So, Theo and I are Board Game Librarians. We keep track of the games in an enormous spreadsheet—how often they’re checked out, what they’re missing, how we have fixed them, notes about how to reset them if needed. We clean them and count the pieces regularly. We recommend games based on what you like to play, how much brain-power you have, what kind of vibe you’re hoping for. We can teach almost all of them to you as well! Though neither of us has a library science degree, we are librarians to this collection.

We get called a lot of things: Curator, Game Sommelier, Bartender for Games. Just recently a guest called me a Doula! I’m keeping that one. At the Queen and Rook in Philadelphia, they’re called Game Keepers, which I think is absolutely charming. We are custodians of the games, stewards keeping them in good shape, Guardians of the Pieces, even.

We all go by many names—doctor or salesperson, parent or sibling, lover, fighter, agitator, encourager. As my father would say, “Call me whatever you like, just don’t call me late for dinner.”

Alice C., board game librarian

Play a game about naming things!

There are a bunch of games out now that are about language-development. DaDaDa is a good, simple example: players draw and spread out 13 image cards and five nonsense sound cards, then cooperatively organize the images based on the sound cards, and can only communicate using those sounds. Once players are relatively comfortable with what each of these sounds signifies, they discard the images, then each player draws a hand of cards and uses this newfound language to get the other players to guess images. It’s a fascinating and silly look at how humans communicate.

Signal takes this limited communication a step further with players communicating using only wooden pieces on a small board—what colors can be used? How are the pieces placed or stacked? Each round gets increasingly obscure and will definitely get your brain going.

Out of Sorts I got from Kickstarter—it’s a game of cooperatively organizing books in an an alien language. Essentially, players are working on organizing cards with wild symbols on them into their own, collaborative Dewey Decimal System, just needing to remember what each category is.

Sign is more of a role-playing game taking a few hours (make a reservation for a Sunday afternoon maybe!) where players act as school children alternating being in a classroom where they develop sign language for a few words at a time, then being at recess where they use their language to play and to communicate their individual Heart’s Desire. It’s based on the development of sign-language in a Nicaraguan school.

Things in Rings is gamified Venn diagrams—one player knows the rules for each ring, the rest play cards into different parts of the rings to try to guess correctly what the rules are and empty their hands. It’s silly and fun and a bit think.

That’s Not a Hat is a little bit of a stretch in this list, but I think it fits! Players are dealt cards with simple drawings on one side and arrows on the other. Everyone gets a chance to see what’s been drawn, then they’re flipped face down. The start player takes a card from the deck, reveals what it is, says, “Thank you for this pony/lava lamp/sneaker.” then passes their original card in the direction of the arrow saying, “Here is a piano/Etch-a-Sketch/frisbee.” That player says thank you and names the thing they’ve been given, then passes their original card. It’s a game of remembering what and where everything is and being able to name it properly!

This spotlight is a little unfair, because three of these are from my home library, but I’ll leave them here this week for you to try.

Try the Dr. Black!

This is our signature take on an Old Fashioned: Benchmark bourbon, black cherry simple syrup, and orange and chocolate bitters. It’s warming and citrusy and delicious with a game of Signal or Things in Rings!