Last Saturday’s crowd of almost a hundred game enthusiasts proved that board gaming has slowly become a life style in the Queen City of the South. With over 60 games in the library and 98 attendees, the 6-hour International Table Top Day celebrated at The Maxwell Hotel Cebu was a complete success.
The speech of Cebu Board Gaming Society (CBGS) co-founder Mark Julio took the attendees to a 4 year journey of its history, jumping from one place to the other. From a gathering of 5 friends every Wednesdays way back March 28, 2012 at Pan de Manila (eBloc1 IT Park), they have since been to 6 different places (Pan de Manila, iTea, Brunch, Sprockets, Bubble Bee Tea Hose IT Park, Bubble Bee Tea Hose Escario) in Cebu.
In 2013, they moved to iTea. After 6 months of gaming and met their first joiner outside of the regular core group -a foreigner: Amanda, iTea changed management to HeartTea. The place were no longer friendly to board gamers. By June 2013, they found a new home in Brunch, TGU still in IT Park where they met Poy Mendoza, the co-owner of Ballista Games.
By April 2014, Poy had an agreement with a new establishment Sprockets Cafe in Ayala. CBGS left brunch for an exciting new location where its attendees grows. Sprockets has been home for 7 months until it closed down and decided to transfer location by October 2015. Homeless again, on October 27, 2015, CBGS found a new home in Bubble Bee Tea House, IT Park where for the first time, they have reached a year in a single place. But sadly, due to conflict with the building management, BBTH IT closed down. The management suggested to transfer to their branch in Escario Centrale. CBGS’s first session in Bubble Bee Tea House, Escario Centrale was on December 7, 2015.
While board gaming in Cebu started in 2012, International Table Top Day celebration started in 2014 organized by Folk Fiction (Mark and Johanna of Happy Garaje and Poy, Terence, & Shiela from Ballista Games). Last year’s Table Top was in Castle Peak, single-handedly organized by Ballista Games.
This year, since the home of CBGS transferred in Escario Centrale, more and more people have become regular gamers. For the first time ever, CBGS regulars converged in one spirit to help make International Table Top Day 2016 a success.
A library of games was setup where visitors could borrow a game upon leaving an ID. Regular gamers were available to teach as well. Games and snacks were sold courtesy of Ballista Games and Kapehan Ceferina respectively.
Wanna know more, you can visit the Cebu Board Game Society on Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/CebuBoardGamingSociety/.
The WANDER (FULL) LIFE 
great event! really had fun, I wish I had mingled some more and got to know the other people
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Hehe! Yip yip next time! It was hard to talk to you guys as well since you seem very focus on your stuffs. Hehe Hope you were not annoyed by my constant photo ops. LOL
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