Red Castle Games

If you like Magic the Gathering, and you prefer a friendly, approachable staff at your Local Game Store, Red Castle is the place for you. Every single person that works at Red Castle is SO NICE! I have interacted with Josh, Mikey, and Liza (sp?) the most, and they have made me feel like a long time friend.
Red Castle also has a huge selection of other table top and RPG games, and plenty of space to spread out with your play group. They even have private rooms that I think can be reserved, a great calendar of regular events, and snacks for sale. #nerdheaven

It would be nice if they had more classic games, but they’ve got a wide selection of more unique games and a helpful staff that will happily spend time with you recommending a new game and helping you figure out how to play!

This place is a board-​game lover’s paradise, they have a huge selection! You could probably obtain anything in the realms of boardgames that you can’t find at chain retail stores. The sale associates are friendly and helpful. You could rent games for a week for $ 5 and the cost of rental goes toward the price if you decided to purchase the game. They also allow you play/​test the game out at the store for free. Love this place.

I’ve been running a weekly RPG gaming group at Red Castle Games for several months now and I am very happy there. They have an abundant selection of card and board game products, and a pretty good selection of new RPG and miniature gaming products as well. They have some concessions and are located next to a pizza place and a Plaid Pantry if you need something they don’t have. Their prices are great and they offer discounts to seniors and first responders, which I think is really cool personally. Their staff is always knowledgeable, friendly and helpful.
My group reserves a private room every week at the very modest price of $ 1.50 per hour (compare that to competitors and you will find it is a great deal for a similarly sized room). They have two rooms available, and they are great for RPG gamers who want a little quiet from the background noise of the main room when a Magic tournament or something like that is going on.
The best part of this store, though, is the community and the friendly atmosphere. Everyone gets along here and the staff especially is outgoing and friendly. At some other stores you either feel like you’re lost in the crowd or there is no crowd at all. Here, it’s just right. This was readily apparent recently when a lunatic driver crashed his car through the front of the store (luckily no one was hurt). The Red Castle gaming community — and even neighbors who lived up and down the streets nearby — came in to help clean up the store and make it safe to open again within about 24 hours if I remember correctly. Customers, neighbors and other community members also raised thousands of dollars within days to help them pay for the repairs that insurance wouldn’t cover. That’s pretty amazing. Not every gaming store has that kind of community support. Here people seem to feel like they’re part of something special.
This is my personal favorite hobby gaming store and hangout in Portland. Or anywhere. Period. I suggest you skip the competition and come straight to Red Castle. You’ll find what you’re looking for there, whatever it is.

Owner and staff are very friendly and ready, willing & able to help! My boys and I went in today and picked out one game each to purchase. What fun! We will definitely be back soon! Very cool store with selection big enough that there is something for everyone! Shop small, shop local! Game on… old school style!

Great idea, can be a little chaotic, but fun. Ratio of males to females is about 9:1. Their Settlers Of Catan board game was missing pieces, kinda frustrating trying to figure out which ones. Wish they had better snacks and drinks.

I freaking LOVE this place! They are everything that so many game stores are not.
They are friendly, outgoing, maintain a clean store, have great selections, are expanding all the time (probably because they do so many other things well) and they just posted a part-​time job that I read out of curiosity and it included «learn one new thing each day» and «teach one new thing each day» as parts of the job description.
These guys are doing it right. I’m proud to have them in my hood.

I come here enough to have just passed my first $ 500, and the staff is starting to know my name. I try go there once a week to get my gaming-​fix in, but I frequent other stores as well.
What I love about them, is that they’re open late, are the closest game store to where I live, and have great gaming tables. They also have good gaming ambiance. I like how they make the occasion for family time with spouses and children in order to bring more people into tabletop/​card/​roleplaying/​board gaming, while at the same time leaving it as a place where you can have fun as an adult with other like-​minded adults. I think the staff is friendly and affable, even if none of them seem to be into my game of preference — but that should not be a prerequisite. They’re able to outsource that role to another regular customer to be the community leader for the players of my game (X-​Wing Miniatures and soon Star Wars: Armada).
Some room for improvement might be greater outdoor lighting or a security camera on the bicycle corrals, because bicycles do get stolen there (incl. mine — admittedly, I had a cheap lock on it).
Also, their blog-​style website (
) seems only modestly useful. While I am sure the articles are interesting, they don’t seem to have the information one would generally look for on a gaming store’s website. Given that their Facebook page is more useful in that regard, perhaps the general website should have a link to their Facebook page.
But, I am definitely a fan of this place, and I greatly look forward to coming there as often as my schedule permits.

These guys are great! I brought in a fat stack of cards to sell and they gave me 25% coming to 85 bucks, but not only that because they knew they could turn the cards around they rounded up to 100! Friendly staff, great game selection, well organized card stock, sweet looking back rooms for role playing games for Super cheap. I’m definitely going back here for all my magic transactions.

Great staff, great selection, awesome hours. This is my go to MTG shop. Good prices/​selection/​community. A great shop for people new to the game and veterans alike. They have a healthy weekly schedule that includes MTG and other games. Even if you do not live close, it is worth the trip.

Just went there last night for their weekly board-​game night. Pretty sweet.
They have a wide selection of games plus a library of misc games where they had one of my favs that’s almost impossible to find anywhere else.
Definitely going there this week.

I usually come here for FNM with my friends. The crowd is always a little different and is usually not super-​competitive. Sure, you’ll get a few people that are, but for the most part everyone is pretty relaxed. There will be a few kids in middle school or high school, but don’t be surprised if they wipe the floor with your face.
We could have chosen any of the other stores in the Portland area to play on Friday nights, but Red Castle has:
— Prizes for everyone! They take a number of packs proportional to the number of people, open half and sort the rares, uncommons, and commons. People in the top few spots get the remaining unopened packs, but everyone gets to choose one of the rares. The second to last person gets all the uncommons, and the last person gets all the commons. A pretty great way for everyone to get a little something.
— Two great bars a block away for post-​game drinks.
— A few places to get food nearby for a pre-​game dinner/​snack.
The rest of the store has tons of games. Sure it might look small from the outside, but they pack it in. You can also check games out and play them in the open play area, or one of their two rooms. I’m thinking about a co-​opting a few people on a Friday night to play Axis and Allies…
Good store, good people. Spend your money here.

They do not clean their bathrooms and they smell like urine. Its pretty gross. The bathrooms are small and it is nothing to clean the toilet twice a day. I have literally almost puked going in there. The garbage is over flowing.
They have good stock, and a good playing space. I like the two RPG rooms they have in the back. The staff used to have some good members, Ben was one of them. But now they are gone and the staff sits behind the counter on facebook all day.

I used to adore Red Castle Games an incredibly large amount. Now I don’t adore them as much, the glamour wore off eventually. They don’t feel like they care the way they used to. Some of the employees are lack luster about customers that aren’t all about Magic: the Gathering, and after they moved they never finished either of the gaming rooms in ways that would be really nice.
Some of the employees, if talking to the right ones, are incredibly nice and really helpful. They have a really large gaming area that has a really well stocked game library. Their private gaming rooms are useful, albeit lacking floors or decent ventilation, because they add much needed privacy and quiet during certain types of gaming sessions. The Armory isn’t the better of the rooms, but it’s still useful as it is. Their actual selection of merchandise isn’t bad, just a little less extensive than some other stores. Their late hours are really convenient and if they were open earlier they could handle just about all your needs. But it’s incredibly well balanced between miniatures, board games, role-​playing, etc.
Their program for accounts and incentives, as well as some of the deals they have are all really great.
Even if I don’t feel as great about the store as I used to, I still adore the place either way and recommend it to people all the time. It’s a great game store overall.

The main reason why I’m forking over 5 stars is because, more than once, Red Castle has saved the day by having a game available that other game stores have out of stock. Maybe Red Castle is slightly under the radar for board games but, so far, it has worked out in my favor!
Another contributing factor for the high rating are the late hours of operations. Good for that last minute late night game purchase.
I’ve also got to give props to the incentive program. While $ 20 off after $ 500 in purchase isn’t an amazing deal… chances are, I will spend $ 500 there and it is great to know that they want to give something back.
While the shop seems kind of Magic-​centric they still have a solid selection of board games (my weakness). The organization is easy to navigate and the games are displayed clearly so they are easy to browse.
Most recently when I went in, there was some Magic event going on. The line was out the door from people entering a tournament and others buying cards and packs. At this time I realized how unfortunate it was that they only had one register. While it look less then 5 minutes to pick a game to purchase it took well over 15 minutes to actually pay for the game. And they asked those signing up for the tournament to move to the front of the line. I know that they wanted to get the tournament going… but it still kind of felt like a slap in the face.
They have rooms for game play and a decent variety of snacks to buy. I haven’t spent any time playing games here but I may some time in the future.

Looooooooooooove that they’re open late.

Big area with tons of tables for playing games. Less than average library and board game selection (compared to the other stores in the area). But it has a variety of stuff: RPG, board games, cards, etc.
If you go during the Thursday night meetup session, you can get 20% off games & accessories purchases.
The huge plus is the fact that they open late (midnight) every day!

This place relocated recently. The new space feels clean and open. They’ve had what we’ve been looking for both times we’ve been in. It’s nice to see a business doing well on Foster.
Oh and they have an incentive program. You give them your name (I think that’s it) and when you’ve spent $ 500, they gift you back $ 20.

Solid gaming store. Pretty good selection. They are, for some reason, open very late hours most of the time. I’ve been in here at 11:30PM at times.

I am soooo stoked to have a game shop in my neighborhood!!!
I went in there today looking for the card game Dominion – Seaside, which they had. That’s a good sign, I thought. Come to find out they have a whole wall of all my favorite games. You name it, they’ve most likely got it.
Settlers of Catan and the expansions, Pandemic, PowerGrid, Carcassonne, Puerto Rico, and the list goes on. (Read: Board Game Geek Top 100 offerings)
By the way, if you have no idea what I’m talking about then you have not yet been introduced to the beautiful world of German-​style board games. These are complicated, interesting, strategy-​bent games with style and class. Definitely not your typical Yahtzee experience.
The store, of course, also sells RPGs (role playing games) that include Magic, Zombies, etc. And they host a bunch of game nights for RPGs as well. They would like to expand and offer game nights for the board gamers as well but they need community interest first.