We're a free board game crew in Castlemaine, and we're always one chair short of a full table. Come along on a weeknight evening or over the weekend, borrow a box from the shelf and let a volunteer teach you the rules while the kettle boils. There's no fee, no membership card and no price tag on anything: just tea, a few hundred boxes of cardboard and adults who like playing together. You need to be 18 or over, and you don't need to own a single game.
Friday, ten to six. Somebody's carrying a crate of boxes up Lyttleton Street, somebody else is dragging chairs into a circle, and the kettle in the corner has just clicked off. By six there will be five tables going, a rulebook being read aloud in a theatrical voice, and a newcomer being told, kindly, that yes, you do have to count the wooden cubes twice.
It all began with a single game: a heavy, brain-melting worker-placement affair that took three of us four evenings to learn at a kitchen table through a cold Mount Alexander winter. The rulebook was longer than most leases. By the third evening the wood heater had gone out and nobody had noticed, and we agreed that something this good ought to be shared with strangers.
So we borrowed a room, then another, and now we have the club room on Lyttleton Street, a shelf that keeps growing, and a rule that nobody sits out a game they'd like to join. It's free, it's for adults, and you don't need to know anything beyond how to roll a die.
On the table
What's on the shelf this week?
Euro games, mostly: worker placement, engine building, tile laying, the kind where you quietly build a small economy and then fret about someone else's. Beside them sit the co-ops, where the whole table wins or loses together, and the quick fillers that finish in twenty minutes while the pasta's still cooking at home.
Video games turn up now and then, on a console afternoon when somebody brings the controllers and we roll the big screen out. They're a treat, not the main event.
Euro games
Planning, trading and polite scheming.
Co-ops
Everyone wins or loses together.
Quick fillers
Twenty minutes and barely any rules.
Console afternoons
Controllers out, now and then.
Drop in
Where to find us
Club room
34 Lyttleton Street, Castlemaine VIC 3450
Ring or write
+61 3 5472 3618 · hello@meeplemob.com
Open
Tuesday to Friday 6 pm – 10 pm, Saturday and Sunday 1 pm – 7 pm
House rules
What's the deal with the rules?
Count the pieces in and out of every box. Yes, every time. It's the only reason the shelf is still complete.
Teach kindly and don't take over: if someone's learning, let them make their own mistakes.
Phones face down at the table, and chat in the back corner if your game's already finished.
Keep it friendly in the group chat, and take anything heated to a moderator rather than the thread.
Pack up together at the end: boxes on the shelf, tables wiped and chairs pushed in.
Seven days
What happens on which night?
MondayShelf day. Volunteers sort, mend and count the boxes, and the room is shut to visitors.Closed
TuesdayLearn-to-play night: one game, taught from scratch by a volunteer, with a second round once everyone's got it.6 pm
WednesdayCo-op night, where the table plays against the game and the loser is always the game.6 pm
ThursdayEuro night, plus ladder and league matches for anyone playing them.6 pm
FridayOpen tables. Bring a box or borrow one, and drift between tables as seats come up.6 pm
SaturdayLong-game afternoon for the three-hour monsters, with a tea break at the halfway mark.1 pm
SundayA slow one: a single long game, or a console afternoon once a month.1 pm
Snaps
From the shelf and the tables
Common questions
Anything you're wondering?
Who's actually in the Mob?
A couple of dozen regulars and a rotating cast of newcomers: nurses, tradies, retirees, students and the odd person who just walked past the window. We're all adults, and almost none of us were board game people before we turned up.
How does a game get onto the shelf?
Someone brings it, the volunteers play it twice, and if it survives that, it gets a spot and a name label. We don't buy boxes in bulk; the shelf is the sum of what members have shared, swapped or been given.
Is there a group chat?
Yes, a moderated chat server for members, where we organise sessions, swap rules questions and post photos of finished games. Natalie keeps an eye on it so the tone stays kind.
Do you ever play video games?
Occasionally. About once a month there's a console afternoon with a big screen and a few controllers, and the odd season of a co-op campaign. Tabletop is the main course, though.
House rules1234
Page five is blank, so you can write your own.
The short rule book
Four bookmarks you can't lose
If the Mob had a rule book, it would be four pages long. Each ribbon marks one page, and each page fits on a coaster.
