Designing The Perfect Games Room

(Guest Writer: James Green)

For many of us, life is all about entertainment. We go to work to pay the bills, but when the essential bills are paid, we want to relax and have a little fun - whether that’s with a partner or on our own! That’s why games rooms are becoming increasingly common in people’s homes. For people lucky enough to have a little extra space, creating a games room can be a great solution for that one room in your home which doesn’t have a purpose.

They’re also a great place to go and unwind. Playing games in your front room isn’t always the optimum way of going about it. The television might be in use by somebody who wants to watch their favorite show. You might have children studying for exams or doing homework - and it’s not fair on them to be playing noisy games when they’re trying to concentrate. A games room is somewhere you can go to cut yourself off from the rest of the world and have a little pure entertainment time without worrying about anything or anyone else.

If you’ve already made the decision to incorporate a games room into your home, all you need to do now is decide what’s going to go on it. As always, we’re on hand to give you a few ideas. Depending on the space you have available, you might want to incorporate some of them - or even all of them - to create the perfect gaming environment. Let’s get started!

Always Have A Pool Table

We have no idea why a pub game makes a home look classy, but it does. Your basement looks less dingy if it has a pool table in it. Something about owning a pool table makes you look sophisticated and quirky at the same time.

If you don’t believe us about how a simple pool table can make your home more interesting, look at how they've been used to transform the whole look and feel of a room in the past! If you want to go really upmarket, forget about the 'pool' aspect and get yourself a full-sized billiards or snooker table instead. A well-made table with dark wooden colors elevates an empty room into a feature. On top of that, they're also a great entertainment choice.

All your friends will want to come over and play with you - and you can ask them to bring the beer, because you're saving them the cost of a night out!

Image © James Green

Consider A Pinball Machine

Pinballs were the video games of the past. You can still find them in old bars and arcades, and at the end of piers. The pings and dings of a pinball machine bring waves of nostalgia, and they’re also an easy feature to install without taking up too much space.

The machine can simply stand in the corner, leaving you with almost all the space in the room left over to install other gaming features. This is something else you can invite friends over to play.

They’ll never beat you though - with all the practice you’ll be able to put in, you’ll become a pinball wizard of the sort that The Who once sang about!

Invest In Old Arcade Machines

Everybody has a video game console now (the PlayStation 4 has sold almost 100 million units), but that wasn't always the case. The latest and greatest games used to appear only at arcades, and would cost you several dollars a time to play.

The gaming industry has thankfully moved on a lot, and it's cheaper to own and run a console than visit an arcade every weekend. You can (and should) put your games console in your games room - with a state-of-the-art widescreen TV to play games on, but you should think about having some old-school gaming cabinets, too.

You can pick them up on eBay for less than you probably imagine, and there's something to be said for playing 'Pac Man,' 'Street Fighter,' and 'Time Crisis' as the games were originally supposed to be played. You could even make your money back by requiring guests to put their change in the machines to play.

Image © James Green

Have A Casino Table

Casino games on website such as Kong Casino, like everything else in the world, have now largely gone online.

Not every type of casino game needs to be a virtual experience, though. You probably won't be able to rival the internet for mobile slots. Unless you're going to install multiple slot machine, mobile slots websites will always have more range than you can put into your spare room, and they get updated more often.

We weren't thinking about mobile slots for your games room, however. Mobile slots have their time and place, but what you need is a card or roulette table. A small poker table - with markings - is a great feature to have in the corner of the room, and another social hub for your home.

A night out at the casino playing poker might cost big money, but if you can invite people round to your house instead, you can play with less drama and lower stakes.

Obviously, we only recommend a card table if you live in an area where hosting poker games at home is legal!

Don’t Forget The Bar

This is a room that's designed for your pleasure and entertainment. Yes, you could always keep your beers and drinks in your fridge and carry them through to your games room, but where's the fun in that?

You could have a miniature bar in your games room, and fit it out with optics, spirits, and even bar snacks! Going out gets more expensive with every passing year, so why not make staying in more fun by keeping your own well-stocked bar at home?

Having the bar will make your games room feel even more like an escape from the real world, and after a long day of work, it's exactly what you need. As with all the other ideas, it's an extra little something in your home which will make you the envy of your friends and neighbors.

In Conclusion

The five ideas we’ve listed above will make for a solid start, but there’s no need to stop there.

You could put a ping pong table in alongside the pool table. If ping pong isn’t your thing, you could go for foosball instead. If you have children and don’t want them to feel left out, there are many ways you could install a swing or a slide without going overboard.

Most importantly of all, have fun with the design. The room is supposed to be about fun, so make sure it gets built with a sense of fun from the planning stage all the way through to execution!