Radek Boxan – owner of popular Prague game store Tomovy hry
With a month or so to go before Christmas, shoppers in the Czech Republic have begun hitting stores at a feverish pace – good news, of course, for retailers. The holidays are perhaps most important for sellers of toys and games! December basically pays for the rest of the year. In this week’s In Focus, I visit Tomovy hry – a shop in Prague specialising in hobby games.
Now, if you played games as a kid, today’s titles are a world apart from mainstays like Monopoly or Risk, often falling under two broad categories: euro games, generally featuring shorter rules and playtimes but a lot of depth, or American-styles games built around strong narratives and more sprawling or emergent game play. In between, there is a lot on offer for families and children. Meanwhile, there is no limit to possible themes: you can storm through Tokyo as Godzilla, build rail routes across Europe, or even win the Cold War as the U.S. or the Soviet Union. Radek Boxan is the owner of a well-known shop in Prague focussing on hobby games.
It’s freezing! You’re in a t-shirt!
“Well it is November. We are outside in front of my store named Tomovy hry – Tom’s Games.”
Boxan opened his store roughly four or five years ago. But the whole thing, he insists, sort of happened by accident. There was no original plan, he told me beyond naming the venue after his younger son. First it was an internet site or shop and later he opened a brick & mortar store.
“It happened suddenly because board games were my hobby in which I had invested a lot of time and money. I already had a business offering internet solutions, so I created a website for an e-shop, hired my friend – a very well-known member of the board game community here – and we were in business.”
Radek realised early on that if the shop was going to be successful, he would have to offer something different. As a small seller, there was no competing with chain stores selling mainstream games.
Part of the job, when not attending to shipping orders or customers on site, involves constant research: finding newer and newer titles and distribution possibilities. For the uninitiated, each year roughly a thousand new games are released with many of them premiering at Essen, the world’s biggest game in Germany every October. Over the years, Radek has picked a few winners, which became cult hits among more hard core gamers. Among them was the very-obscure Cave Evil, printed in 1,000 copies. The theme is a dark one, inspired by splatter punk and black or even death metal (there’s a topic for Christmas!), with graphics which would turn many off. But it is not without dark humour and it became more or less became a must-have for some in Prague and it became a rarity which some sold on eBay. Radek Boxan again:
“Cave Evil was my ‘personal’ discovery at Essen. You probably know that Essen Spiel is the biggest games fair in the world and I stopped by one booth there where they had practically nothing but this one strange-looking game on the table and I tried it and it was amazing. Great playability and so I talked with them about bringing the game to the Czech market.”
This year, the focus has also shifted to designs coming out of France and Russia but also the Czech Republic and Poland. The latter have tried-and-tested designers who are now well-known to game geeks the world over, names such as Vlaada Chvátil who we have interviewed on RP in the past.
“A Czech designer, Vlaada Chvátil, is considered one of the best designers in the world. His game Through the Ages is ranked even higher now on the main games website than Agricola, another popular title. He gets a lot of respect.”
The Polish publisher, Portal, also has a few hits on its hands including Robinson Crusoe: Adventure on the Cursed Island which was picked up by Zman Games in North America. Portal has had the Midas touch in recent years.
Radek showed me another title by the publisher in the store’s main room, as well as other titles which are likely to interest visitors ahead of the holidays.
We were talking about Polish design... here’s a game which looks very similar to a recent Ridley Scott film.
“It’s true. It’s called Theseus. It is very evocative of Aliens [or Prometheus]. I think it is a great game but there is a fair amount of thinking ahead and numbers crunching. There are fewer random elements, which are games that I prefer right now. It’s a very clever design.”
I heard this party game took a long time to develop and that it very special. What are your impressions?
“If someone likes computer games or early 8-bit graphic, they’ll like this. It’s mostly for nerds!”
Ha! People in this hobby more or less embrace their geekiness?
“That’s right. Most of us are geeks or nerds!”
“Inside the ugly box is maybe the ugliest game. There is a map of the world separated into different parts, into different countries...”
So this is about a zombie apocalypse on a world scale...
“That’s right. Your population is basically decimated and you try and survive for as long as possible.”
So is this a game that has a happy ending?
Part of the hobby is not just selling or buying but gaming as a social activity. For that reason, Radek Boxan, has been involved in organising so-called ‘cons’ for fans who want to meet people beyond their own group over a couple of days. Over the years, the community has grown significantly. Radek Boxan once more:
“The community has definitely grown a lot. When I first got involved in the hobby I got to know about 10 or 20 people and then I discovered a website called zatrolene-hry.cz which really brought many more gamers together. Then we started organising the first conventions – cons – here, which brought a lot of us together. Then some of us launched our own website, deskožrout.cz, and I have seen many more people get involved. That said, I am one of the oldest I know in the hobby at 42!”
Radek Boxan jokes that he hopes that his son Tom will take over one day at Tom’s Games – it would be fitting – until then he is remaining as dedicated as ever to the hobby. If you’re in Prague, and want to look up board games, Tomovy hry is one of the places to visit, you can easily find out more on the internet.
