Why I Game: @boardgamergirl

At Vault, we're all about promoting the community and social spirit of tabletop gaming. So now, we introduce to you, the Why I Game  series. This is just one of the regular blog posts we're working on to bring you information about tabletop gaming and connections with some of the best promoters of the gaming life we know.

So, on to our first article in the series. We sat down with Brisbane gamer Ashlee Cramb aka @boardgamergirl to find out her favorite gaming stories and answer the age-old question... Why I Game.

Say hello to Ashlee, a 27 year old gamer living in Brisbane Australia. She runs the popular board game Instagram account @boardgamergirl and has recently started a weekly segment on dice towers Board Game Breakfast.

What got you into tabletop gaming?

My boyfriend always had a very casual interest in gaming, a friend mentioned to him to try out Catan so he bought that and we played it several times over the Christmas holidays. Over the next year and a half I held game nights with friends to play Catan, luckily my best friend also loved to play so I was able to get a good group together. Around a year and a half after discovering Catan, a board game cafe opened up in Brisbane (Go Lounge in Stones Corner), and so I asked my best friend to come along with me. We played Dominion with a few fellow gamers and I immediately fell in love with the deck building mechanic, it was so unique and fresh that my mind was blown. I immediately went out and bought Dominion, played that a bunch, and kept going back to Go Lounge to try out more games...and thus the adventure began. While I think of Catan as my initial gateway game, Dominion is responsible for my love of the hobby. It really struck my interest and opened my eyes to the world of gaming and what was out there.

Care to share a #shelfie?

Which game hits your table the most? And why?

Probably Spyfall because it’s great in social situations, it’s so fast, and plays up to 8. Spyfall seems to come out every Friday night when friends come over for pre-drinks before we go out to dinner.

What is your best gaming story?

There’s a few, but probably the time we were told off for gaming “too hard”. It was about 11pm on a Thursday night and we were playing Cosmic Encounter, one player was winning so everyone ganged up on him to stop him from taking first place. We must have had 4 or 5 turns in a row where he narrowly avoided winning and each time the 4 other players would stand up cheering and high-fiving. After one particularly exciting turn we heard a knock on the door, not sure who it was 3 of the guys went to check it out because it was about 11pm. Turns out it was our neighbour who said we were being ridiculously loud and needed to keep it down. While we should have felt terrible, we were all quite impressed by ourselves for gaming so hard someone had to come and tell us off haha! In all the years I’ve lived in my house I’ve never been told off before or since that day, and I’ve had several very loud parties which went until all hours of the morning.

And finally, why do you game?

The social interaction!! I’ve always been a bit of a geek, never really one to want to go out to a club, so gaming fits the perfect medium for my social group. I love having friends over for a game night on Saturday and playing until late (or very early). You have fun stories you can share with your friends, and get to spend time with them doing something exciting and inexpensive.

If you want to see more from Ashlee, you can follow her on Instagram with daily board gaming posts at @boardgamergirl and on the Twitters at @boardgamergirl8.

Would you like to be featured on a future Why I Game? Reach out to us here.