A member of the Stumptown Gamecrafters' Guild plays through the latest iteration of Justin Cyr’s "AstroTech" during a meet up in Tigard, Ore., on Dec. 9, 2024.
Jess Hazel / OPB
You might miss the spot in Tigard, Oregon, if you don’t keep an eye out for the glowing “meetup here” sign above a door into what looks like a warehouse.
Inside, you’ll find a workshop full of printers that use everything from paper and ink to plastic filament, along with tools for cutting and gluing and trimming, comfy couches for conversations, and of course, lots of tables for playing games.
The members of the Stumptown Gamecrafters' Guild meet every Monday to play through their games, get feedback and use game-building essentials from cardstock to laser cutters.
On an evening in December, Sean Wittmeyer showed off a piece he recently made using a 3D printer — a familiar-looking airport control tower.
The current PDX board game features different upgrades to players' imaginary airports and also sports some last minute edits made in blue marker.
Jess Hazel / OPB
“So Sean’s been making this PDX game,” said Brendon Cheves, who runs the weekly group. “It could be any airport, but his [game] is themed around PDX. And… dice towers are pretty popular in games so we thought ‘what if we did the PDX control tower as a dice tower?’”
Cheves says that, besides being a fun way to play games and flex strategic and creative skills, the game makers guild provides a place for people to build community.
“Every game we play here is designed by people who come here,” said Cheves. “So that’s what makes it unique over all the other board game meetups that are going on in town. They’re all cool and you can play a lot of commercial games that way. But if you want to play really unique stuff you come here because it’s stuff that’s not on the market.”
Sean Wittmeyer, first from left, explains how to play his PDX board game — inspired by the Portland Airport’s recent renovations — to a group during a December meeting of the Gamecrafters' Guild.
Jess Hazel / OPB
Game designs range from simple concepts, like Nathan Monger’s “Pondora’s Crocs,” in which each player has a pair of frogs and one crocodile they can move across a small square board.
“They’re trying to get their two frogs together,” Monger explained. “And trying to use their crocodile to keep other frogs from crossing the pond.”
Other games, like the second iteration of Justin Cyr’s “AstroTech,” are a bit more complex.
“These give you different things that you’re able to do with different actions,” Cyr said while trimming the edge of the cards that allow players to unlock new spaces to move on their own boards. “At the same time you are racing other people to get those spaces.”
Other games come about because the maker wants to flex a particular creative skill. Erica Berg has been working on a route-building game with a huge, hand-painted board.
“I like to hand-draw my under drawing,” Berg said. “And then blow it up and then paste it on a panel and then do the painting over it.”
Cheves says the group has pushed the boundaries of traditional board games with things like simultaneous play: when you don’t have to wait around for your turn, because it’s everyone’s turn … all the time!
That concept led to a game about art forgery.
“This game is completely chaotic,” Cheves said. “It can be played with up to 12 simultaneous players and we’ve done it once on the pool table.”
The art deco-style board for a simultaneous play game developed by the group uses timers to keep track of players moves instead of making individual turns.
Jess Hazel / OPB
As the game makers are continuously designing and playing the game, they make changes to the game based on feedback from the players. For example, the art forgery game ended up incorporating cheating.
“We realized unintentional cheating was happening a lot because there was so much chaos,” Cheves said. “So why not make it part of the game? That [way] you’ve got to watch over other people and if you see them cheat you get to take advantage of what they were cheating on.”
Cheves said the best way to come up with new mechanics is simply to play a whole bunch of games that are already published.
Plastic filament for the 3D printer can come in lots of different colors including the array used to print pieces for a game formerly known as "Space Freight" and now redeveloped as "Red Dog Junction."
Jess Hazel / OPB
Members of the group can use 3D printing to make custom game pieces like these two figurines.
Jess Hazel / OPB
Which means there might be more game designers joining the group in the future, because people have been playing a lot more board games in the last few years. Just ask someone who works at a board game store.
“We’ve had a lot of folks come in that are just moved to town or are new to the area or just looking for a way to get out of their house on the weekends,” said Alex Hart, who works at the Portland location of Guardian Games. “So it’s been an awesome way to bring the community together.”
Hart runs a board game open play night at the store and considers himself a board game sommelier. He also makes videos reviewing or recommending board games on YouTube and TikTok.
During the weekly meetup, Hart serves as a game instructor and bartender.
“But also sort of be a matchmaker amongst these people,” Hart said, “to introduce new folks to one another… We are in the thick of board game season now. I look outside, I see it’s gray, and I’m like ‘perfect.’ This is great. Nobody wants to walk outside, everybody wants to come in and play board games with me.”
Brendon Cheves agrees with that assessment for why the pull of a good game seems particularly strong in the Pacific Northwest.
“Because it rains all the time,” Cheves said. “What else are you gonna do?”
The members of the Stumptown Gamecrafters' Guild meetup every Monday to test and improve their original games and to build community.
Jess Hazel / OPB
He also pointed to a general culture of inclusion in the region, although the board game community still struggles when it comes to making sure everyone feels welcome.
“We don’t have very many women,” says Cheves. “But I think that’s true for most of the board gaming groups in town. It’d be nice if we could figure out a way to change it.”
Cheves doesn’t see the need for new board games dying down any time soon, so he’s got time to think of ways to draw in more gender diversity.
In the meantime, the members of the Stumptown Gamecrafters' Guild will keep growing their community with each roll of the dice, or every card drawn, whatever mechanic they dream up next to drive toward victory, or at the very least win a few more friends.