In the heart of downtown Noblesville one shop stands out from the rest of the stores and businesses. Filled with endless shelves of puzzles, trading cards, and board games, the space feels like a gamer’s fantasy. Welcome to Moonshot Games. Moonshot off ers customers a choice of thousands of collectible items at student-friendly prices. The business took off during the early days of COVID-19, and due to the nationwide quarantine, the founder and CEO of the company says he was able to focus on growing the store’s brand, allowing gamers to have fun at home.
“For most people, COVID was a weird time. Interestingly though, the board game industry just exploded during [the pandemic],” owner Jayson Manship said. “So things like LEGO, puzzles and board games really took off . We just happened to be in the right place at the right time in history to be able to serve people in that time, so that was a lot of fun.”
For Moonshot, the gaming business was not the only thing that it helped fl ourish – the store also cultivated friendships in the aisles. Junior Anderson Melton says that the atmosphere around Moonshot is what makes the store feel special.
“It is just the community [the store] builds, you get so many people from so many diff erent backgrounds, and you get to meet them, talk with them, hang out and be with people who share those same interests with you,” Melton said.
Manship makes sure that Moonshot off ers games for all ages. That openness to all customers is one reason why senior Aaron Costa says Moonshot changed his life.
“When I was first getting into Magic The Gathering in fifth grade, I came here and asked an employee about it, and they said, ‘Oh, you’re new to Magic?’ So they gave me two D20 [dice], which were specifi cally for Magic to keep track of life,” Costa said. “That’s probably my favorite experience here, because it got me addicted to Magic. But it also got me started down a road that introduced me to a lot of my friends.”
In his years at the store, Manship says that the shop has provided him with a collection of memories. But one moment stands out for him.
“I collected the entire Power Nine from Magic The Gathering. For the nerds who know that, these were the original nine cards from when Magic was fi rst invented in 1993,” Manship said. “My Black Lotus is worth around $20,000. The other eight probably get combined to $50,000 all in. So it’s kind of weird having a little stack of cardboard that’s worth 50 grand.”
Even though he’s shopped at Moonshot for years, Costa still gets excited about the wide range of products available at the store.
“There’s puzzles, there’s Funko Pops, there’s sports cards, anything you can possibly think of is usually here. It’s crazy how much they fit into one tiny store,” Costa said.
As the popularity of Moonshot continues to grow with Noblesville residents, Manship’s dreams for the store are growing as well. He says he’s working to make the store a phenomenon in Indiana, one that continues to grow its unique community for generations to come.
“We’re kind of landlocked in this location. We can’t really grow, it’s a 130 year old building, so one of the things we thought about was how we could expand what we off er to other people,” Manship said. “And what our solution was, was that we just bought a building in Plainfield, and launched a Moonshot store. What I’d like to see us do is that three or fi ve more times. So we wanted to create a community, and not just a business.”
