Beyond The Board

It's no secret that boardgames have experienced a bit of a Renaissance in the past few years - my city now has a dedicated board game parlor, as well as a boardgaming club that is attended by hundred of players every other weekend.  This has resulted in a few new shops opening around town, too - for my birthday a couple of awesome friends gave me a gift certificate to one of the newer shops, Beyond The Board, so I decided to check it out:

Yay! Money that must be spent on games!

 The shop is tucked into the corner of a shopping center off of W. Bridge St. in Dublin, OH:

Unfortunately, there was no good way to get a decent picture of the store - either it was blocked by the trees, or I was under the overhang

Walking in, the shop seems nice, if a bit... unfilled, I guess?

It just feels like a much bigger space than necessary.  (Although I've never been there during a CCG tournament or event - the extra space might be nice to have on those nights).

I was mildly surprised to see that they had a corner of the store dedicated to Games Workshop & Privateer Press minis & products, but make no mistake - their main focus was definitely board games.

They also have a nice selection of games in their "library" for customers to try out:

At this point, I decided to pick out a game - while there is lots of stuff on my wishlist, in particular I was looking for something that 1.) would play well with just my wife & I, as well as with friends, 2.) was fairly "light", 3.) didn't have a theme that would instantly turn my wife off (just about all sci-fi themes & many fantasy ones are right out), and 4.) wasn't too expensive (say goodbye, Fantasy Flight coffin-box games).

This is were Beyond The Board stood out - I told the lone employee working that day, Chris, what I was looking for, and he proceeded to walk the aisles with me, point out any possibilities, and give me a brief overview of the play style & mechanics of each game.  After me telling him my personal pros & cons of some of his picks, we were able to narrow it down to four or five solid possibilities.  In the end I narrowed it down to King of Tokyo, Qwirkle, and Planes - I decided to go with Planes (although I'll probably go back and pick up Qwirkle sometime):

I also picked up a copy of Star Wars: Empire vs. Rebellion for a friends' birthday (this was a 2-player card game that Chris highly recommended - I kinda wanted a copy for myself, but the theme is a hard sell for the missus):

After making my selections, I went to pay, and found out they have a pretty cool rewards program:

I could potentially fill a scary number of these cards in record time

After paying, I chatted with Chris a bit longer before taking off.  Overall I was really impressed with the sotre and the staff - if you are in the area, check them out!