A long time ago, in a time shrouded by darkness, there were not two, but four stores for card games and roleplaying games in Eureka. This was a time where one could go to Magic: The Gathering tournaments every month, and go to one each year that went all the way to the national level. This was a time when by looking in the right places, you could find every single published D&D 5th edition adventure for sale within three miles of your home, if you looked in the right places (and lived in Eureka or Myrtletown). This was a time when one could play old arcade games on a giant clunky box with bad graphics for money, instead of playing them for free on a computer. (I’m not sure why anyone would prefer the former over the latter, but some people did anyway. Maybe for the nostalgia). This was a time of greatness and prosperity, under the watchful price tags of the four game stores in Eureka: NuGames, the Scruffy Nerd Herder, Next Level Games, and North Coast Roleplaying. The oldest of these three pillars of tabletop gaming was North Coast Roleplaying, founded in 1991. They were the place to go for card games, comic books, and roleplaying games, until in 2002, Next Level Games opened. Now you could buy games in both the Old Town area and the Broadway area. These were close to a lot of businesses, and since they were on the highway, it was a successful place to set up shop. However, most of the inhabitants of the city of Eureka didn’t live in the commercial district (except for the few who would sleep at their workplace). The residents of Eureka had to go all the way to the other side of town to purchase games. This changed in 2014, when NuGames opened in Myrtletown. This was a time of prosperity for card games, and the Scruffy Nerd Herder opened just three years later, in 2017. It seemed that the tabletop gaming community of Eureka was at the beginning of a golden era.

But then disaster struck.

On January 20, 2020, a new virus that had been spreading throughout the world for a few months reached the realm governing the city of Eureka from afar. This realm was called the USA, and it spread rapidly to the relatively small town of Eureka. It seemed that if only we could all mask up and stay six feet away from each other, a disaster could be averted. But alas, it seemed like there were a few intent on going against the knowledge of the time. These few spread the virus everywhere. The schools shut down on March 12, 2020, and became only accessible via a google meet. All businesses deemed non-essential had to close for a while. But unfortunately for this new golden age of tabletop gaming, all four of these stores were deemed non-essential. The four pillars holding up the realm of tabletop gaming now had a lot of weight put on them. If their owners could not find another way to make money until the vile plague had passed, their businesses would have to close forever. The two oldest game stores had a strong foundation to stand on, and they managed to get through the time of closed stores. However, the two newest pillars holding up the tabletop gaming community cracked under the weight. NuGames had recently opened up a store in the nearby town of Arcata, where there were a lot of college students to buy their wares. This branch of Nugames shut down in mid-February (I don’t remember the exact date), but it seemed that NuGames Eureka would weather the plague. However, on March 5, 2020, they announced that they would be permanently closing on March 31st. NuGames was my personal favorite place to go to play tabletop and card games, since I had learned to play D&D, Pokémon, and Magic: The Gathering in the same room of this establishment. My friends and I were devastated. We had made so many memories, and we couldn’t really believe that this was actually happening. My brother Jerome had begun to learn to play Magic: The Gathering a week prior, after attending the February tournament with me, and he was excited to play in the March tournament, which was scheduled for March 26, 2020. He was sad, but said he “would have at least gotten to play in one tournament”, in an interview I recently conducted with him. “I remember the first deck I made,” he says. “It probably sucked, but I was really excited to play it. I think I spent, like, forty dollars or something on it. And it could beat the [redacted] out of [the author’s]!” he said. (This was only because he built it specifically to go against my deck, in my defense). Unfortunately, however, he never got to play it in a tournament. This is because a stay-at-home order was issued by the government on March 12, 2020 (if I remember correctly). NuGames had to close early, with a lot of stock it never sold. The son of the former owner of NuGames works at the Boys and Girls club in Eureka, and he still hands out premade Magic: The Gathering decks to anybody who’s interested in learning to play. It’s been difficult to find anyone to play Pokémon with since then. This was very sad for me. Scruffy Nerd Herder, which I had not gone to very many times, closed permanently in June. Only North Coast Roleplaying and Next Level Games remain in Eureka today.

Google Maps has not been updated in my area since 2018. The image depicts one of my favorite places in the world, which no longer exists.