As usual, this Saturday from 3-9pm we'll be playing board games, card games, strategy games, family games and maybe even dexterity games. Oh, and eating pizza too.

It'll also be your first chance to make use of the GAMES! Library, as publicized earlier. There's a good selection of games available to play at Saturday's event or even check out and take home for a month or two.

Bring a game to play (or donate to the Library) and a friend (or just a friend and play a game from the Library), and join us at GAMES! this Saturday. If you can't make it, plan to set aside time for next month's event on October 12th. See you there!

If you recall a couple weeks ago, in the August Event Report post, I announced the creation of a library of games to be played at an event or even checked out to take home and play with friends or family. Now, there is a new button in the right column on the GAMES! website to access the GAMES! Library.

The online version shows what we have, what is missing from the box (if anything), and whether it is currently checked out or not. The content is not completely final (my scribbled notes from two weeks ago were not detailed enough to know which one of the four Scary Tales games we have, for example), but it's easy to update later.

Another thing that I'll be updating is the condition for each game. Several of the games are missing dice—just standard d6 dice in most cases—so once I replace them and the game is complete again, I'll update the Library entry to note that. Relatedly, if you happen to have extra pieces for a game we have that is missing them, you're welcome to donate them to the cause so we can have complete games to loan out.

Besides updating the game condition fields and filling in the missing box art, I'm planning to make another page with the guidelines for how the GAMES! Library will operate. Basically, you can play any of the games at our events without invoking lending. If you want to take a game home, just let me know at the event; I'll note in the online database that you have the game, along with your email address (and maybe phone number, though I might have that already). You keep the game however long you want and bring it back whenever you're done with it. If you keep it more than six months, we'll assume that you lost it and ask that you cover the cost of replacing it (or donate a different game instead). If/when you do bring it back, we'll look it over and see if anything new is missing; if so, we'll ask you to look around your house for the pieces you lost. If the pieces are fundamental to game play (like the actual board for the game Sorry! or something) and you can't find them, we'll ask you to cover replacement (or donate a different game instead). As soon as a game is returned to the library (and audited for missing pieces) it can be checked out again by somebody else.

There is no charge for borrowing from the GAMES! Library, unless you lose a game or its fundamental pieces. There is also currently no queue or reserve system implemented; the online materials are just what I threw together in a couple weeks of spare moments. If the Library stays interesting and actually gets used, maybe I'll add some new features. Meanwhile, if you have games laying around your house that you don't play anymore and want the space back, we would gladly add them to the GAMES! Library. On the other hand, if you've been wanting to try out a game that is now available in the Library, come to the September GAMES! event, Saturday, Sept. 14th, from 3-9pm; you can play it during the event or just take it home and bring it back in October, or November, or December, or January, or—you get the idea.

Thanks for reading!

We did double our July attendance with 22 people this month, including a couple first-timers. A lot of popular games were played, including The Resistance, Ticket To Ride, Agricola, Formula D, Cargo Noir, Dominion, and several others.

Mike, one of the first-timers, was drawn as our door prize winner and went home to Puerto Rico with a brand new copy of Cedar Falls—er, wait, that should be the other way around. Anyway, we'll do it again next month.

New this month (or coming soon, depending on how you look at it) is the GAMES! Library. Thanks to a semi-anonymous donation of 20+ games, we now have a stash of games that you can play at an event or even take home and play with your friends and family between events. I'll be hacking together some more web code to make the list of games available on our website, along with who has each checked out (and for how long), but you can also just look through stuff at the September event. We're excited about the potential of the new GAMES! Library and would even accept additional donations for the collection.

Speaking of the September event, put it on your calendar now, because it's less than four weeks away already: Saturday, September 14th, from 3-9pm. I'm going to aim for having the list of Library games posted before then, but no promises. See you in September!