About us
Since 2011, we’ve been selling games, running events, and sharing the magic of board games across the UK.
Our comprehensive library of games, both online and offline, means there’s a game for everyone - and our friendly team are always on hand to offer advice.
Our Cardiff shop is nestled within Castle Arcade, one of the city’s famous arcade quarters, with an upstairs floor for game tournaments and group events.
Our Bristol shop is inside St. Nicholas Market, an iconic emblem of Bristol’s cult status as a city of independents.
Our history
In 2010, Cardiff’s only board game store closed down - so our founders made it their mission to set up their own, brand new games shop. This is how Rules of Play was born.
From its official opening in 2011, the shop has been a haven for game lovers, curious families, geeks and enthusiastic gamers alike. Our shop opened with just a few hundred titles on the shelves, and now boasts thousands of games, with hundreds of new products added each month.
In 2014, we set about on a new mission; to deliver weekly board game nights around Cardiff, filling weekly calendars with cool venues and plenty of games. From the original #BoardGameBar, hosted at Tiny Rebel (formerly Urban Tap House), it grew to include pubs and venues across the city and beyond, with nights soon spilling across into Bristol.
This was also the year we first launched Cardiff's own International TableTop Day, an all-day gaming event, with around 50 people in the space above our shop.
In 2015, our #ITTD event grew to 200 attendees, taking place in Chapter and The Gate. The next year, in 2016, we took it up a notch: a full day of gaming at The Angel Hotel, with over 400 guests!
A few years later, and on our 10th anniversary, we transformed the 2019 event into an all-weekend #RulesCon: Board Game Festival extravaganza, hosted at The Angel Hotel with over 500+ guests.
In 2020, with the global COVID-19 pandemic, all events were sadly cancelled - but we're bringing games to the masses, like we always do, with speedy delivery and plenty of shopping ideas.