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As a kid, I played board games all the time.
Of course, Monopoly was a favorite, but I wasn't into games like Scrabble or chess. But when Trivial Pursuit came out, I thought that game was pretty cool. I also took on my neighborhood buddies in board games that simulated football and baseball games.
But as time went along as an adult, I found that young people were mostly into video games. I figured board games lost popularity.
I was proven wrong.
I started realizing how wrong I was after meeting Ana and Marcos Marrero. They are opening a board game shop on College Drive called Turn Order.
"I guess people call it the renaissance of board games right now," Marcos told me inside the shop that is slated to open next week. "New games come out every month. Like hundreds of games come out every year."
That statement surprised me. So when I returned to the office I Googled the popularity of board games. According to market research consulting firm Fortune Business Insights, the board game U.S. market was valued at $15.82 billion in 2025. It stated the U.S. market is expect to grow from $17.44 billion in 2026 to $39.70 billion by 2034.
"Tabletop games are becoming increasingly popular as a source of entertainment and recreational activity," Fortune Business Insights stated on its website.
The website also mentioned something else I found interesting.
"Board games, a tabletop game category, are generally perceived to enhance brain function and self-confidence in individuals," it said.
According to the Marshall couple, their shop will primarily sell board games and table top games. Besides a retail section, the shop will also feature a section where customers can sit down and play board games for free or for a small fee. The fee will vary from $5 to $10 to try anything from what they call a premium library. There are two separate rooms that can be rented by the hour for structured, standalone game sessions.
"It’s just over 100 games we've collected over the years," Marcos said of the games that are available to try out.
"We're trying to get more people to like it (playing board games)," he said. "Sometimes people play the board games at their house, but it's hard to find a community. We came to Marshall four years ago, and we haven't found a group since we came here. So we're trying to bring all the random groups together so they can find each other. I'm trying to make a center for them."
Ana said the type of store they are opening up is growing, especially in bigger cities like Des Moines, Iowa, and Burnsville, Minnesota.
"We're hoping that it'll do well here," she said.
Another surprising fact about Marcos and Ana is where they moved from.
Marcos and Ana are originally from Kissimmee, Florida -- which is south of Orlando.
"We just wanted to to get away from the city life to raise our kids. The area has more community feel. We also wanted four seasons," Marcos said.
The couple met in high school and it was Marcos who got Ana into playing board games regularly.
"I love board games," Marcos said. "Introduced her into board games. And now she's been playing for -- how long we've been married? Thirteen plus years."
I asked them who was the better game player?
"He's definitely got the more strategic mind when it comes to like playing the random game," Ana said.
"She seems to always win when there's a new game. But she never wins again," Marcos said while grinning.
Speaking of new games, Marcos described how their family tackles a new game.
"What it usually ends up in our house is, we open the game and I read the whole rule book. And then if I'm confused, I'll look some stuff up. And there's a lot of YouTube videos about how to play these games. There's thousands of them and they summarize them down -- a lot of them are like three minutes long or 10 minutes long. And the more complex games, they'll be three, four hours long to explain the game. So we kind of do that. And then I sit down and sit the family down and explain it to all of them,” he said.
Ana said there are trends when it comes to new board games.
"Like Catan. We call it like a gateway board game because usually it has a little more strategy, but it's easy to understand. People get introduced to different mechanics that'll get them to maybe try other games like it that get a little bit harder. You know, you get tired of the same old thing and you keep on moving,” she said.
Marcos said new games come out every month.
"There's a bunch of Kickstarters (produced with public pledges on crowdfunding platform)," he said. "Then there's so many new mechanics and they keep making new things. So like, they are just more unique than your typical Monopoly that you would see. You've played it a million times and there are so many more things now. People are coming up with their own thing and even just thematics. They'll have the same game, but it's like if you like birds, you can play with birds."
Marcos explained it could be a guy in his garage developing a new game and taking their idea to Kickstarter. Ana added that then there's big companies like Hasbro introducing new games as well.
Marcos said they enjoy following a passion to try new games.
"We just went down a rabbit hole," he said.
Marcos and Ana want to get more people in the Marshall area to follow them down that same rabbit hole
"We're all about community," Ana said. "I know that there's a lot of people out there that maybe don't have a group and looking for a group like we were. We want to kind of create that space for them, and so there's going to be a way for people to connect."
So if you like playing board games ...
It's your turn.