HAVERHILL — A cold gust swirls leaves and wrappers outside shops on dimly lighted Emerson Street near Washington Square.
The scene suggests a “Star Trek” episode, from the original TV series — Kirk and McCoy beamed to an alien land where they must make sense of the murky setting.
Here, it includes a barber shop, a chicken wing joint and a taxidermist’s haunt.
Straight ahead is Creatorpult Games, its lighted, crest-like sign a crenellated castle indicating kinship with the Middle Ages.
The establishment’s two welcome mats are a well-tread Kris Kringle — his red chubby face looking up, the Coke-drinking Santa — and one that assures guests that it’s not a trap door, which makes it all the more inviting to step on and find out.
Inside, the cold recedes in the bracketed warmth. Creatorpult is a sanctuary, a place for the game-minded and fantasy-inclined to find fellow board game enthusiasts in the Merrimack Valley.
Their numbers have surged among younger players seeking elusive personal, face-to-face interaction in a digital world.
Fantasy board games, once a niche activity with a small but avid following, have become more mainstream.
They grow in popularity with each release of a big fantasy book-movie series, such as “Lord of the Rings” and Harry Potter, and their board game adaptations, says Mike Cross, a chemistry professor who ran the Bacon Board Gamers club at Northern Essex Community College.
“With the rise of Netflix’s Stranger Things series, there has been a major boost in the popularity of Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) and similar role-playing games,” says Cross, now a full-time professor at Snow College in Utah and an adjunct online professor at NECC.
Board game enthusiasts drop in to Creatorpult to play and chat, to shop for and paint models and game pieces.
Many of them enjoy playing Dungeons & Dragons or Warhammer or Catan, a board game based on hexes and in which players build little towns and roads.
Magic: The Gathering is popular.
Players at a long, center table roll dice as they play Magic, a strategic fantasy card game, as do players in another Magic contingent seated ahead in the back room.
Between the two tables, at the sales table, stands store owner Chris White.
The store is his offspring.
It’s a place for self-described nerds, creatives, techno refugees, immigrants, atypical folks, outliers and any other visitors seeking a place to belong, a relaxed social setting where they can indulge their interests in complex board games and intriguing fun.
“One of the reasons I started Creatorpult was to have a community, to create a community,” says White, a Barre, Vermont, native and U.S. Navy veteran who likes to take things apart and put them together.
At age 5, he got started with his grandmother’s radio.
“I put it back together, and I actually managed to do it with only having four extra pieces when I was done — and it worked,” White says.
His most recent construction project is Creatorpult, a little more than a year old in its current form. Originally, the business was a maker space where people tinkered with designs and 3D printers.
Friendly competition
The L-shaped, 3,500-square foot space is dedicated to gaming and human connections.
At the long table sit four Magic players, their card decks stacked neatly, dice within reach.
The players, in their 20s or 30s, are Troy Lamontagne, James Clark, Andrew Gariepy and Alex Higgins-Turner.
This is a place to chill after work.
They include a grocery store produce clerk and a bio-manufacturing employee.
They are into their third game. This variety of Magic they play is called Commander, a casual multiplayer format, they say.
The players whose life points drain to zero bow out, and the victor remains.
They keep score on an iPad and toss out cards.
The plays, aggressive or unexpected or what have you, generate comments and laughter.
Creatorpult’s welcoming space attracts newcomers and regulars, says Ben Palmer, a Haverhill native and store employee.
“Ziggy’s here all the time, Sean’s here all the time,” he said earlier, narrating a store tour. “I like to say we’re as close to a family as you can get without as much of the dysfunction.”
Palmer says that when he grew up — he graduated from Haverhill High in 2006 — it wasn’t cool to be a nerd or a geek.
“You know, I was the kid that got picked on,” he says. “They tried to shove me in lockers, but I was too big.”
He says that it feels good now to see younger people in their early 20s or late teens come in and be themselves and to love the things they love.
“It means a lot to me,” he says. “It’s part of why I stay here and why I do what I do. I want everyone to feel welcome.”
UMass Lowell professor Karen Roehr grew up with games including Candy Land and Monopoly.
An interesting aside about these two games: a schoolteacher, Eleanor Abbott invented Candy Land in 1948 while recovering from polio; and another woman, Lizzie Maggie, in 1903, during the Progressive Era, invented Monopoly, called The Landlord’s Game. It was intended to draw attention to the dangers of monopolies.
Roehr teaches a class, Game Gambit, on how to develop tabletop board games.
It delves into the layers of interest in games.
“When you’re building a really meaningful game for a meaningful play experience, you’ve got to look at a lot of different ways that keep people wanting to stay engaged in the game and once it’s over, play it again,” she says.
People enjoy the human connections that come with board games, holding the pieces, chatting, snacks.
“It takes you away from, you know, whatever you’re dealing with at the moment in the world, and it’s just a lot of fun,” Roehr says.
A creative outlet
Here at Creatorpult on a Thursday night are seven or eight people painting game pieces or working on models.
Juan Garcia, 25, of Haverhill, traces his interest in gaming to when he was a kid growing up in New York City, playing Yu-Gi-Oh! and Pokémon.
He played with friends at school. His mom bought him packs of cards for his birthday or for Christmas.
They moved to Haverhill when he was a sophomore in high school, and he made friends with students who were into fantasy games.
“Some of my friends were like, ‘Hey, we’re gonna play some Magic, you want to learn?’” he recalls.
He has learned. By playing and tuning in to live tournament games in Las Vegas or Texas.
He has learned so much that other players will turn to him to explain rules if they get complicated or to render a decision.
At the moment, he’s painting a model.
Across from him, another young man is building a round “Star Wars”-like spaceship.
Into the shop comes another regular, Cassie Stell.
Her interest in fantasy goes back to when she and her brother were little and their mom, a teacher, would read J.R.R. Tolkien books to them, “The Hobbit” and “The Lord of the Rings.”
“It was pretty much like every time we went to bed, she would read to us,” she says. “That was something she always did.”
Stell started playing Dungeons & Dragons with friends in middle school and high school.
Later, when she moved to the area and attended Northern Essex Community College, she made friends with fellow students who were into fantasy games.
It’s been a way to friendship, through a mutual interest in fantasy games.
Lawrence resident Anthony Nevarez is a relative newcomer to fantasy games.
He has been coming to Creatorpult since June.
Right now, he’s painting a space vampire. During the day, he works for a defense contractor, and after work, he likes coming to Creatorpult to paint, chill and talk to people.
“Being with my friends,” he says.