Skip to main content

Gene Ambaum

Pen name of a Pacific Northwest librarian who co-created and writes the webcomic Unshelved and its successor, Library Comic, and created the Library Game.

Oct 2, 2026

2:05
Mm-hmm
2:05
... a different card goes wild each hand until you've played, I think it's 10 hands, 10 or 11 hands you play total.
2:11
And a different card is wild each hand, and it's a five-suited deck of cards, and I thought, "Oh, I like that." So I ended up with a five-suited deck of poker cards and just kind of started playing with that idea.
2:22
We started prototyping a couple years ago, and as Willow drew the problem patron cards and the library staff cards, I was kind of trying to work out what they did, and I settled on the problem patrons being able to break the rules in certain ways when they're played, and to grab cards from people who've played cards already or from different places in the deck, or the draw pile.
2:42
And the decks, we call the decks the stacks.
2:43
There's two draw decks that are the stacks.
2:45
And the goal of the game is to check out, and the problem patrons keep you from checking out.
5:24
Does that make it weird now that it's actually out in the world? I mean, is it still in your brain in the same way?

We value your privacy

We use cookies to understand how you use our platform and to improve your experience. Click “Accept All” to consent, or “Decline non-essential” to opt out of non-essential cookies. Read our Privacy Policy.