In 2019, I moved to Wales, 108 miles from home. I packed up my board games and said goodbye to my nearest and dearest (geographically, at least). Starting my social life again was a daunting thought, and I was nervous, but also hopeful. A new decade was about to begin, and with it, a fresh start.
And then the pandemic hit.
Everyone’s time with Covid was different, but mine looked like this: several months alone in a cramped flat while my partner – an essential worker at the time – battled back-to-back night shifts. Video calls were a poor replacement for human connection. My mental health spiraled, and my only connection was with two pet rats.
Our world is an easy place to feel lonely. One 2025 study estimates more than half of Americans regularly feel isolated, left out, or lacking companionship. In the UK, 22% of adults said they felt lonely at least some of the time. There are plenty of theories about the cause of this ‘loneliness epidemic’: social media, political division, poor health – all issues heightened by the pandemic.
When the lockdowns lifted, I was eager to be around people again. But my fresh start had been delayed by several years, and I’d grown rusty and wary from time indoors.
Then, in 2021, a community gaming space called The Arcade Vaults launched a new, weekly board game night. It was a short walk from my workplace, and I decided to give it a shot.
I was the first person to walk through the door on opening night. The volunteer organizer, Gareth While, joined me for a two-player game of Hanabi while we waited to see if anyone else would show.
Gareth is a warm personality. I didn’t know it at the time, but he’s of Brazilian descent, loves to take charge at a barbecue, and shouts ‘0-1-2-1-Do-One’ when he kills a monster in D&D. Something else I didn’t know at the time was this: I was making awkward chit-chat with a future cherished friend.
It takes a lot for me to call someone a friend. It’s not because I’m choosy. I’m autistic, and I struggle with social cues. I’m not great at small talk or the body language that makes you seem appealing to strangers. And, like a vampire, I can’t cross the threshold from ‘acquaintance’ to ‘friend’ without someone actually telling me to.
Until then, it’s a game of 20 Questions. Have I known this person long enough to buy them a birthday present? Have I known them long enough that they don’t expect me to buy them a birthday present? If they’re planning a get-together, can I assume I’m invited? Are they being polite, or do they actually like me?
Board games offer a more structured way to socialize. There’s an explicit social contract that everyone agrees to: we are going to spend X amount of minutes performing these specific tasks. There will (usually) be winners and losers. When we speak to each other, it will be about the game at hand. That structure is a solid foundation on which more spontaneous social interactions bloom.
As one study into the benefits of board gaming puts it: “Not only is the board gaming structure interesting, but it provides healthy boundaries within the social interactions between players. In contrast to open-ended social interactions like chit-chat at a dinner party, players are able to talk about the game and get to know people through the way they interact around the board.”
Studies like these show board games have the power to create comfort, confidence, and meaningful relationships. Both studies linked focus on the benefits for neurodivergent people, so I see a lot of myself in the evidence presented. I’d go further, however, and say board games can be a loneliness balm for everyone.
The next attendees at the Vaults’ debut game night did eventually arrive. There was a couple on holiday who I never saw again, but plenty of other tourists would come and go as weeks of gaming went on. Some even stuck around.
“I came to stay here for a week and came to board game events all week long”, Amy Lees tells me. Amy works in HR, lifts heavy, and knows more about philosophy than anyone else I’ve ever met. “I then decided to take a chance on Cardiff and moved 256 miles from my little village in Yorkshire. It’s been the best move I ever made.”
Some regulars are from even further afield. Take, for example, Devansh Gala, a fiend for Viticulture who moved to Cardiff from India, “having never stepped foot in Wales before”. “I made my first friends outside of work in this group, and this group is one of the biggest factors in me eventually warming up to Cardiff. Thursdays are like my sacred day now.”
Another member who joined on day one was Glyn Roberts, a support worker with a love of photography, sport, and CRPGs. He had a gentle friendliness that instantly put me at ease.
“Due to my mental health and social anxiety, I’ve been lonely in my adult life”, Glyn tells me, years later. By now, we’ve shared a D&D campaign for three years, and I know him just as well as Dink the Gnome Wizard. “Because of the board game group, I now truly feel I have friends.”
The Arcade Vaults would introduce me to every member of this D&D group. Marianna Fotopoulou, an avid eurogamer who always roleplays as the party badass, has a similar origin story to mine. “When I moved to Cardiff, I didn’t know anyone and decided to try this group as a way to socialize – this was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.” “Getting to know everyone while playing made the process of making friends so easy and natural.”
There’s Laura Camilleri, the party Paladin who still turned up to online games while in hospital for Lupus treatment. There’s George Kyvetos, a Cleric who’s always ready to burst into song, and Alex Wills, Bardic prince of the epic monologue.
Matt Edwards, our party Warlock, was another early adoptee of The Arcade Vaults. “I was looking for a new group to socialize with following Covid, as I had forgotten how to socialize with someone that wasn’t an Animal Crossing character”, he tells me.
“My mum had also passed away during that time, so I was keen to begin putting a rather stressful and emotional period of my life behind me”, he adds. “Thanks to the group, I am now having a lot of fun and am blessed to have met many dear friends, and I am now only stressed and emotional when I play The Gang with them.”
For some, the weekly socials offered far more than just emotional healing.
“I was wrecked after a medical disaster and trying to rehabilitate slowly”, Chris Rowlands, owner of tabletop cafe Scaredy Cats, tells me. “But the biggest problem was I was riddled with anxiety. Meeting new people? At 44? Yikes.”
“But I held my nerve and walked in”, he says. “Through all you lovely folk, I’ve gotten healthier, my rehabilitation has come on leaps and bounds, and my social anxiety is a thing of the past (for the most part).”
Chris Walton, who recently introduced me to a board game about killer sheep, also found himself “extremely isolated and terminally online” after a difficult medical issue. “I’ve definitely made a lot of friends and appreciate all of you and the way you’ve helped turn my life around.”
Ben Price joined the group in 2022, and at the time, he was still recovering from brain damage. “Being alone was a way I survived”, he says, “but as my brain fixed itself, it wanted more real interactions”.
“Board games were a way to interact in a structured environment, and the Vaults was the coziest place to be.” “At the time, there was nowhere like it”, he adds. “I could talk to people over a board game when I could barely say a word in a normal conversation.”
The Arcade Vaults closed in 2023, but by this time, our group had grown – and bonded. We wanted to keep playing games together. So we found another venue. And then another when that venue didn’t work out. Some of our regular players never set foot in the original building, but their connection is no less sentimental.
The Cardiff Board Gaming Vault (as we’re now calling it on social media) gave people like Jon Humphries “a whole new circle of friends”. It introduced people like Greg Whitfield and Tyson Thomas (who now owns more Kickstarter games than anyone I’ve ever met) to board games as a hobby.
I was the first person to walk through the door, and as the group has grown, my life has grown richer. These are the people that remember my birthday, that show up for me when I’m sick, that bought me drinks when I got a job offer from Wargamer.
And these are just stories told by the regulars. There might be a hundred more. Somehow, the event’s Facebook group has ballooned to over 1,000 members. That’s a lot of people who feel a little less lonely thanks to board games.
Every week, I see new faces. Some of them might turn out to be new, cherished friends.
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Source: Wargamer
