Game Kastle – The Blog

I am Jeff from Game Kastle.

If you’re reading this, the odds are very high that you know me or at least what I look like. It has been three years since I started working at GK, and I’ve always worked the busiest times. If I don’t know your game, I soon will

I started down this path when I was in 4th grade, when I had a Wizard in a DnD Advanced 2nd Edition game. We never got past first level. I had one HP. I tried to GM when I was in 6th grade. I didn’t even have a Monster Manual. I was a child with no assistance trying to understand THAC0, Kits, Psionic attacks and defenses, and how to track encumbrance. We had no idea what we were doing. We broke the rules all the time. We had a blast.

Then came the great dry spell of my analog gaming life. Throughout Jr. High and High School my only board gaming experience came from my family’s monthly board gaming night. I cut my teeth playing games like Set and Sequence; Sorry and Cribbage. I learned how to compete with people without ostracizing them, and how to realize it’s just a game. I learned to focus on the fun.

College was next. During my freshman year I made a fantastic discovery. I was walking by a conference room that had the door open and overheard someone ask, “Can I re-roll my Intelligence?”

I stopped, turned around, and entered the open door. “Are you guys playing D&D?”

3rd edition had just begun. I learned anew. Feats and Prestige classes; Bonus Spell Slots and Grapple rules; a new version of Psionics and how THAC0 had actually worked. I crafted characters, sprawled in the common area amidst a sea of books and papers, with other students asking me what I was studying.

Time passed. 3.5 came, and with it the Ebberon campaign setting. I tried Exalted 1st edition. I tried Settlers of Catan and realized that there were more good board games than just what my family had played. I kept on watching 40K games and even bought a Tau codex.

I found a solid job and had disposable income. It was time for WARMACHINE. Escalation had just hit the table, and I purchased a large, potent Cygnar army. I poured time and money into every aspect of the hobby save one: Painting. I played every week.

The solid job eroded. The vaporware faded and I was unemployed. I went down to my childhood comic shop and applied for a job, as I had every time I had started a job search since High School. They had always lied to me, told me that they would hold onto my resume, and sent me on my way so that I could find a real job.

“Excellent!” proclaimed the assistant manager, “I’ll show this to my boss.” And suddenly I was in. I was living my childhood dream, selling comics.

But I came to understand that very few comics rise above the rest; that monthly serial stories are jilted and difficult; that years of dross can be ignited by a brilliant flash of excellence before fading into mediocrity again.

It was in this environment that I learned that gaming was my passion. I found a new place to play WARMACHINE, Game Kastle. I found a place where my particular nerd focus was understood and encouraged. I found myself shutting down the comic store as quickly as possible so that I could drive over to GK and hang out for a half hour before going home to sleep.
It was after two weeks of doing this that I realized I was working at the wrong store. It was two months after that that I started working at GK. It has been three years, and I’m still here.

I have seen games come and gone. I have seen companies fall and rise again. I have seen children born and walking in the time I have been behind this counter. I have absorbed entire rulesets and forgotten them. I have competed nationally and goofed around for the fun of it. I have made friends and lost relationships in this store. I have probably played your game, and if not, I know what it is.

I am Jeff from Game Kastle. And I have one last thing to say:

Have Fun!