I celebrated Father’s Day this past weekend at the Mox Boarding House in Bellevue, Washington, along with a couple other GeekDad writers and some of our readers and their kids. Will James came with his wife Sarah, and Rob Huddleston happened to be on vacation with his family so he dropped in for a couple of games, too.
Thanks to Mox Boarding House for providing one of their private rooms for the event. Because of a small scheduling mix-up, we actually got to spend time in the Apothecary and the Library, so it was fun to see both of those. And if you get a chance to see the Speakeasy room, it’s pretty great–it’s actually hidden behind a bookshelf in a hallway!
I hadn’t been to Mox Boarding House before but it had come highly recommended from a few friends, and I’m really glad I went. It’s probably the most gorgeous game store I’ve ever been in, and it’s enormous. Aside from a few tables scattered around the main retail space, there’s a room for miniatures, a room for CCGs plus another room full of rows of tables for gaming … and that’s about half of the space. The other half is the cafe, which is a very nice space with large tables so you can play games while you get a bite to eat. There’s a huge library with games to check out, too.
The Library is one of the rooms you can rent–it has floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, and is made to look like, well, an old library. There’s one large table, and seating for up to 12 (if you squeeze in a bit). We started off in the Library and played a few games, and then moved into the Apothecary.
The Apothecary has a wall of glass cabinets filled with bottles of various powders and colorful liquids. The table here is about the same size, but looks more like a lab table unlike the wood table in the Library.
We had just a couple of dads join us with their sons, and we checked out a few kids’ games to try, like Expedition Dino and Spot It. The adults also played several others, like the new drafting game Nevermore and a prototype of an upcoming Kickstarter game, Swords & Bagpipes.
It was a great way to spend Father’s Day, and it was fun meeting a couple of my fellow GeekDad writers in person for the first time, too–a few hours playing games, and then I finished the day by seeing Jurassic World because, hey, dinosaurs!
The next day, I got a chance to make a few other stops in Seattle, too.
First up: a friend took me to Ada’s Technical Books, which is a really lovely little bookstore and cafe full of geeky books, project kits, and lots of other stuff. We were only there briefly but it looks like a wonderful place to hang out. They’ve got lots of ongoing events like a “Classics of Science Fiction” book club and a monthly puzzle club. There’s even an coworking space upstairs. Definitely worth stopping in if you’re visiting Seattle.
Next, I stopped by the offices of Glowforge and talked to Dan Shapiro for a bit about his upcoming laser cutter.
Unfortunately the actual Glowforge prototypes weren’t in use at the time of my visit, but Shapiro did show me the hoops you have to jump through to get an older laser cutter/engraver to work, and why he’s hoping to make that process a lot simpler (and cheaper).
After that, Will James and I went out to see Lone Shark Games. The crew there were in the middle of playtesting Mummy’s Mask, the next set in the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game series (after the recently released Wrath of the Righteous). We didn’t get to play very long but there are some very cool new mechanics introduced that I know my regular PACG group will find pretty challenging.
What I can’t show you is the big whiteboard of Apocrypha stuff that the team is working on, but I’m excited about that, too. As soon as they wrap up Mummy’s Mask, they’ll really ramp up work on Mike Selinker’s new game.
Finally, we made one more stop at Flying Frog Productions. I’ve been a fan of their games for a while now but it was my first time stopping by to see their studio. They’re deep in the middle of Shadows of Brimstone, producing all the expansions and new content that was unlocked during their epic Kickstarter campaign. Unfortunately, I can’t show you photos of what I saw but I’ll tell you that there are some really cool things in the pipeline that haven’t been announced yet. I’ve only gotten to play my copy a few times but I’ve really enjoyed it.
They also had a prototype copy of Colonial Horror, an upcoming standalone expansion to the Dark Gothic deck-building game. Will and I got to try it out–you can mix it into the base game, or the expansion has enough cards to play up to three players on its own. There are new heroes and monsters, of course, and a few new mechanics like Roaming minions that will advance every round toward the Shadows if you don’t finish them off quickly. It’s expected to be released at Gen Con this year, so expect more on that later.
So, that was my game-filled GeekDad’s Day weekend! How did you spend Father’s Day this year? Did you get to play some good games?
