion, Bridge, Coloretto
Current Favorite Music: Dispatch, Paul Simon, U2, Dixie Chicks
Favorite Places to Spend a Weekend: Joshua Tree, Squamish, The Sierras, and at Home in a Good Book
Will lecture you on: Why Wrath of God is bad for the game of Magic: The Gathering.