Tucked away in one of the dingy dead-ends just off Slaveikov Square in Sofia, Magic Worlds is overshadowed both by the shiny glass displays on Graf Ignatiev Boulevard and the Luciano pub right next door. In fact, unless you know what you are searching for, you can easily overlook the place altogether.

Open everyday between 11.30am and 7pm, it is also one of the few places that comes close to qualifying as a game store in Sofia.

Despite what little room there is, several gaming tables that take almost half the space are occupied at any given time by either a card game (more often than not, Magic the Gathering) or figurines (Warhammer and World of Warcraft). The fact that little sunlight ever makes its way inside does not seem to faze the players much, not that one would expect such a reaction from this small corner of Nerdvana.

Predictably, the selection of games and books it carries is small by the standards of similar establishments in the US, but it is the best Sofia has to offer. A large selection of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld novels – clearly one of the best-selling contemporary authors (in English) in Bulgaria, judging by the ubiquity of his books – takes one shelf. Several more are taken by a smattering of volumes, mostly new paperbacks shipped from the UK and priced between 15 leva and 25 leva, by other fantasy authors.

The books in Bulgarian clearly win out both in numbers and variety, featuring as good a selection of science fiction and fantasy books as you are likely to find in Sofia.

However, that is not what sets it apart from the bigger generic bookstores – Knigomania is five minutes’ worth of a leisurely stroll along Graf Ignatiev Boulevard towards the Patriarh Evtimii monument (Popa) and Orange is an equal distance in the other direction.

The shelves on the opposite wall are what draws most regulars to the place. The selection of table-top, collectible card and figurine-based games fits on the one wall – in the US, the main source of gaming materials and the largest market for the board and video games industry, it would catch no one’s attention.

The comparison to the US could seem risible, but distance from the US is certainly among the main reasons for the limited spread of gaming in Bulgaria (World of Warcraft multi-player online and Magic the Gathering card games notwithstanding, which are popular because they are relatively easy to buy and are fairly affordable). Shipping from the US can add up to a hefty part of the final price for your game of choice, but so does shopping online at any major US retailer, provided they agree to deliver to Bulgaria.

On any "nerd scale", it probably barely notches a blip, but in Bulgaria’s barren plains, even a molehill stands out as much as a mountain.