Elm City Gets Its Game On

Matt Loter had a vision: Bring board gaming to New Haven in a big and accessible way. Now the founder of Elm City Games has found a home on Chapel Street, hoping game enthusiasts from the city will flock there to play.

This past Saturday, over 250 New Haveners and suburbanites came to the grand opening of Elm City Games. Its extensive library — 800-plus games ranging from Dungeons & Dragons to chess to Ticket to Ride — now lives at the Happiness Lab on Chapel Street. From noon on Saturday to the wee hours of Sunday morning, Loter saw hundreds rotate through the space and ultimately opened up an overflow area in The Grove co-working space to accommodate extra attendees. 

“I grew up in a gaming family, and gaming has pretty much been a part of my entire life,” Loter said in an interview on WNHH radio’s ​“Law, Life & Culture.” ​“A lot of real life is expressed in games, whether it’s business, whether it’s warfare, whether it’s interpersonal relationships. There’s all sorts of ways to simulate things in a fun way that gets people to … create those neural pathways of behavior and understanding.”

Loter’s conviction that gaming is a sort of normalized, long-term, and vital social play has carried him through some stops and starts with the company. In 2012, he found a temporary gaming home when Scott Vignola, then the owner of Luck & Levity on Court Street, suggested they team up for Friday game and beer nights. Groups of New Haveners showed up for them, paying a nominal fee for hours of access to Loter’s board game archive and some hoppy goodness.

But then the brew shop closed in August 2014, and Loter found himself on the market once again.

In September 2015, he made a decisive move: approaching Happiness Lab founders Vishal Patel and Onyeka Obiocha to pitch the idea of setting up a permanent space in the social-change-themed cafe. Patel and Obiocha were down to try it. What started as a Meetup group for board games — the shop’s ​“beta” period, Obiocha said — grew to be wildly popular, and the three decided to invest in the idea and the company as a long-term project. Early this year, they struck a deal. Happiness Lab owns half of Elm City Games and profits from monthly memberships will be split three ways: one-third to Happiness Lab, one-third to Loter and the company, and one-third to maintenance of ​“the space,” which may mean buying more games, fixing a broken piece, or adding room for people to play.

As a new gaming spot, the Happiness Lab will host a series of scheduled ​“game nights” and activities, such as weekly meetups for board game designers, publishers, and enthusiasts. But Loter, who got into gaming after joining his family for a round of Dungeons & Dragons when he was four years old, also wants folks to be able to game whenever Happiness Lab is open, and offers monthly memberships to the company that give full access to the archive.

Saturday, very few of those details mattered to gamers like Chelsea Blink, who was ecstatic that she and her husband, Sean, both East Rock residents, would no longer need to trek to Milford to get their weekly board game fix. 

“We both really like board games, we play in Milford, and I just kept thinking .… maybe something like this [the night in Milford] will start in New Haven. And then it did!,” she exclaimed, turning back to her hand in Manchi Koro with a big grin.

Obiacha, rushing to bring gamers their lattes and paninis, agreed.

“I thought it as amazing,” he said after the event had finished. ​“You saw dads there with their daughters, friends, families, all different age demographics … all having wholesome fun.” 

To listen to Loter and fellow game developer Elena Bertozzi speak more about Elm City Games and gaming in New Haven, click on or download the audio above, or subscribe to WNHH’s new podcast ​“Elm City Lowdown.”