Taylor Herndon has a couple of board games that she’d like to recommend.
Or, rather, a couple thousand. The owner of Board to Beers, one of the first board game bars in the country, has steadily amassed a huge collection of games since opening its doors three years ago. And it’s safe to say that Memphis has embraced the concept, with eager gamers rolling through on a weekly basis for some competitive face time, whether it’s to challenge each other at Uno or pull one of the rarer games off the shelf. It has become a central hub for local board game enthusiasts, a place where aspiring creators go to pitch their own ideas, and a reflection of Memphis’ creative approach to friendly competition.
While a board game bar may sound like a niche concept to some, gaming industry statistics support the idea. According to Statista, the board game industry earned around $3 billion in revenue in the United States in 2022, and 2023 is shaping up to be even higher. Board games are big business, and people want to keep playing. Especially if it means sticking one over on that overly competitive friend (you know who you are).
“People got stuck at home during the pandemic with their families, siblings, spouses … and board games,” says Herndon. “And we saw a huge increase in sales for games and puzzles. We opened in August 2020, and three years on, we get a lot of people coming in who show interest in games that might normally have flown under the radar. So we’ve become a spot where people can try new games before they buy. I think we’re up to around 2,200 games now, so there’s really something for everybody.” She and her husband Drew have put in the time to familiarize themselves with most of the games. They’re available to help new players understand complex rules or are simply on hand to recommend a hidden gem. This writer was introduced to Ice Cool, a large game where you use your finger to flick a penguin around a large mansion and collect materials.
The influx of new players has been larger than anticipated, which means Herndon is looking to upsize from her current location at 2867 Poplar Avenue. “We can hold 60 people, but we’ve had groups of 100-plus come out looking for a space to hang out.” A mobile game trailer allows Herndon to meet extra demand by traveling around to different breweries and other venues. A trailer dedicated to board games was another first by Herndon. “My insurance company didn’t know what to do with it,” she laughs, “so it’s insured as a boat.”
Jumping into the gaming industry in any capacity can be daunting. Beyond creative ideas, there are business challenges to contend with, like logistics and manufacturing. With that in mind, Herndon wanted Board to Beers to be more than just a space for gaming; this was an opportunity to connect with local makers and provide an incubator of sorts for their ideas. “I didn’t even know if there would be a large scene here,” says Herndon. But the section for local games at Board to Beers is chock-full of game boxes, a testament to how much the industry here has grown in a few short years.
Evan Katz and Josh Roberts were her first connections and can take a slice of credit for really getting the ball rolling on the interest in locally made games. Co-founders of Memphis-based Very Special Games, Katz and Roberts started swapping ideas back and forth on Post-it notes as colleagues at Southern Growth Studio (now Epic Pivot). Their first game, Charty Party, provided the duo’s first crack at card-based party games back in 2019. Similar to the gameplay of Cards Against Humanity, Charty Party consists of 44 chart cards, which include a trend line and labels for the X-axis. Players are dealt seven orange cards, all of which include a potential label for the Y-axis, and every round they pick one that they think the judge will find funniest. The judge reads through the options, and whoever’s card is picked gains a point. A simple, yet reliable, gameplay loop for those who spent many a night playing games in a college dorm room, but with a focus on witty quips over crass, or even offensive, humor.
Charty Party went up on crowdfunding marketplace Kickstarter, many creators’ best hope for funding, but also a notoriously crowded field. But if there were any concerns about Memphis’ and a wider market’s interest in their ideas, those fears were soon put to bed; Charty Party hit its funding goal within a week, and eventually hit five times the initial pledge request. Every game that Very Special Games has released since — Puns of Anarchy, Venns with Benefits, Ransom Notes, Abducktion — have all followed a similarly successful path to funding. Their upcoming sixth release, Tiny Laser Heist, rocketed well past its $10,000 pledge to plunder a total of $238,531, and is a pretty big clue as to how Very Special Games has blossomed into a multi-million dollar company.
“We’ve been very pleased with how things have grown,” says Katz. “It’s kind of a dream come true in a lot of ways to be able to work full-time on a company like this and be able to have people all over the country playing these goofy little concepts that we’ve come up with. And it’s definitely wonderful to be working on something every day that I think we both believe in and stretches our creative parts of our brain to their potential.”
Much of their early success came from party games based around witty wordplay, but their recent games have incorporated more of a strategic tilt, and some pretty snazzy looking physical pieces. Abducktion (featured in the Memphis Flyer 2023 Holiday Gift Guide) is literally a game about getting your brightly colored ducks in a row, or at least lined up in specific patterns to score points. Once that’s done, those same ducks are deposited into a large silver spaceship, a bold centerpiece for the entire game.
Tiny Laser Heist, their next release slated to ship in summer 2024, dials up the zaniness, requiring players to use a pair of tiny extendable hands to navigate through a 3D museum setup complete with lasers, padlocks, and other security hurdles, in under 90 seconds. Every successful heist ups the difficulty, and shenanigans will invariably ensue. While future party games aren’t out of the conversation, it’s probably safe to expect new products from Very Special Games that incorporate wild new gimmicks and rules.
“Some concepts that we have in our pipeline are departures from traditional party games,” says Roberts, “and those are the ones we have a lot of energy behind. I can go through all of our games and immediately point to cards I wrote, or what Evan did, and we don’t want to keep making the same jokes. So I won’t rule out another party game if we come up with a really fun core concept, but it’s exciting to be branching out into different directions as well.”
Abducktion and Tiny Laser Heist are fairly sizable departures from Charty Party’s initial simple setup. But that change perhaps reflects the surge in interest the board game industry has seen both locally and nationally (and internationally, too, with Very Special Games distributing to European countries, the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand). And Very Special Games’ continued success is good for a Memphis gaming scene that continues to bring in new players and creators. “Evan and Josh reached out to me when I was running my own Kickstarter campaign for Board to Beers,” says Herndon, who now manages their email marketing and social media on the side, “and so they finished up the amount that we needed before our deadline. Without them there wouldn’t be a Board to Beers. And their only stipulation was, ‘Hey, let’s work together in the future.’ So whenever we can all gather, we’ll work on new game ideas, playtest existing ideas. And other people see that, and they start thinking about making their own game, and over the years they’ve come forward with their ideas.”
One such budding creator that Herndon met at the bar is Chris Porter, creative director at Baby Grand creative branding agency. Porter eventually got bit with the design bug after several visits to Board to Beers and launched Chris Couch Games with his friends Nick Willis, Chris Clyburn, and Daniel Voss. Their first game, Kraken Skulls, successfully launched on Kickstarter earlier this year having reached 200 percent of its initial funding goal, and is expected to release sometime in Q1 of 2024.
“I initially got into this because we made a Marvel-themed board game as a wedding gift for my other friend Chris [Clyburn],” says Porter. “And we actually started trying to get that licensed, which didn’t work out. But Chris had this pirate-themed idea, so we started playing with that until we came up with the idea for Kraken Skulls.”
Rather than taking place on one board, Kraken Skulls has a variable setup, with each player controlling a ship that moves to different ports and participates in a selection of more than 20 mini games. The first player to earn six “dread tokens,” accomplished by winning mini games and battling other players, wins the game. But watch out for the pesky kraken and the appearance of the royal navy. It’s a versatile setup that allows for lots of variation each playthrough. And it’s a game that almost didn’t happen.
“Honestly, I was pretty overwhelmed by the idea of making a game,” says Porter. “It seemed really complicated and a huge undertaking, but I started to think about it a bit more when Covid hit. But what really got me over the line was when Reuben Brunson and Kyle Taylor released Rumors and Legends. I saw that regular people, if you will, could make games. You didn’t have to be part of a huge company. So seeing my friends do this and supporting them through it convinced me to really push forward.”
Porter calls working with close friends one of the most fun things you can do, but also one of the most stressful. But the payoff is worth it when he sees people gathered around a table enjoying Kraken Skulls. And that close sense of community is something he’s seen firsthand during his game’s journey from conception to production. “I think it was about a year from when we came up with the idea to launching on Kickstarter,” says Porter. “We did playtesting at Board to Beers, we had lots of input from Taylor and Drew, Evan and Josh. It’s about being plugged into the community and connecting with people, and there are so many communities here that are into board games and supportive of those who make them.
“Play as many games as you can, but play them with people in your community,” he continues. “So find your local game shops, swing by, and play with other people. That’s going to be way more important in the long run than just trying to make a product. You can make a crappy game and get a lot more support because you care about the community than if you make the best game ever and no one knows who you are.”
And there are plenty of spots to realize that vision along with Board to Beers. Black Lodge has an extensive board game collection available to rent, while shops like 901 Games provide a space to dive into extended sessions for complex games.
Expect the selection of local offerings to keep growing, too. During my visit to Board to Beers, Herndon pointed to her section dedicated to local creators. “That section has grown way faster than I would have expected,” she says. And a cursory glance at Memphis-made projects on Kickstarter shows that Bluff City still has a healthy appetite for games made in the 901. While it won’t always be the case in a congested games market, many projects far surpass their original goal.
“Memphis loves Memphis things,” says Herndon. “When there’s a new project, as long as people in Memphis know about it, it’s going to get funded if they’ve done their work and they’ve gotten it out. Chris [Porter] really tapped into that, he had a launch party here for Kraken Skulls, and a ton of people came out. That’s a win-win for us, for Chris, and for other creators who know there’s a community in place to help them achieve their goals. When I had my idea for Board to Beers, I reached out for help, but I think there was only one other place that had done this before, and it was tough. So we want to create that environment where advice and expertise is available if needed.”
Beyond upsizing, Herndon has her sights set on bigger gaming-themed programming. With conventions around the country acting as a robust network for creators and consumers, she believes Memphis can host its own in the next several years to spotlight local game makers. But until then, Board to Beers will continue to invite newcomers and veterans to test their mettle. And there will always be someone sitting across the table, ready for a new challenge.
