Game Collections: Tabletop Games
Game Collections
The SVA Library Game Collections are designed to support your inquiry into the many topics surrounding games and game design. It also supports curriculum-based learning in departments like interactive design, comics & illustration, art education, computer arts, and many others.
Games are everywhere — from the DIY arcades of New York City to the gamification of education in classrooms around the world. Whether we're engaging with others in shared storytelling, or sharing our vision for the future in virtual realities, we are employing game design to connect with others and to better understand ourselves. Toward research, innovation, or fun and relaxation, the SVA Game Collections are here for your discovery!
Tabletop Games
When considering games to collect for the SVA Library tabletop collection, we focus on critically-acclaimed uniquely designed games that feature inventive game construction and outstanding illustration. An excellent example of a game that suits this criteria is Wingspan. Stop by SVA Library West to see our entire collection! You can also check out video games, books on game design, and game gear like dice and screens.
WingspanDesigned by Elizabeth Hargrave
Art by Natalia Rojas and Ana Maria Martinez Jaramillo
Wingspan is a competitive, medium-weight, card-driven, engine-building board game. It is the winner of the prestigious 2019 Kennerspiel des Jahres award. You play as bird enthusiasts—researchers, bird watchers, ornithologists, and collectors—seeking to discover and attract the best birds to your network of wildlife preserves.
Card & Dice games are an excellent component to any tabletop games collection. Card & Dice games tend to be compact and easy-to-learn with strong thematic elements and eye-catching illustrations. Many card & dice games tie back to our cartooning & illustration collections as well. Examples of the latter include Scott Pilgrim’s Precious Little Card Game:
Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Card GameCall Number: GAME Sco
Role-playing games offer a variety of options for interactive, collaborative play among a dedicated group of gamers. RPGs allow patrons of the Library to plug into their imagination, using dice, pen-and-paper, and miniatures. Many RPGs are lavishly illustrated and impeccably designed. An excellent example would be Tales From The Loop:
Tales From The LoopCall Number: GV1469.62.T35 T35 2017
Collection Highlights:
Search for role-playing games, board games, and other tabletop games in the library catalog.
Find highlight from our tabletop game collection below. All games are housed at SVA Library West.
#Feminism by Call Number: GV1469.63 .F46 2017#Feminism features 34 nano-games for three to five participants, with topics ranging from silly to serious. Each game offers a bite-sized take on contemporary feminist issues: within its pages are games about selfies and rom-coms, reproductive rights and domestic violence.
Kids on Brooms by ISBN: 9781734511550Publication Date: 2020-08-01Kids on Brooms is a collaborative role-playing game about taking on the life of a witch or wizard at a magical school you all attend - a place full of mystery, danger, and thrilling adventure. Built using the ENnie Award-Winning Kids on Bikes framework, it is a rules-light, narrative-first storytelling game perfect for new players and gaming veterans alike!
Kodama: The Tree SpiritsCall Number: GAME KodAs caretakes for Kodama, the tree spirits, you must keep the forest a healthy and lush home for your little friends. Grow your tree by placing cards in clever arrangements, being careful to leave room for future growth.
Dead Friend: A Game of NecromancyCall Number: GV1469.62.D414 K34 2018Dead Friend is a roleplaying game for a necromancer and a ghost. Two players will assume the role of a ghost and a friend and ask/answer questions to develop the characters, their community, their history together, and the motivations leading up to their final conflict.
Sagrada: A Game of Dice, Drafting & Window CraftingCall Number: GAME SagAs a skilled artisan, you will use cleverness and careful planning to craft a stained glass window masterpiece in the Sagrada Familia. Gain prestige by adapting to the preferences of your fickle admirers, and of course, by adding your own artistic flair while completing your glass masterpiece in Sagrada.
Harlem Unbound: A Call of Cthulhu Sourcebook by Call Number: GV1469.62.C34 S65 2017Set in the Harlem Renaissance of 1920s NYC, this RPG sourcebook flips the standard Lovecraftian view of minorities on its head; by default, the protagonists are African American and come from all walks of life with regard to class, ethnicity, race, religion, gender and sexual orientation.
Lords & Ladies: The Game of Not So Polite SocietyCall Number: GAME LorLLords & Ladies is a card game where you control a turn of the 20th century noble family and their servants. Over the course of the game you build generations of a family by marrying off lords and ladies to available suitors, hiring servants to give you additional status and powers, attempting to have children with your married lords and ladies, and using gossip cards and servant powers to destroy your rival families' reputations.
Dungeons & Dragons: Tales from the Yawning Portal by ISBN: 9780786966097Publication Date: 2017-04-04When the shadows grow long in Waterdeep and the fireplace in the taproom of the Yawning Portal dims to a deep crimson glow, adventurers from across the Forgotten Realms spin tales and spread rumors of dark dungeons and lost treasures. Within this tome are seven of the most compelling dungeons from the 40+ year history of Dungeons & Dragons!
