(Review) Cloud City Games - Kutztown, Pennsylvania

After an early weekend of yardwork at my mother's I went home the very, very long way.  

I had already been to Cloud City Games' locations in Stroudsburg, Easton, and the flagship store in Allentown, but they had opened up a new location in the gaming Mecca of Kutztown, Pennsylvania.  

Kutztown is it's own little geographical whole, but it's also a college town, home of Kutztown University.  

It's a smart idea, until the history of failed stores in the area, some by experienced folks with deep pockets, were part of the lore.

Worst case, I needed to make an appearance before they joined the shuttered predecessors.

I'm happy to report that we will not need an obituary.  

The good news is that it's in a decent looking strip mall, about a mile from campus. 

And I expected the sign up, and was not disappointed.

It's a smaller footprint than the other sites, but it's still quite vast. 

CCGS:  The reason for all those tables.  A good supply of Magic/Pokemon/Yu-Gi-Oh! singles.  Lots of packs, although somebody was unhappy they didn't have the particular boosters for one set, didn't have two full boxes to sell, and he didn't get some additional discount.   I don't miss entitled customers, although I have my hands full with entitled business owners at work.  

RPG:  A great selection of 5e, and Pathfinder but the heart of  Cloud City's role-playing section, to me, are the multitudes of Indy and zine-based games.  Pretty solid selection compared to the other stores.  

Minis:  GW racks, GW paints, and a large selection of the D&D mins/Wizkids licensed stuff.  A full rack of Monument Hobbies paints, with some GW scattered, needing a restock.

Events: A D&D night, a night of Monster of the Week (Both for high school kids!) , Magic Commander, Gundam, Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh!   That's a healthy Summer schedule. 

Staff:  I was acknowledged, they handled paying customers, and were working out the details for a project on Sunday.  

Comics:  The new releases and back issues were certainly there, but the bookcase after bookcase of graphic novels dominated that view when you first walk in. 

Other stuff:  The video game selection seemed bigger than the other sites, which tracks for a college town (The Stroudsburg location is NOT a healthy walk away, that's why the normal shops in the Poconos were a 20 minute walk max from the college campus.)

I'll be honest, it's a Cloud City location, albeit everything feels scaled down to 85% (except the graphic novels) . 

And for a brand new location in a college town, on Summer break, that's probably perfect.

I give Cloud City - Kutztown  three and half gnomes out of five.  

It does what it needs to, and with Cloud City in the Palmer Mall less than four minutes away from my mother's, I may swing by Kutztown only if I'm in the neighborhood.  

Cloud City Games, Comics, and Toys is located at 45 Constitution Blvd #2 in Kutztown.