Do you love playing games and meeting new people? Have you ever met a board game or card game creator? Well, here’s your chance! The Golden Gate Gamemakers are opening a local tabletop gaming chapter in Santa Cruz. Originating in the Bay Area, GGG has created a safe, fun space for board gamers of all ages and skill levels to come together and enjoy gaming. Whether you’re an aspiring game designer wanting to test new games, an experienced tabletop enjoyer, or someone brand new to the gaming world, the GGG is for you.
Growing Up: What are the Golden Gate Gamemakers? Why was it created?
Courtney Laschkewitsch: The GGG is a community organization that brings together board game creators and players. Whether you’re interested in playing new games that have never been seen before, you want to learn what a game designer does, you want mentorship, you want to get in the tabletop space, or you’re a gamer that wants to have fun playing games—the GGG is for you. The biggest takeaway is that if you live in or visit the Bay Area, including Santa Cruz, and like board games, you should consider going to some of our events. You can network really well with experienced tabletop gamers in real life.
Q: Where was GGG first created? How are the GGG chapters in other locations successful?
CL: In Spring 2023, GGG became an official organization and serves hundreds of local players each month. Events are small, ranging from 5-35 players–usually 10-20 players–per event on average. The Guildhouse in San Jose is the largest and most successful chapter. Almost everyone gets a game from free raffles held there. The Santa Cruz South chapter will have raffles at every event as well.
Q: Is the GGG beginner friendly? Is it just for game designers, or gamers of all levels?
CL: GGG is super super beginner friendly, even if you’ve never played a board game before, we will welcome you with open arms. We need a lot more players to test out our games, and more game designers to bring new, fresh ideas to the table. All you have to have is a love for board games or a curiosity for them! We do recommend ages 12 and up to enter the community. Although we have family games needing to be play tested, and other games for adults
Q: How does the GGG bring the community together?
CL: When you play games, it creates an immersive experience that everyone is going through. Usually a world, or story, and you end up being interconnected to the other players for 30 mins-1 hour. Through this experience, you are playing together, working together, and are being creative with strangers or new friends. New games can help you understand new perspectives by playing with others; and by playing you can learn about the gaming space, and learn how to give invaluable feedback to game creators. You can make new friends, appreciate other people’s personalities and reactions to the games. Tabletop gaming is incredible because of the people you meet and play with, not necessarily the game.
Q: Why bring GGG to Santa Cruz?
CL: I wanted to create a lowkey, safe and inviting environment for game designers to play test their games, for wanna-be game designers, and for those who love playing games to come together and help each other grow. Gamers don’t have to travel far to the Bay Area if they don’t want to, they can come together with their local community and play. There are actually a lot of game designers in Santa Cruz that serve as valuable resources for the community.
Q: Where will GGG meetings take place? What sort of community has the Santa Cruz chapter created so far ?
CL: GGG meetings will take place at People’s Coffee, Santa Cruz, every second Tuesday of the month from 6pm to 10pm. We also do a raffle, and one-third of players per event will bring home a free game. Raffles are random and are held at every event, and if they win, they can choose a game to take home. I want people to walk in and stumble upon this magic. You do not need to attend the entire event–feel free to drop by for 30 minutes or an hour! Drop by and consider playing some games for an hour or more on a Tuesday night! Meet new people and play new games!
Q: What are your hopes and goals for the GGG South chapter in Santa Cruz?
CL: To try to make the event as large as possible–I want to get attendance up so every event has at least 20 people of all levels. I want people to try new games so aspiring designers can get feedback and push their games out, get attention, go to publishers, and show off the talent of our smaller city of Santa Cruz. Many people don’t realize how immersive and fun tabletop gaming is–it is nothing like Life, Scrabble, Monopoly, etc. There are beautiful, mechanical, creative hobby tabletop games that immerse you into a whole new world, beyond the games at Target. A big part of my passion is for more people to realize how incredible the game space is by being exposed to a variety of games, in hopes of it becoming a hobby for people to get involved, inspired, and have fun. I would like to show people how immersive and fun the game space is, so they fall in love with the hobby like I did.
Q: How are the game designers of Santa Cruz supported?
CL: As the event organizer and host, part of what I’m doing is trying to find sponsors by contacting game publishers and companies to see if they’re willing to donate games to our monthly raffle OR to our up-and-coming game library which will soon be created inside People’s Coffee, where anyone can come at any time regardless of GGG, and they can play the games of the library. One sponsor is Trick or Treat Studios, and they are a local game and high-end halloween mask company. They are right by People’s Coffee, they are incredibly successful, and they are our first official sponsor. They have donated games already. Other sponsors is Wise Wizard Games and they have donated games to the raffle and library as well. This has helped us with incredible networking companies where they support us and we are supporting them. We are helping boost each other as a community. Larger conglomerates like what we are doing, support us, and want more game designers in the game space too. Sometimes members of these companies come to the events and offer great insight to our games.
Q: How are the events going at GGG Santa Cruz chapter so far?
CL: First event was huge, I contacted seven local game stores and let them know about the event. They have flyers in their locations, we had store owners join us at our first event. We had nineteen for our first event, which is a great number. The next event was twelve people, which is a little smaller than what we were hoping, but we are growing, and vamping things up as we create the game library, do the raffles, get the word out. This is People’s Coffee’s very first event ever, so we are very lucky, and the cafe will remain open during the events. They are very motivated as well and are willing to pull out all the stops to bring the community together. You can observe from a safe distance and decide if you want to join the event!
Q: Where can I find events with GGG in Santa Cruz or otherwise?
CL: Definitely recommend our website, which has a calendar of all our events. We also have a Facebook page and a very robust meetup page.
goldengategamemakers.com/calendar.html
meetup.com/playgoldengate/ meetup.com/playgoldengate/ playgoldengateevents/305184940/?fromSeries=true&slug=playgoldengate&eventId=305184940
Our GGG events in the bay area: https://www.meetup.com/playgoldengate/?eventOrigin=event_home_page
By Joanna Jenkins
