Board games booming at prairie cafes and other places people gather [Video]

It’s the holidays, which means for many across the Prairies, there’s no better time to get locked in a dungeon with a dragon.

Or smoke out Colonel Mustard in the billiard room with the revolver.

Or — in the case of Janet Gutierrez and Katy Cadman — lay that magical X tile on a triple letter score.

“It’s the human contact,” Gutierrez said, lifting her head from a recent lunchtime Scrabble battle with Cadman at D6 Table Top Café in Calgary.

“We spend time and I know her interests and she knows mine…You don’t find this very often, right?”

Between rounds, the two can stare up at more than three walls of 650 games advertised in brightly coloured titles, divided into young adult, family-friendly, first timer and experienced gamer categories.

“It’s just a nice atmosphere,” said Gutierrez. “It isn’t noisy and they have food available that you can buy and …