I pitched an article on independent game stores to Eurogamer a while back, and they were really keen to do it. Indie game stores are a bit of a dying breed – constantly being squeezed by online retailing and the switch to digital gaming (something I wrote about for GamesRadar a while back) – so it felt important to celebrate what makes them so brilliant.

I hunted around for an indie game store near me, and I was delighted to find Console Connections in Shildon, County Durham. This shop is just flippin’ amazing, stuffed to the gunwhales with fantastic games and video game ephemera. I spent hours in there speaking to the owner Chris, but even just as I was leaving I kept spotting amazing finds, like Low G Man on the NES and Sentinel Returns on PS1, a sequel to Geoff Crammond’s seminal C64 game The Sentinel – I didn’t even know the game HAD a sequel.

Here’s the full story on Eurogamer:

A day in the life of an independent game store

Since interviewing Chris, I’ve made a point of buying all my new games from the shop – and I’d encourage everyone to support their local indie game store. They can be magical places, and we’ll miss them if they disappear.