East Portland Tabletop Arcade: DECOLONIAL

My neighborhood library, the Midland branch at SE 122nd and Morrison, completed a lengthy renovation in late 2024. Since the summer of 2025, I've been organizing a meetup focused on playing hobby and strategy board games in the new meeting rooms on the first Sunday of each month. These rooms are explicitly for community use and open to the public, so I'm quite proud of the welcoming, relaxed atmosphere we've been able to create. So far there's been a mix of interest in shorter/lighter games and longer, more involved games, and we've been able to organize pretty organically without anyone having to wait too long. Still, if you're interested in something longer or more complex, I'd suggest arriving at the beginning so we can get that going from the jump.

The next East Portland Tabletop Arcade will meet on Sunday, November 1st, 2026, from 1:00 to 5:00 PM in Community Room 1F of the Midland branch of the Multnomah County Library. I've been choosing a broad theme each month and bringing a few selections in that vein to have available. Playing these is hardly mandatory, of course - I'll have a number of other games with me, and I hope that anyone who attends will feel free to bring stuff that they're interested in getting to the table. For November, the theme is DECOLONIAL, and I'll be bringing several games with that thematic connection:

COLONIAL TWILIGHT: THE FRENCH-ALGERIAN WAR, 1954-62 (Train, 2017, 2 players, high complexity): This installment in GMT’s popular COIN Series system is the first to be designed for two players. You must carefully consider just what it is you want to do, and how much of it, before the initiative slips from your fingers. The insurgent Front de Liberation Nationale (FLN), starting from modest beginnings, must build massive and enduring popular support for its cause and organize to assume power when Algeria finally gains its independence. The Government, representing both the colonial authorities and France’s military leadership, must engage the nationalist insurgency decisively while striving to preserve the support and commitment of the civilian government and society. Players will enter the “heart of darkness” as they use military, political, and economic actions and exploit events to build and maneuver forces to influence or control the population or otherwise achieve their aims along the twisting route to independence.

THE DEEP FOREST (Alder & Diaz-Truman, 2014, 2-4 players, medium complexity): The Deep Forest is a map game of post-colonial weird fantasy. It’s a re-imagining of The Quiet Year, one that centres upon monstrosity and decolonization: For a long time, our monstrous home was occupied by invading humans. Now, finally, we’ve driven them off, and we’re left with this: a year of relative peace. One quiet year, with which to dismantle their settlements and reclaim our lands. Come Winter, a band of heroes will arrive and we might not survive the encounter. This is when the game will end. But we don’t know about that yet. What we know is that right now, in this moment, we monsters have an opportunity for healing and self-discovery in our deep forest, away from human eyes.

PAX PAMIR (Wehrle, 2019, 2-5 players, high complexity): From the award-winning game designer of Root and Oath, Cole Wehrle brings you into an interactive history lesson about life on the edge of empire. In Pax Pamir, players assume the role of nineteenth century Afghan leaders attempting to forge a new state after the collapse of the Durrani Empire. Western histories often call this period "The Great Game" because of the role played by the Europeans who attempted to use central Asia as a theater for their own rivalries. In this game, those empires are viewed strictly from the perspective of the Afghans who sought to manipulate the interloping ferengi (foreigners) for their own purposes.

The library itself is quite nice, especially after its recent facelift, and is just a couple minutes' walk from the 20-Burnside bus and a maybe a five or ten minute walk from the 122nd Ave Blue Line MAX stop. As far as food options, Bridge City Taproom is right across the street, there's Just Tea about a block away, and Los Francos Food Truck, Don Pedro, Victorico's, and Sisters (Ethiopian) all within a few blocks.

I hope we'll see you there!