Not Your Typical Game Store

It's not every store in Buffalo Grove that offers its customers a chance to battle dragons or duel wizards. But , located in the Woodland Commons shopping center in Buffalo Grove, aims to do just that.

Everything Games is a specialty games store, selling such board games such as Risk, Axis and Allies, Mansion of Madness and Urban Sprawl. Card games available for sale include Magic: The Gathering, Yu-Gi-Oh! and Pokemon.

The family-owned store opened the first week of February. Buffalo Grove resident Perry Romano is the owner, while his son, Cody, is the store’s manager. One of Perry’s other sons, Kurt, will train this summer to work in the store.

Prior to opening Everything Games, Romano did siding and roofing for 25 years, then decided to start a new business that Cody could eventually take over in the future.

“I’m not a gamer,” Romano explained, adding that it is his sons who have played numerous board games in the past.

Everything Games offers in-store assistance with playing games, and the store’s website includes video tutorials from game manufacturers.

Everything Games offers several game tournaments throughout the week. When the store first opened, Romano estimated that four to six people regularly participated in the tournaments; currently, anywhere between six and 14 people regularly play. Romano said that a number of his customers are students at .

“We’ve had teachers from Stevenson who come to the store, and then they tell their students about us,” he said.

Cody designed and built a map for the store’s Warhammer tournaments. Everything Games also sells a variety of action figures for playing games, as well as paints and tools so customers can design their own playing boards.

On a Thursday night late in March, six customers attended a tournament of Magic: The Gathering. Ranging in age from 12 to 30, they arrived 15 minutes prior to the start of the game and spent time beforehand examining cards and chatting about previous plays in the games. Magic is a trading card game, where players must use their cards to battle against each other.

“It’s a different language that we speak,” player Bob Pinta, a math teacher at Stevenson High School, explained. Pinta has played Magic for more than two years, and likes the game for the different combinations that players can use to battle each other.

Ryan Fedewa, a physics teacher at Stevenson High School, said he has played Magic for more than a decade. “I stopped playing in college because I thought I was ‘too cool,’ but I picked it up again later,” he said. “I play because there’s a lot of math nvolved in the game, and it’s always a brand-new game every time I play.”

Some came prepared for a long game, arriving with bottles of soda in hand. Outside, a family with two young children walked past the store, pausing to take a look inside.

Cody played music over the store’s speakers prior to starting the game. “I usually use music from World of Warcraft or Lord of the Rings to get players ready for the game,” he explained.

When the tournament began, the players quietly studied their cards, discarding or passing on a card as needed. The only sounds heard were the music and the players unwrapping each deck.

“It’s usually not this quiet!” Romano said.

“I can start screaming, if you’d like,” a player responded.

"We get a variety of people playing these games," Romano said. "We get people who have been playing for a number of years and know what they need for their games, and we get people who are new to the games."

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