January GRPA
January 22, 2010
Our next in-store RPG event is right around the corner! Click the link for the official lineup of role-playing games scheduled for our next GRPA event on Monday, January 25th. Have a look below, and if you’d like to join us for any of these sessions, please select a game in which you’d like to participate and either call or write us back with your name and selection. All games are free and will be filled on a first-come, first-serve basis, and you’ll be responded to immediately with your status in the game. Please note that some of these games are filling up quickly!
What’s GRPA? Find out here!
Game Fair #2
January 14, 2010
Gamescape’s first Game Fair was a lot of fun, and we’ve decided to feature another set of great new games now that the holidays are done and we have more time to play with our customers. If you haven’t already heard about this event series, you can consider it a game exposition, what we call a Game Fair. At each event, all day long we’ll be demoing three games that we think you should be playing. Show up with nothing other than your interest, and check out short, fun demos of some of the coolest things in the store that you might not otherwise know about – or perhaps you’ve just never had a chance to see them in-person. We think it’s a great way to get hands-on experience with some games that we’re totally wild about.
This month’s theme is great strategy board games, and we’ll be opening up Bridge Troll, Qwirkle Cubes, and Carcassonne: Wheel of Fortune to show you how they’re played! We think this selection really shows the great breadth of different games that can be considered part of the “strategy” category. For those only familiar with old favorites like chess and Monopoly, you’ll be treated to a trio of brilliant games that use interactive and abstract strategy, visual and inferential perception, and endless modular replayability.
Bridge Troll is a recent release from Z-Man, distributors of the smash hits Pandemic and Agricola. Each player takes on the role of a horrible troll, hurling boulders at passing travelers for money and food. The game contains mechanics for bidding that require resource management and savvy, opportunities to gather goods and cash them in for game-winning points, and plenty of dark humor as unsuspecting Medieval characters are waylaid by your strength and wit! You can download the rules at the link above if you’d like to check it out before giving it a shot.
If you haven’t played Qwirkle, you’re missing out on one of the best abstract strategy games of the decade. Just out last year and the follow-up to one of our best-selling games ever, Qwirkle Cubes has all of the fun of its predecessor with a bit more dynamism. Instead of tiles, you get to roll dice to come up with the shapes and colors that you need to score. In addition, all players openly show their dice for an added level of strategy. Great for literally any age, designed locally with gorgeous wooden parts, and utterly addictive. You can learn in thirty seconds and play for hours!
Another great follow-up to an unbelievable release, Carcassonne: Wheel of Fortune lets the winds of fate help you win with a ton of extra opportunities for building and scoring. Move the pig around the wheel and hope it lands on a segment that benefits your followers already on the board. It plays very similar to the original Carcassonne with lots of extra ways to influence the game – one of the very best modular strategy games in the store.
We’ll be doing three one-hour demos for each game throughout the day, though none of these games will take that much time to play; we like to allow some extra time for rules explanations and the like. Round One will be at 1:00pm, followed by Round Two at 2:30pm and Round Three at 4:00pm. You don’t need to bring anything but your interest and a little bit of time to spend with us. Hope to see you then!
Saturday, January 23rd 1-6pm
Game Fair: Strategy Board Games
Let us show you what’s amazingly fun!
Role-Playing in the New Year
January 2, 2010
Our first Open RPG Night of the new year is coming up soon, on Monday, January 11th 6-11pm! As with every ORPG, we’ll be having a drop-in Shadowrun 4th Edition game, as well as the continuing adventures of our monthly Pathfinder Society. This month also features our first regular Warhammer Fantasy 3rd Ed RPG, which has gotten a ton of interest – we had seven people making characters last month! Come down and hang out with us if any of these appeal to you, but be aware that many of these games are pre-filled. If you’re interested in obtaining a spot, please contact the store to see what’s open, or feel free to run your own game at the event – just let us know and we’ll post it here!
About the event:
New to the Gamescape calendar is Open RPG Night, held on the second Monday of each month. Whereas GRPA provides one-shot, pre-designed games for sign-up, at ORPG events we open up the store to your regular role-playing campaigns, either with room for walk-ins or closed just to your friends. We want it to be like your living room, only with lots of space, plenty of tables, and the perfect atmosphere to meet other gamers or to see what’s normally being played behind closed doors. The event is also free every month, and we have some awesome games slated to run on a regular basis. If you think you’d like to move your monthly game to Mondays at Gamescape, shoot us an e-mail and we’ll get you a table. We’ll also be publicly posting the list of regular games that we host, regardless of whether they’re filled or not, just to show people what’s going on in San Rafael. The more role-playing, the better, and now you can keep a pulse on what’s happening locally!
You can check out more info or make some posts on our new forum board for Open RPG Night. We set it up so people can get oriented each month with what’s being run and what they’d like to be a part of. In addition, we now have a detailed RPG questionnaire form that will give us an idea of what our community is playing and wants to see in the future. This form can also be downloaded from the forum or you can grab one next time you’re in the store.
October Open RPG Night: Monday, January 11th 6-11pm
Please call the store (415.457.8698) or (Email Us) with any questions or if you’d like more info on the event.
New Year’s Eve Board Game Night
December 26, 2009
No plans for New Year’s Eve? Come on over and play some games with us! This year we’re having an open board game night at the store that’s free and fun for anyone who wants to come down. Whether it’s something you got for the holidays that you’re eager to try out, or if you simply have no other plans and have games on the brain, we’re going to be playing all evening long and would love to have you join us. As per usual at our game nights, we’ll have plenty of tables open for anything you’d like to bring along, as well as a massive library full of games to try out. The festivities start at 6pm and we’ll be here until everyone wants to go home. If you’re looking for players for a particular game, feel free to post on our forum and see who responds. Hope to see you there!
Thursday, December 31st 6pm-?
New Year’s Eve Board Game Night
Who cares about the apple – play until YOU drop!
Happy Holidays
December 25, 2009
Wishing all of our friends and customers a very Happy Holiday with joy and prosperity in the year ahead. We thank you a ton for your support and patronage, and can’t wait to see you in the New Year for a load of fun and games!