Game Knight; saving society, building family bonds, and even renting board games.
Jeremy Damon is the grand wizard of his realm on 4th Street in Huntingburg. As the wizened owner of Game Knight a typical night finds him judging and advising the gamers that regularly attend his events and tournaments. He hurries around the store answering to the calls of “Shopkeep” or just “Keep”.
“When I was growing up in Lawrenceburg there was a baseball card and coin shop about two towns away,” Jeremy said. “And we would go over there every once in awhile. This small shop started carrying Magic: The Gathering™ (a card game) and we started collecting and playing.”
Jeremy goes on to relate that eventually the players came to the owner of the card shop and asked for a place to play.
“It is hard to convince your parents to let 15 of your friends to come over and play this game for hours.” Jeremy said. “So it seemed like a good idea.”
The shop relented and set up some tables in the store for the players.
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“This became a really popular place,” Jeremy said, “And it kept me out of trouble. At the time I could have gone both ways, I had friends doing bad things and then I had gaming friends that I hung out with, eventually I chose gaming.”
Jeremy kept on playing through college and still plays today. He attributes his gaming to his brief stint working for casinos. He was a dealer and a floor manager at the French Lick Casino before moving on to a job with FedEx.
He had always talked about opening a shop and finally made the leap when he opened up Game Knight in Jasper about two years ago. The store became popular and Jeremy felt they were quickly outgrowing their location. He found the new location on Huntingburg’s 4th Street and moved in November.
“We have grown more in the past six months than we did the entire 15 months we were in Jasper.” Jeremy said.
Although getting customers in the store is necessary to stay open, Jeremy’s real goal is getting people involved in the games. A look around his store finds shelves and racks filled with games, but these aren’t the games you find on the shelves of Wal-mart or other large chain stores. Most of these games have been a contender for or the winner of the most prestigious award in the gaming industry, the Spiel Des Jahres or “game of the year”.
“Most games that you find in someone’s closet at home,” Jeremy said. “Games like Monopoly, Life, Clue and others were produced before 1950 and the game play hasn’t changed at all since they were originally put out.”
“So when you look around his shop very few of the games have the familiar a look or feel of these classic games, but the games do have a lot of the same concepts as these traditional games.
“If someone comes in looking for Monopoly,” Jeremy explains, “then I immediately send them to a game like Settlers of Catan, it’s similar but it has some key features that make it a much more enjoyable game and it requires more thinking than the linear path that Monopoly puts you on.”
In fact most of the games in Game Knight require imaginative problem solving ability, something that may be lacking in our children today. The games are fun and challenging and designed to get families back around the kitchen table playing spending time together.
“I’m not anti-video games, but I think that people are losing social time because of them.” Jeremy explained. “When do social skills develop while someone is playing a game online with other players that are faceless avatars?”
That is why the most important part of Jeremy’s business happens on the other side of the wall in an adjoining room. “This is where the tournaments happen. This is the social aspect of what I offer.”
Walk down 4th Street on a Friday night and look in the windows of Game Knight and you will find 20 to 30 people standing around tables studying the games or sitting on the stuffed couches in the back of the store talking about the games.
“Some folks that come in here, this is all they get for face to face social interaction.” Jeremy Damon, owner Game Knight
Tournaments are a regularly occurring event at Game Knight. Every Friday night a tournament is available for Magic players and these tournaments draw people from all different aspects of life. Some are teenagers just starting out in the game, there are college-age guys who drive in from Bloomington, and even a couple of doctors and professionals play in the regular event.
Wednesday night is Hero Clix. A game based around the popular comic universes of Marvel and DC characters.
“Hero Clix is great because players get hooked on a certain character and I can suggest they check out that character’s comic.” Jeremy said. “Then I have kids that say they hate to read and they are now reading comics. I know it is a step below a book but it’s a step away from TV as well.”
Tuesday is War Hammer, a futuristic model based game that has players choosing teams and then collecting, building, and painting miniatures.
Saturday is reserved for prescheduled tournaments and they rotate around a few of the more popular games.
All the tournaments have great prizes available for the winners. “I want the tournaments to be worthwhile for the players.” Jeremy said. “And I want them to take it seriously, which I think they will if the prizes are good enough.”
Jeremy has just introduced another concept to help families get into gaming. He is renting games now. “You can rent a game for one or two nights to find out if you like it,” Jeremy explained, “because a lot of these games cost a bit more than your Walmart games. You don’t have to put down a chunk of change and then find out you really don’t like a game and be stuck with it. You can also rent it for a special event or get together instead of going out and purchasing a brand new game.”
If you do decide to buy the game Jeremy will discount the new game half of the amount of the rental fee.
“The first weekend I started this I rented out two games, so I think it’s going to be popular.” Jeremy said.
