Phoenix Rising Games and Comics in Salisbury wants to put game night back into your schedule.
Despite the popularity of video games, board games have come a long way through the decades.
“There’s hundreds and hundreds of game people don’t even know exist and they’re way better than monopoly,” J.D. Wilkins, owner of Pheonix Rising Games and Comics says.
Although many consider monopoly the “grand daddy” of board games, J.D. invites people of all ages to expand their play.
“The big thing with Monopoly, there’s a lot of randomness in it and nowadays people don’t like that as much, so there’s a lot of games that there’s actually a lot of strategy involved and there’s a little bit of randomness because otherwise it would be like chess and whoever the best player was would always win, so there has to be some randomness,” J.D. says. “But there are a ton of games.”
power-grid
The games can be found at Pheonix Rising and played there as well. Games such as Power Grid and King of Tokyo.
No matter what your age, you can learn a game and try it out before you buy.
“We always try to open the new games and I try to learn them so that I can teach some of the people because they are always trying to make games different than they were before because a lot of people had bad experiences with a game as a kid,” J.D. says.
According to J.D., a good starter game or a good family game is Settlers of Cattan.
“Settlers is a very, very good game, specifically for people who don’t think they like board games and then they sit down and they realize, hey there’s only like three rules to this game and then they start trading their sheep or their wheat or whatever it is in the game,” J.D. says. “It’s just a simple game and I haven’t had anyone say they didn’t like Settlers and that leads on to other games.”
Trading card games are also big at Phoenix Rising. Like Magic: The Gathering. Magic was the first trading card game produced and it continues to thrive.
“It’s personally the reason I’m into games,” J.D. says. “A lot of parents come in that are my age who played it when they were in high school, which is when I started, and now they want to get their kids back into it because they will go through their closet and see that they got their old magic cards and they will give them to their kids and their kids will get into it.”
Phoenix Rising even offers game nights and tournaments for those who want to take the experience a step further.
comic
But, games are only part of Phoenix Rising. You’ll find a huge selection of comic books at the front of the store. A little something for everyone, no matter your age.
