Games store provides board, card, and mini games

For those who find playing board games interesting, Crazy Squirrel Game Store provides the perfect opportunity for people to compete against each other and play different types of games. Located on Bullard and Fresno St., the game store offers an extensive selection of board, mini, card and roleplaying games that apply to people of all ages.

After writing for The Fresno Bee for multiple years, Jennifer Ward, owner of Crazy Squirrel Game Store, decided to move on to another career. Encouraged by friends, she and her husband built the game store eight years ago. Ward describes what games she thinks will sell well this year.

“Gaming has really exploded in the last eight years or so,” Ward said. “Ticket to Ride is a really popular game nationwide, we consider it our go-to beginners game. Recently really big games have been cooperative games, like Pandemic, where you play as a team against the world. This year, for the holidays, we are looking at Keyforge being a big hit and there’s a new one called Discovery Unknown that we think will be really big.”

Crazy Squirrel offers board games with one of the largest role-playing collections one will find. According to Ward, the store sells  mini games and holds a wide selection of collectable card games. They also carry a variety of strategy activities, such as chess, bingo and other abstract games. Ward explains how they keep the shelves of their store well stocked and up to date.

“A game has to earn its shelf space,” Ward said. “If a game can’t sell at least 4-6 copies a year, then we usually don’t bring it back into the store unless it’s one of those classic games that you have to carry. For example, you have to have a chess board to be a game store. There are about 3,000 new board games coming out this year. So if a game can’t make sales within the first month it might be dropped.”

High school english teacher, Kyle Dodson, has, in the past, hosted game clubs in his class room after school. Dodson provides his input on why he thinks interacting while playing board games is beneficial.

Reese Brown, ‘19, enjoys playing prolonged strategy board games with others because he likes to be able to contemplate and study different techniques. Brown participates in games like Risk, where one is able to multitask.

“My favorite kind of board game is any type of strategy game, like chess or Risk, where it generally takes a while and it’s a more slow paced game, but it takes a lot of critical thinking,” Brown said. “My favorite game would be Risk. I enjoy it because it’s not a game that you have to sit and work on it alone, you can also go around and do other things while you play it.”

Ward shares her favorite board games to play with others. She enjoys the city building genre, which includes her favorite game, Puerto Rico, where the objective is to make your plantations the most prosperous.

“My personal second favorite game is the version of Settlers of Catan called Cities and Knights,” Ward said. “My first favorite game is called Puerto Rico, which is also an older game. There’s also a game that came out a couple years ago called Suburbia that is basically a board game version of SimCity that I think is fantastic.”

Ward is finishing up a business class with the Small Business Administration. She strives to offer more private gaming experiences where customers can have a party. The organization plans to add in some business consultation services where they go out to small companies and help them improve their teamwork and creative thinking.

Four-year employee Cirk Dunkle works part time at Crazy Squirrel. He aims to attend school in the future, but for now plans to continue working at the game store. Dunkle shares his favorite aspects of working at the gaming store.

“I love playing board games,” Dunkle said. “I love everything about roleplaying games and I love seeing people getting together and playing face to face, in an age that isn’t as face to face.”

Employed at a family-owned game store, Ward hopes to add separate private rooms to the single large room to support more patrons. She hopes the new additions will attract gamers and provide more opportunities for events.

“We think of ourselves as a family game store,” Ward said. “I have games for sale starting at age two. A lot of our customers are older. We have a big open game room. One of our plans is to build some private gaming rooms, within the next six months we’re going to do that.”

Crazy Squirrel hosts multiple tournaments for games each week. The Magic: The Gathering tournament begins Nov. 2 at 7 p.m. Magic: the Gathering, is a trading card game where players use their mana to purchase/use the cards in their hand to play creatures for battles and spells to increase defenses or destroy opponents. To enter the event, competitors pay a fee of $15.

For more articles, read COLUMN: Alexander Rurik shares story of name or Strength and conditioning, P.E. classes encourage competitiveness, physical growth.

Cohl Obwald can be reached via email.