Vendor Spotlight: Howling Mouse Games
“You ever seen a grasshopper mouse?” Franziska asks me-I haven’t. “Yeah, look on YouTube, grasshopper mouse, it’s also called a ‘howling mouse.’ So when it makes a kill, it makes this howling noise like a wolf. It’s the cutest thing ever.” Before you go looking it up for yourself I saved you the trouble. Here’s a quick link to a video clip if you’re intrigued.
This is how my interview with Franziska Stewart started, co-owner of HOWLING MOUSE GAMES at Fanboys Marketplace. She, with her husband Rob, started Howling Mouse after realizing there wasn’t a good board game store in Fort Worth. To find a really good board game store she said, “you’d have to drive almost to Grapevine. That was the closest one… There’s another one in Dallas about an hour and half, two hours away.” So, without there being anything in Fort Worth she and her husband decided to start one up through Fanboys. “We only had like, 50 games to start with. We had this tiny little bookshelf and over the years it’s grown to what we have today.”
“What they have today” is an entire corner of the store at the Fort Worth location. Once you enter the store-at the far left-you’ll spot Howling Mouse Games. Franziska says she tries to curate a diverse selection of games that include games for pre-school kids all the way up to adults, so there’s something for everyone.
So, what’s hot when it comes to table top games? “I sell a lot of EXIT games. They’re escape rooms in a box.” You destroy it as you play it, she tells me. “You rip things open and mark things out” and by the end of the game play the board is destroyed and you’ll need to buy another. They’re sort of…disposable board games. In Exit games and other board games like Pandemic, everyone is playing against the game. She mentions those are some of her favorites because it doesn’t pit players against each other but everyone works together to beat the board.
Howling Mouse has also just opened their second location inside Fanboys’ newest store in NorthEast Mall in Hurst. Their big Grand Opening was this past weekend. Now you can find a curated selection of the best table top games in Fort Worth and in Hurst.
Howling Mouse Games does have a Facebook Page if you’re wanting to find out more. Visit: https://www.facebook.com/howlingmousegames. But, the best way to visit them is in person either at Fanboys Marketplace off of Camp Bowie in Fort Worth, or now in their new location in Hurst, TX at the NorthEast Mall. If you’re looking for the something that’s more than Chutes and Ladders or Cards Against Humanity *rolls eyes*, go check them out. Their selection is pretty hard to beat.
