Local gaming shop opens downtown
Fans of Magic: The Gathering, Yu-Gi-Oh and other board and tabletop games now have a place in Siloam Springs where they can play with friends.
Monolith Games is a new business, located at 717 E. Main St. Unit A, that caters to tabletop gamers who can come in to play with others from the gaming community, according to Ben Dreemur, owner of the business. The store opened on Dec. 26 and a grand opening took place on Friday, Dreemur said. Players can bring their own games to the store and play at no cost. The store also sells multiple games that can be played at the shop or at home, he said.
“I wanted to open a shop where someone could not feel pressured to buy anything and to hang out with my friends,” Dreemur said.
Dreemur was quick to explain that tabletop games are different from board games because they do not require a specific board for play. A lot of people have come in and are real excited to have a place to play, he said.
“I try to hit all four pillars of the tabletop community which is board games, card games, RPGs (role playing games) and tabletop,” he said.
Jeremy Harp and his sons take advantage of Friday Night Magic at Monolith Games where they play in Magic: The Gathering tournaments. He is happy to have a place where he can play locally without having to drive to Fayetteville.
“I think (Dreemur) really tapped into a need locally for a lot of people that maybe aren’t willing to drive to Fayetteville or Bentonville, but are happy to have a closer place to play at,” Harp said.
Harp and his family have already played in two tournaments at the store and planned to attend the grand opening on Friday.
Monolith Games is open Tuesday through Sunday nights and hosts events each night. Tuesday is Dungeons and Dragons and Yu-Gi-Oh night; Wednesday he reserves for casual Yu-Gi-Oh for novices, as well as the first of two board game nights; Thursday night people come in for the second board game night; Friday night, Dreemur hosts Friday Night Magic for Magic: The Gathering fans; Saturdays are for casual Magic players to come in and play without the pressure of being in a tournament, and for teaching players to play Warhammer, a tabletop game with science fiction and fantasy components; Sunday is what Dreemur calls Magic: The Gathering draft nights.
On draft nights, players can come in and pay $15 for three packs of Magic: The Gathering
cards, sit around a table with five, nine or 11 other players, Dreemur said. Each player takes a card and then passes the pack down to the next person to take a card and so on, Dreemur said. This is done with all three packs and then the players play with their newly created decks, Dreemur said.
Presently, Dreemur does not have a Pokemon night.
“We’re still trying to build a community for
(Pokemon), once we have a bigger community for that I would like to start having
Pokemon nights,” Dreemur said.
Dreemur’s initial plan was to build a video game cafe, but he realized people would more than likely want to play video games at home so he turned to his second favorite thing, which is board games, he said.
Growing up, Dreemur’s favorite game was Risk.
“My very first game was Risk,” he said. “I loved Risk.
I played it so much that my mother and sister hated playing the game with me because I would always win.”
Dreemur spent his early years in Florida before his mother moved the family to Little Rock and then to Siloam Springs. Dreemur and his sister fell in love with the town.
“We don’t know what it was but Siloam is awesome,” Dreemur said.
After high school, he moved to Tennessee where he was introduced to his current favorite game Warhammer, then Texas and finally Arizona where he met his wife. When Dreemur became tired of moving and wanted to find a permanent place to live, the answer was simple.
“Me and my wife talked and Siloam was the spot that just kept coming up so we moved back to Siloam,” Dreemur said.
The new business owner is grateful for the help which he has received from the chamber of commerce and encourages people to come in and play. If the store does not carry a person’s game, he encourages that person to come and learn a new game.
More information is available at monolith gamessiloam.com.