Board game shelves around the world #36

Hey you all, or “Moi vaan kaikille” as we would say in Finland where I am from. I am Linda (@bunnysinister on Instagram) and I am a 32 year old gamer of all trades from Tampere. I live with my fiance (@captain_bringdown) in the centrum of our city. I work with kids in an afternoon club and occasionally in a gaming goods store (@puolenkuun_pelit) when I am needed. I love to play all kinds of games and often find myself either with a gamepad in my hand, organizing decks or putting on fresh sleeves. I also paint and eat. Pretty basic stuff.

How did you get into this world of non-digital games?
I got in to gaming as a kid. We played games almost every evening with my mom. UNO was a big hit, also Trivial Pursuit and other 80s’ stuff. This lasted for many years.

Later in my teens I mostly spent my time with my nose glued on my TV and yelled Mario to “Jump damn you!!”. Also the selection of boardgames in Finland in the 90s’ and early 00s’ was pathetic. Correct me if I am wrong. But at 2014 my spark for boardgaming was re-ignited when I started working in Puolenkuun Pelit. I found myself spending more and more time organizing the board games helves and reminiscing the old golden days of UNO and Skip-bo. Then I bought the base game of Gloom. It seemed simple (and good) enough. After that it was spend spend spend, game game game!

How often do you play?
I try to play as often as I can, but usually due to the busy schedules of adults, it is once or twice a week. I also take some kid-appropriate games to work so I can play with the kids too.

In Finland the summer is short, so it is only natural to have a two month break from boardgaming, trying to catch some sun before it gets dark again. And now that it’s fall we have been starting to play more boardgames at home and with my gamingfriends too.

We have a small group of gamers and we try to meet up once a week. That also allows us all to have an access to a wide selection of different games, this is better for our wallets too. I am also taking part in my first X-Wing tournament in October, so now I train once a week for that.

Can you tell us something about your shelves?
My shelves are very random. I play Tetris with them. I don’t showcase all of my games since I see no point on having boring deck boxes in sight. I sleeve my cardgames so often that I need to re-box (is that a word!?) them. Also I stack my shelves on both sides and games peek out everywhere. I have the more casual games on top for easy access and the heavy big boxes are stored in my closet. For X-Wing I have containers and a special bag to carry them along.

What is your favorite game at the moment?
If someone asked me what to buy next I’d say Elder Sign. I just love it! There is not always the space and time for an epic session so it is nice to whip out a game that still has depth and components to take care of even if the playtime is only for like an hour.

It also has the ability to feed eight mouths so that is a plus. I love the Arkham Files-games. The mechanics work and the suspense is there! I rarely get so much carried away as I do with Elder Sign. I have also enjoyed Pandemic recently very much. I think I need to expand my copy.

What is your most special or obscure game?
The Amazing Labyrinth was a total hit when I was a kid. For some reason I never got to play it with my friends and never got a copy of my own. Until 2014 I finally bought a copy for us to play on Easter while visiting my “in-laws” and we had so much fun I wasn’t bitter about my childhood anymore. We still play it at times and actually it can be very difficult when playing with a person that has good skills in building a strategy ahead.

Thank you so much for sharing your story! Something you would like to add?
You can find my stuff on Instagram and snapchat (bunny_sinister) though the content goes more on the selfie-side. But I update my gaming and geeky lootings as often as possible. I look forward to what my fellow Finns will come up next, we already have Eclipse and Dale Of Merchants to be proud of. This was fun! Nähtäillään!

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