Fantastic Games

Fantastic Games is a game store at 120 N 8th St in Boise, in the Main Market Place, with a shelf that covers board games, card games, toys and puzzles. For card players it carries Pokémon, Magic: The Gathering and the One Piece Card Game. It suits families, gift shoppers and anyone who wants staff to steer them toward something worth playing, more than it suits a collector hunting a deep wall of singles.

What's on the shelves

Tabletop is the center of the store. The catalog runs well past cards into abstract and area control games, cooperative and campaign titles, deckbuilding, dice games, drafting, engine builders, party games, strategy, wargames and worker placement. Role-playing games, trivia and storytelling games sit alongside them, and the toys and puzzles include fidget and sensory items.

A large share of the stock leans educational. Math flash cards, learn-by-sticker workbooks, domino sets and MathLink cube sets share space with illustrated and boxed-set children's books and screen-free audio players for kids. Parents and homeschoolers are clearly a core audience, and the store is mom owned.

On the card side, Pokémon, Magic: The Gathering and One Piece each have their own category, with sealed product and preorders handled through the store.

Store policies

Preorders are treated as a whole-order matter. If an order contains a preorder, the entire order is held and shipped when the preorder becomes available, so anyone who wants in-stock items right away should split the order. Limited items marked one per customer or local only are enforced: orders placed to get around those limits are cancelled automatically and the fees are not refunded.

Most new, unopened items can be returned within 30 days of delivery for a full refund minus shipping and card or PayPal processing fees. The store pays return shipping when the return is its own error, such as a wrong or damaged item. Orders can be set for curbside or store pickup, residential delivery, or standard shipping, which arrives in 6 to 8 business days and is priced by weight.

Hours and getting there

The store is closed Sundays and stays open latest on Friday and Saturday.

The address is 120 N 8th St, Boise, ID 83702.

About the company

Fantastic Games does most of its trade online but runs physical stores on both sides of the country; the Boise shop is one of two, the other being in Kissimmee, Florida. The staff pitch is practical: people on the floor who can help a shopper work out what to play, and the ability to track down rare games on request.

The local scene

Boise has several game and comic stores within a short drive. Collector Craft is about 0.2 miles away, Turbo Comics and Captain Comics Inc are each about 1.3 miles out, Deadly Seven Games is 2 miles away and BigFatFish Cards is about 2.9 miles away, which makes a downtown circuit of card shops easy to plan.