For Sarah Blake – it’s game on!

Sarah Blake, Katie Clarke, Jake Glenn, Rowan Clarke, Willemine Drage and Cayley Jones at Games n More last Thursday night

“When I started getting into this, I realised that past the age of 12, I hadn’t touched a board game,” said local pharmacy dispensary technician Sarah Blake.

“But it is just fun! You feel like a kid again. It takes you back to your childhood. You’ll have nights where you win a lot and other nights where you just can't win to save your life, but that doesn’t matter. I'm not playing to win; I'm playing to have fun!”

It was only a few years ago that Sarah and her fiancé ventured back into the world of tabletop gaming, purchasing the game Takenoko after researching a few reviews online.

But now for Sarah it has become her obsession and a large part of her social life. Most Thursday evenings, you will find Sarah with other local gaming enthusiasts around a table at Games n More in Summer Street.

“It is my big social thing to do… I'm a very shy, an inward person, but everyone is just so friendly. You can come, sit down, play and it is a real community,” said Sarah.

“And we are getting bigger and bigger. At first it was only a handful of us, and you'd struggle to get four players in a game sometimes, but we have really busy nights where the whole store is packed and we have split up into groups. I'm now looking at specific games that can handle big groups up to 8 or 12 players.”

From her first hesitant purchase, Sarah’s personal board game library has grown dramatically.

“I’d have at least 30 games now. We have an Aldi bag full of small games that go everywhere and then I have these piles that keep growing! And I've got a list of games I want to research and then another list of games I actually want to buy, and they have 20 games at least on each of those lists.”

And we are not just talking about Monopoly or Scrabble. These days you will find a dizzying array of games to suit all tastes.

“That's the other exciting thing; seeing what type of games you enjoy the most and how you respond differently when you are playing different stuff. My fiancé is very much into deep strategy and I prefer abstract games. I like Euro Games, they kind of keep everyone involved until the end, so there is no getting out and you can't play for the rest of the game,” said Sarah, who is enthusiastic about recruiting new players to the weekly games nights.

“It is just so much fun! Give it a go!”