Great Escape Adventures (GEA) is a family-owned tabletop board game store with a passion for adventure and a heart for community.  Today, GEA has grown to four community locations across the Finger Lakes Region of Upstate and Western, NY, and has thousands of board games and accessories available.  We also lead an annual Board Game Convention & Geek Adventure Camp with a strong focus on LARP (Live Action Role Play) in a medieval and fantasy genre.  We invite you to join us as we actively build an ever-expanding world, year over year, centered on the Kingdom of Dragonia.  This world is loosely based on, and contributes annually to, an unpublished book being woven together by Ken. We are also designing a tabletop board game based on this same world!

We (Jen and Ken) grew up in Horseheads and Corning, NY, and have three children. On a family vacation “out west” many years ago, we happened upon an escape room. At the time, escape rooms were popular in Europe, but we had never heard of them. Intrigued, we traveled an hour out of our way to play, having no idea what to expect. We failed miserably that first time, but we had such a great experience that we couldn’t stop talking about it during the hour-long drive back to our hotel! Jen suggested we build one for our community, and a year after returning home, we began designing and building our first immersive escape room at the Arnot Mall in Horseheads, NY.

Our whole family loves board games so we added a board game “gift shop”, procured some tables, and began to build a growing free-to-play board game library.  We welcomed local artists to paint some murals, and invited folks to bring their friends, lunch, and come play any time we were open 7 days a week.  That turned into something we truly enjoyed and have carried forward in all four stores.  We also now have free community “take-a-card, leave-a-card” boxes for CCG’s in each location.  If your location doesn’t have a free community box yet for a game you enjoy, feel free to ask a clerk to start one.  Players can donate their extras, and everyone can build free decks from them.

You are invited to use our space for tabletop gaming, birthday parties, and gathering with friends.  We are often asked if folks can reserve our space, and while it is free to use, tables are available on a first come, first serve basis.  Feel free to check with your local GEA store to ensure it doesn’t overlap with any store-coordinated events that may be happening at the same – and then come have fun!

We are so excited to be a part of offering something healthy and fun for the communities we grew up in.  Many across the country have also shared with us that they do not have an FLGS near them, and they are thankful for GEA being their “local” game store.  We are thankful for your support and grateful for the opportunity to be a part of such a wonderful community of people.

We look forward to catching a game with you!  ~ Ken, Jen, and family