Now, there is going to be overlap on what you might want to get in a room, so I’ll cover that, but there are other things that will be different. And I think knowing what you want is important because it can determine what you get.

For example, for me, I don’t do much painting, so I don’t need a dedicated space for that. The larger a gaming table I can get, and still get chairs around it, the better for me. But a painter might still want a gaming table. Or an RPG player might want a spot to build terrain, or store terrain.

Common Game Room Things

Storage

Let’s start out with what really is common across everything. You will need storage in your room. If it is just for board games, or painting, you need storage for the games you are painting or the game you own. For RPG’s, unless everything is theater of the mind, you need storage for the terrain and minis that you have.

Seating

Seating is also key. If you don’t have a spot to sit, then it’s more a game waiting area than a game room. So you want seating but not just seating, enough seating for your room. For example, my game room could handle 8 people at a table, even a six person table. Assuming the game isn’t too large. But I want flexible seating.

Lighting

Next up is lighting. This is one that might just come with the room or might be something you can supplement or control as you need. You want to be able to see well. But you don’t want a harsh light pointing down at the table causing glare. I know some people do up lighting or reflected lighting. I think that a fan lighting is solid as well, just as long as it’s not a bare bulb pointing down. Or that it isn’t too dark so you can’t read the cards easily.

Table

Finally, a table of some sort. Now, a gaming table sounds awesome and I am excited to order one. But it isn’t needed. A dining room table from Craiglist or Facebook Marketplace work just fine. There is no reason to be too fancy with it. Just a surface to play games on or painting on is important. If you are a painter we’ll talk about it a bit more.

Streamer

So what else do you need to think about if you are a streamer? I know that I have talked about the equipment that you need, but that is the main thing. However, I won’t go into detail too much on that. Camera(s) and computer are important.

But two things to touch on are lighting and sound. Lighting might seem like we already talked about it, but you want to have a nice lighting set-up. Firstly so viewers can watch you. Secondly so that you can see the game. Not only that, but something that adds in depth, so not just lights pointed at you, but a light filling in behind you as well.

Sound is also exceedingly important. I can deal with decent lighting if the sound is good to great. But if the sound is bad, that’ll get me to click off of a video or a stream faster than anything else. Now, I’m not talking about delivery, I’m talking about sound levels, clipping in and out, or background noise or echoes distorting it. Put up some soft things if need be to dampen the sounds.

Board Game

This will be the area that you need to add the least specific to a room. Storage, table, seating, and lighting basically are what you need. If you want go fancier, or say you use a dining room table, I recommend grabbing a few playmats. Something that’ll cover most of the top of the table. That just makes it much easier to pick cards or pieces off of the table.

I’d also recommend grabbing a few TV trays. Something you can put up or take down easily enough. That means that you don’t need to have food or drinks on the table (as much) and less likely that something spills. Now, maybe you just don’t allow food or drinks at all, but I like TV trays as an easy to pull out or put away option.

Paint or Craft

For this, you probably want a dedicated area where you can paint at in your room. Now, that might be a whole separate room from where you play. But a dedicated painting table that you can get messy would be key for me. Or at least that you don’t mind if it does get messy.

Along with that, lighting is way more important. You want to be able to see what you are painting. That means that you’ll want to either have great lighting all around, or the ability to add lighting in by the painting area. I know that some painters also want something that’ll magnify as well.

Finally, storage for your paints and brushes and whatever else you might use for crafting. I already mentioned storage, but for paints a particular holder that makes it easy to pull them out seems like the right thing to have. It’s kind of why I buy inserts for board games. Something to just make the game easier to play.

Role Playing Game

For an RPG, again not much to add. Just that storage is going to be about your most important thing. And I personally would want some spots to store stuff or hide it away. Now, everything is not always hidden away. So many RPGers make amazing set pieces that you can keep out. But for the more generic items or ones you have a lot of, storage to keep it out of sight is nice.

Also, there is likely overlap here with painting and crafting. Unless you buy all your terrain prefabricated and minis painted, there is that element of the gaming as well to consider. And I know that a lot of Dungeon Masters DIY a lot of things. That probably means you own more random elements, like cardboard and Styrofoam that a painter might not have.

Final Thoughts

There is no right way to create a game room. For some people that might just mean a room with a ton of games, maybe a spot to paint minis and they don’t play games in there. You just enter, grab a game, and leave. That is still a game room.

Others might want to have a room where they can play games, but it also will store a 3D printer, a spot to paint, and other elements for the crafting side of the hobby. Some people will want their games out in a Kallax and others will hide them into a closet. It is whatever works best for your space.

And it always depends on space. Not just what you use it for, but how much you have. You might not be able to fit a game table in. Or it might be a game room where you play your solo games because it isn’t that big. Or you might have two game tables in there and you can have big get togethers where lots of big games are played.

But it is fun to think about and dream about your ideal game space. And hopefully with this article it gives you a few extra things to think about. Tweet me pictures or leave over on Facebook pictures of your game room.

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The Computer

Now, you can go with a lot of different types of computers. Some people do a laptop, personally I go with a desktop computer. Then there’s also the debate between Mac or PC. Personally, you can’t go wrong with either. I know some people will swear by one or the other, but I’ve used both in my video days, and the differences are so minimal it doesn’t matter. What you are looking for when streaming though is a fast processor and ram. Streaming shouldn’t be hitting the hard drive much at all, if you can help it, because that’s going to be the slowest part of your system. This is unfortunately an area that I’m less well versed in, but a solid gaming computer is going to have enough for a decent stream.

The Camera

The camera can actually be one of the priciest items of the set-up. A lot of big streamers will use a nice $5,000 plus dollar camera for their streaming. And going up to 4k can push it well beyond that. But since people watch a lot of stuff on their phones, right now I don’t think you need to go nearly that fancy. In fact, you can probably get away with one $100 web cam if you want. That’ll be good enough to show off your game. I go with two cameras personally, I have a web cam, and compact video camera that I use for my overhead shot. The reason for this is that it gives me better zoom control, and I like to be on camera as I’m playing also. You can also use a DSLR, there are a few things to consider with that, though, you need to trick them into not shutting off while you are streaming because what is being shown is the display. Connecting a data cable can do that. You can use a cheap tripod with your camera to make it work.

The Sound

So sound is an interesting one. When I first set mine up and did some tests, I tried using my sound board to be able to control it better, but the sound board was processing the sound too slowly so that by the time it got to the computer, it was out of sync. Right now, and for a beginner, just use the sound off of a web cam. As long as it’s not picking up too much background noise, you’re going to be fine.

Lighting

This, again, can cost a lot, if you want it to. Personally, I’m using a fairly classic lighting style where I have three points of lighting, this helps cut down on shadows. I have one over my left shoulder, one in front of me and one to the right. This is overkill for what you need to start. A $50 ring light (or even cheaper) is what you need. You want to limit the amount of light that you have in the room as much as possible and be able to highlight it by putting the light on the game. The better lit the game is, the clearer it will show on camera. But don’t point the light directly at the board, doing that will cause glare off of the board and flood parts of the image with too much light so that it’s a white out. I think my full ight set-up cost me $250, which isn’t bad, but I was able to find some cheap LED lights a while ago.

Software

This is where it can be really nice. You can just use a free piece of software like Streamlabs OBS. This will give you a nice free set-up to layer on different levels of video and text. You can also use overlays with it as well. But Streamlabs OBS is nice because it connects up really easily to either Twitch or YouTube. There are a lot of different versions of the OBS software, but I’m really liking Streamlabs and it’s working quite smoothly.

Is That All You Need?

No, that’s more than you need, at the start, if you want, you can simply go with a good computer and a web cam on a tripod pointed at the table with the Streamlabs OBS software. However, that is going to look a little bit rough, so I do really recommend the two cameras and a ring light, so not counting a computer, you can probably get started for $200-300.

But I didn’t mention one part of streaming that you have to think about. And that is talking on camera. I don’t have an issue talking on camera. But for some people that’s a big thing talking on camera. And no matter who you are, myself included, it does take some time to figure out what being on camera feels like. I might be pretty comfortable, but what makes an entertaining patter going throughout the streaming. It’s a lot of work to fill in dead time in a game. What do you chat about in Onirim when you’re shuffling cards for the 30th time in one game (might not be that much but still it’s a lot). How are you entertaining others. Now, you might be like myself where I started my channel, honestly, for myself, because at least streaming I have a pretend audience out there whom I could interact with in the moment, and now I’ve actually had some people join in which is great. But be yourself on camera and that’s going to be the hardest part to get the right amount of entertaining, but that is something that only comes with practice.

Would you consider streaming board games, do you now? Let me know your YouTube or Twitch channel in the comments below.

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Theater Room Basics

When thinking about a theater room or even a dedicated TV room, there are a few things you need to think about. In particular for a room that we want to call a theater room, I have four primary things that I’ve thought about. Screen, sound, seating, and snacks, the four important S’s.

Screen

This decision matters on multiple levels. Firstly you need to decide do you want to do like I am, and have a projector set-up with a pull down screen or do you want to have a television and just go with a big flat screen. If I were to do it now, I might lean towards a large television simply because 4k projectors are not cheap. However, 1080p projectors, those are a much more reasonable price. I also like that I can go bigger cheaper. I think that the width of the screen I have is 8′, and that’s width, so it’s notably bigger than a 85″ television and those cost a whole lot more than the pulldown screen and projector. So the projector route is definitely better for the budget. Clarity will suffer slightly, but since I’m putting it into a basement room I don’t have much to worry about with light any time during the day.

Sound

Now, if you pick a television, you can just use the sound from the TV if you want. But we’re talking about a theater room, so you shouldn’t just have a normal sound system. I have a 5.1 surround sound, and I’d consider upgrading it, when we finish off the space to 7.1 surround sound depending on cost. This will give you more of a theater feel and it’s a lot of fun. This generally means getting speakers and a receiver. This now starts adding up in price, but you can get a solid sound set-up for $400 if you look at refurbished options as well as new. We’re really looking to get out enough sound so that it feels like you’re getting a bit of a theater experience with it. A solid sound bar and subwoofer would be another option as well.

Seating

Theater chairs are not that comfortable, though they have gotten way way better during my lifetime. But this is a home theater, so the seating should be comfortable. We have a nice quality futon as well as an arm chair and a 6′ long bean bag chair in our area. These are good items, though I feel like we will eventually want to get something better, some assembly required so we can get it down the basement, that will turn the room into an even more cozy spot to watch movies and television. What I generally look for is something that I can lounge on, we had a sectional at the old place and that was quite comfortable to stretch out on. Now we have an ottoman to use as a foot rest and a foot rest for the arm chair as well. Plus the bean bag chair can either go the long way for full body comfort for one person or two people can lean up against it the other way.

Snacks

Every good movie theater has tons of over priced snacks, but snacks that you expect. Popcorn is of course the biggest. We picked up a table top movie theater style popcorn machine for our theater room. This was about a $60 purchase and it just gives the room a sort of aesthetic that I want in a room that is supposed to be a theater room. We also have a kegerator down there as well for when we don’t want to walk up the stairs to get a beer from the fridge. This is just a fun little feature that I really like with home brewing to have nice access to beer where I’ll be watching television and movies. But that isn’t needed, I think if you want to really lean into the movie theater room the popcorn machine and maybe a minifridge would be what I’d target for having snacks in the room. We, to complete the look, also got plastic popcorn containers that look like the cardboard medium sized popcorn containers you can get at theaters, or maybe the small ones, I don’t get popcorn at theaters all that often.

Taking It Over the Top

So for a good theater room, those four S’s are what I consider essential. Now, snacks could be argued, but at least some place to put out snacks easily is needed. Let’s talk about some things that can take your home theater over the top.

Movie Posters

This is the easiest thing to do because you can pretty easily get your hands on movie posters. But getting some and getting them framed and up is nice aesthetically for a home theater. If you want to go really fancy, do a box of sorts with some light in there to shine onto the posters. This would give you minimal lighting for the room and also add to that theater aesthetic.

A Curtain

This could be done one of two ways. Now most theaters don’t open and close curtains around their screens, but if you wanted to go for that old time charm you could. Or you could get get a curtain to frame the screen. This is more common to what you see, it helps diffuse the light in the room by giving it a soft surface that it won’t reflect off of around the screen, and again aesthetically it’s like a movie theater.

A Marquee

We picked up this for our home theater room. A marquee light box seems like a really fun idea to have in the room. You get a ton of letters, I think the one I got came with 250 of them, so probably can spell out most any movie title. When we can have movie nights again, it’s going to be fun to throw up the name of the movie on the marquee for when people come down into the room. And it was quite cheap as well, I believe the one that I picked up was $20 on Amazon, you can find it here. This one is very simple, but you can get bigger ones that will really make the room feel like a theater.

Lighting

Now, lighting is important. But for a lot of existing rooms where you are just adding to the room instead of remodeling it, you’re limited in lighting. That is my case as well. However, I am sprucing up the lighting in the room. The marquee itself will provide minimal lighting when on in the room. But we also have some curtain lights. Think about a ten foot strand of wire with ten 8 foot strings of lights attached to it. With just that much light in the room, and it’s a soft light, it is easy to see to move around, but not so bright as to diffuse the projector and create a faded image.

Now, this seems like a lot for a home theater, and to do one up so it’s really fancy isn’t a cheap project. I make mine cheaper by getting refurbished electronics whenever I can. Even then, though, with a XBox One and a Wii down there as well as the projector, it is spendy. All of that said, I love it for watching movies and television. There is something about the big screen that is just more fun, and having a place to spread out and watch and be cozy do an in home date night, all of those things are fun and worth it for me. You’ll need to decide how far you want to go with it, but if you do, show me pictures of your home theater set-up.

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At a basic level, there are going to be two primary things that you’ll need for your gaming room. The first is a place to play the games, and the next is a place to store the games. However, you can certainly bling it out more than that, but let’s start by talking about those two things.

The Table

The table, and this includes the chairs is going to be fairly important as you think about setting up the room. Consider things like how large your games are, now many people you want around the table, and how much overall space you have. If you’re playing something like Gloomhaven, you’re going to need a bigger table than if you normally only play games like Santorini and Hanamikoji. Or even a game like Deception: Murder in Hong Kong, you’re going to need space to get a larger group around the table, even though the footprint of the game isn’t that large. So look at the largest game, numbers wise and space wise to determine how large a table you might need. Now, that might not work for the room you’re using, it could be too large, in that case, consider the games that you will be playing most down there, and you can move the bigger games elsewhere for playing.

With this also consider your playing surface. You can go out and find a lot of premium gaming tables that cost $1000+ and are going to be amazing to play on with built in cup holders, rails for holding cards, a sunken play and padding place surface and more fun things like that, but that’s probably overkill. Most of the time, an old dining room/kitchen table will do. What I’d consider when thinking about that is what sort of surface do you need for it? There are a few different options to allow you to be able to pick up cards easier, felt or neoprene. Both of these have a little give, and if you have trouble picking up cards at times like I do, it might be something you’d want to invest in. Felt works well because you can stretch it and staple it to the underside of the top of the table and it’ll give you a nice playing surface. That’s what I’ve done for the table that I use for Malts and Meeples streaming. This will give you a consistent top across the table, but it does pick up dust, another option would be buying a neoprene mat to put on top of it. This is going to be higher quality, and it’ll allow you to more easily swap out the surface of the table since you can just roll up the mat, but it’s a spendier option, but still cheaper than getting a premium gaming table.

Storage

Storage is another big thing to consider, how do you want to display your games. This could be for aesthetic reasons, but mainly it’s going to be so that you know what games you have. If you’re using a bedroom and you shove them into a deep closet, the ones in front will get played, the ones in back will not. This is just simply do to the visibility of the games in front versus the back.

The most common suggestion that you’ll hear are Kallax shelves from Ikea. Or Better Homes and Garden cubby shelves are basically the same things. The cubbies are basically the right side for a board game, in a normal sided square box, to fit nicely. They can be stored either vertically or horizontally. I have a Kallax and it works really well. You can even find them used, fairly often it’ll be the older version of the Kallax, Expedit, but basically the same thing and same sized cubbies. The Better Homes and Garden one I believe is slightly lower quality, but more readily available since it’s at Wal-Mart. But really, any bookshelf will do, it just might not store quite as neatly. And plastic shelving works well, as well.

That’s really it that you’ll need for storing and playing your games, but let’s talk about some other things to think about that you might want to do.

Some of these are going to be additional decor, I know people who hang box covers, especially for expansions they’ve fit into one box, on the fall, or Board Game Geek sells some amazing art prints for various games. Etsy is another place that has good art.

Lighting is another big thing to think about. Indirect lighting for the games are going to be best. By that, I mean having a big light on the ceiling pointed down is probably not the best. It’s going to create glare off of boards and cards and make them harder to read. Floor lamps where the light is directed up and can reflect down off the ceiling are going to give you an easier light to see the board and cards. But also having enough lighting is important as well so that you can read the cards without straining. So sit around the table from each side some evening and see how it is to see a hand of cards.

Now, finally, I want to talk about seating. I said that was implied with the table, but most tables you can cram more people around than chairs that come with the table. So consider picking up some folding chairs and test out the folding chairs to see that they’re comfortable. Folding chairs have definitely improved since hard metal ones to stronger and more supportive feeling plastic seats and backs. Find something that feels comfortable to you and that you think will be comfortable to anyone who might join in the gaming fun.

What else should you have in a game room? I mean, you need games, but I’m assuming, if you’re thinking about a particular game room, you probably already have a lot of those, like I do. Also, tweet pictures of your game room to me, for future inspiration.

Share questions, ideas for articles, or comments with us!

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