I’ve been playing hobby games for the last 4 years or so. Like many I grew up playing the typical mass market games: Sorry!, Monopoly, Life, etc, but it wasn’t that often. I never played any role playing games and never played any collectible card games. It wasn’t until the first season of the YouTube show TableTop where my interested in games increased. Seeing all the different kinds of games out there was a real surprise to me. I had two young children at the time so I started looking for games to play with them. During this searching, I stumbles across a couple videos from the Dice Tower along with BoardGameGeek.com. These two sites led to many hours reading, watching, and learning about all the great games out there.
My collection started with a copy of Castle Panic that I picked up during a Free Comic Book day at a local shop. This game got a lot of play with my family because it was a coop which allowed everyone to help each other out on turns. It was also helpful that either we all won or we all lost. Survive! Escape from Atlantis was the second addition to the game. This game is almost the polar opposite to Castle Panic. This game can be very mean and my kids loved sending the sea monster and sharks to where I was. After these two games, the game collection quickly expanded as each video I watched or each review I read was another game to put on the wish list.
My day job is with a big box retailer where I help manage the financials and investments in computer infrastructure.