Museum Gift Shop Games

 “Many a trip continues long after movement in time and space have ceased.”

— John Steinbeck

At the NASM in 2023 with my
favorite Grumman G-21 Gooose.

Summertime in our family always means trips to museums and historical sites. My parents frequently tried to expand our horizons and engage our interests on day trips and week-long vacations. As a parent myself I’ve tried to nurture curiosity in my son with similar excursions as best we’re able, notably weekly day trips during the summer months. Our visits often end in the gift shop seeking some souvenir of our experience...or more often books and other materials to help us explore a topic on our own at home. Related games, however, remain extremely rare finds in gift shops. Although I know other places to look to find games exploring topics found at museums and historical sites, other people might benefit from easy, affordable ludic introductions in expanding their horizons.*

Gift shops capitalize on visitor interest by offering relevant merchandise at reasonable prices. They cover a broad base in those two very subjective categories. What’s interesting and affordable to one person might not fit the bill for another. With a wide spectrum of visitors they must curate and invest in their stock carefully; few have the means to maintain shelves of expensive items on the long chance any given visitor purchases one. Adventure games making their way into gift shops should try satisfying both criteria. The fact visitors spend time at a location means they have some interest in the subject; but does that topic, and their enthusiasm, include an engagement with games? And do games offered in a gift shop come at reasonable price points?

Perhaps Steve Jackson Games’ Dino Hunt Dice exemplify a solid confluence of interest and affordability. Our local Museum of Culpeper History displays two Triassic-era dinosaur footprints in a hands-on exhibit; they’re two of more than 5,000 discovered in a local quarry in 1989 and form the cornerstone of the museum’s gallery highlighting prehistoric Culpeper. Dino Hunt Dice is an easy push-your-luck game, contains dice imprinted with leaves, stomp icons, and dinosaur outlines, and appeals to the younger set (and their parents) who seem to have an innate interest in dinosaurs. Years ago I tried encouraging museum staff to try ordering the game wholesale, to no avail. Sadly Dino Hunt Dice remains out of print and hence unavailable for the local museum to stock in the gift shop...if they were so inclined. Few games combine the engagement and affordable price point ideal for tourist shoppers.

Games in gift shops seem to please the lowest common denominator. Many shops offer some site-specific re-skin of that table-flipping favorite, Monopoly. Some history sites that focus on colonial and early America like Colonial Williamsburg, Fort Ligonier, Fort Ticonderoga, and Old Sturbridge Village offer period toys and crafts in the kids section, notably game materials; my own representative collection includes wooden dice, a six-sided teetotum, and a period deck of cards (including the required Stamp Act tax stamp). A few historic sites I’ve visited stock Osprey Publishing titles related to their subjects (what I’d consider wargame-adjacent material).

I have, on rare occasions, found games in tourist gift shops. Some are interesting but relatively pedestrian offerings, like the vintage reproduction of The Woods Are Full of Them in a metal tin (about hiking through bear country) I bought years ago at Shenandoah National Park. Others really hit the mark. Visiting Captain Wort’s Sutler Shop at Fort Frederick State Park in Maryland I have found, among an excellent selection of books, Bloody Mohawk and French & Indian War Vol. 2: Savage Wilderness, easy wargames by Bill Molyneaux covering the French and Indian War. When I bought them at the gift shop years ago they were half off the retail price, around $25 each, a reasonable amount to pay for anyone interested in the period. I’ve heard of his games appearing in other historic site gift shops through his own efforts and persuasive force of will. They remain standouts on shelves mostly devoid of offerings from the current board game hobby renaissance we enjoy.

Thinking about our own summertime day-trip destinations I glanced over my game shelves and thought about available titles considering what games might seem appropriate (so this is a far from comprehensive list...more of some suggestions). Few hit both marks of accessibility and reasonable price point; but I can’t help hoping they might someday appear on gift shop shelves to tempt others into exploring history through games.

Shenandoah National Park: We used to get annual passes to the park, not 30 minutes’ drive from our home; but our busy schedule and the current economic stability, as well as the pandemic, curbed our recent visits. The park gift shops aren’t huge, but hit the mark for the usual tourist fare. I’d love to see any park- and nature-themed games on the shelves there: Underdog Games’ Trekking the National Parks, Keymaster Games’ Parks, even AEG and Flatout Games’ Cascadia. These selections would fit in any park featuring majestic natural terrain.

Another NASM favorite,
the Vought F4U Corsair.

NASM Udvar-Hazy Center: The place to indulge enthusiasm for aviation and space exploration, the National Air and Space Museum’s Chantilly, VA, location consists of a massive hangar filled with original artifacts. Here’s where I’d expect to see numerous games relevant to the museum’s collection: Ares Games and Fantasy Flight Games’ versions of Wings of Glory, Fighters of the Pacific, any iteration of John H. Butterfield’s solitaire RAF, and the space exploration game Xtronaut. Few of these games remain in retail distribution; most appear new or used in the inventories of various secondary market venues.

National Museum of the Marine Corps: The immersive exhibits in this museum highlight the long history and numerous conflicts in which marines served. So naturally many related games, mostly wargames, come to mind: Columbia Games’ Pacific Victory, Decision Games mini-folio solitaire game Khe Sanh ‘68: Marines Under Siege, the Pacific expansion pack for Memoir’44, Fort Circle Games’ Shores of Tripoli, and numerous titles from Worthington Publishing like Devil Dogs: Belleau Wood 1918, Iwo Jima 1945, Archie’s War: The Battle for Guadalcanal, Pacific War 1942 Solitaire, Holdfast Pacific 1941-45, and Tarawa 1943.

Artillery demonstration at
Cedar Mountain Battlefield.

Civil War History Sites: We live within about an hour-s drive from numerous American Civil War historical sites, including battlefields for Brandy Station, Cedar Mountain, New Market, Chancellorsville, Wilderness, Spotsylvania, Manassas, and Fredericksburg (among other smaller skirmishes and locations). (Culpeper County itself was arguably the most fought-over and occupied county in the entire war; during the Union encampment of winter 1863-64 the population increased from 12,000 to 120,000.) Games on the subject remain plentiful, though with varying complexities and price points: GDW’s A House Divided, GMT’s Fort Sumter, Columbia Games’ Bobby Lee and Sam Grant, Battle Cry, and numerous titles from Worthington Publishing and Decision Games.

Posing with a dummy blow-up
tank at the International Spy Museum.

International Spy Museum: I’ve yet to take my son here for a summertime day trip, but I visited in December before attending an author talk launching the American publication of Agent Zo. The expansive gift shop includes a vast selection of books and some re-skinned popular games like Clue and Monopoly (World War II themed editions, with hefty price tags). It could certainly use some of the recent flood of game titles about covert operations and resistance during World War II espionage that could compliment the museum’s exhibits on the subject: Jake Staines’ Maquis, Osprey Publishing’s War Story: Occupied France, Marcel Köhler’s Dutch Resistance: Orange Shall Overcome, and Hollandspiele’s Comet.

I lament we don’t have many gift-shop-friendly games suitable for casual gamers and their wallets. I wouldn’t consider any of my recommendations a beginner friendly introductions to board gaming. Many take a great deal of time to learn and play. Most have pretty high price points...if you can find them. I’ve discussed the ephemeral nature of the adventure gaming hobby before. Most of these titles remain difficult to find. If they aren’t in mainstream distribution, one must order them directly from publishes or hunt for them at collector’s prices on secondary market venues. None of my recommendations hits the trifecta of accessibility, affordability, and availability.

“We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.”

— T. S. Eliot

* I try not to revisit adventure gaming hobby topics too frequently here at Hobby Games Recce. Certain topics emerge periodically as my thoughts expand or change or I react to relevant developments. I last opined about games in museum gift shops way back in 2012, certainly enough time for my views to evolve and new trends to emerge. Upon re-reading my previous missive I feel it remains pertinent more than a decade later. But I also feel it’s time to revisit it with additional perspective — and new game releases — gained during that time. Many games mentioned in that piece have since faded into obscurity or remain difficult to find in secondary markets thanks to their out-of-print status...a symptom of the hobby’s ephemeral nature.