Local board game business Very Special Games posts growth of 960%

Jul 20, 2023

Let's consider the Post-it note.

This small square of paper has had some stickiness in pop culture. It served as a vehicle for plot points in both "Romy and Michele's High School Reunion" and "Sex and the City."

Likewise, the Post-it figures in the origin story of Very Special Games, the local board game business.

Co-founders Evan Katz and Josh Roberts were working at the same consulting firm when one day, Roberts happened upon Katz in the offices. Katz relayed that he was talking to a friend about the correlation between someone's age and their willingness to spend money on a steak dinner.

Roberts said he found the conversation amusing, and then Katz asked the faithful question: "Do you think we can make a game out of that?"

They spent the rest of the morning drawing up the prototype for their first game — Charty Party — on Post-it notes.

Charty Party made way for other games, and the men formed Very Special Games, which has seen an astounding 960% growth in three years. That placed No. 612 on the most recent Inc. 5000 ranking.

The men put Charty Party on Kickstarter in January 2019. Their goal was $10,000. They ended up taking in more than $50,000.

Today, Very Special Games offers five games: Charty Party, Ransom Notes, Abducktion (involving duck kidnapping), Venns with Benefits, and Puns of Anarchy.

Charty Party involves graphs and is often described as "Cards Against Humanity" for nerds. Ransom Notes uses word magnets to create absurd sentences from a prompt. Abducktion is a strategic game involving ducks and UFOs. Venns with Benefits is based on the Venn diagram. Puns of Anarchy has players trying to out-pun their opponents.

When coming up with their games, the men often turn to their own experiences. For instance, Puns of Anarchy was inspired by a game that Katz played with his friends in college. Ransom Notes traces its lineage to refrigerator magnet poetry.

"We're just giving people an excuse to do that activity," Katz said. "People like to win. But I think, at their core, they like to do these funny activities."

When designing the games, the men operate under a few tenets. First, they want the games to be accessible and easy to learn. Second, they don't worry about how many components a game has — Abducktion involves plastic ducks and a spaceship, and the cost to manufacture it has effectively priced them out of Target. And, third, they never, ever go for the low blow.

"We're not going to take the low hanging fruit," Roberts said. "We're not going to be racist, misogynist, make fun of the disabled. It's just not our style. We're never going to punch down; we're only going to punch up. Hopefully, that lends itself to accessibility, because you don't have to worry if you're in a mixed demo group that it might get weird and uncomfortable really fast."

To that end, the pair has been working with writers to help write different versions of the games. The thinking was that these writers would help offer more diverse humor and perspectives.

The men still use Kickstarter. They say it is a good marketing tool, and it helps them gauge demand.

When Katz and Roberts were preparing to launch Charty Party, they needed to find a manufacturer. They went with LongPack, based out of Shanghai. As it happened, Roberts had a childhood friend who works in freight forwarding and could help them get the game from China to the U.S.

Early in the pandemic, all shipping was shut down from Shanghai. This is where Apple comes in. Apple was able to convince the U.S. and China governments of the global implications of not moving these Apple products, including thousands of iPhones.

"A small container of Puns of Anarchy happened to be on that boat. We were among a very few number of game companies that were able to get inventory in during that time," Katz said.

Consider that something of a small pandemic miracle. Katz acknowledged that during the pandemic, people had more time and more money to spend on board games. It also allowed them the space to create more and better games.

"It's not my favorite thing in the world to say that we certainly benefited from the pandemic, but we did," Katz said. "I like to think that people will play them even though they're not trapped in their own homes any longer."

These days, Katz and Roberts have ditched the day jobs and now devote themselves full time to Very Special Games.

Katz and Roberts said that board games have mass appeal and are a good way to spend time away from screens.

"There's a different board game for everyone, whatever type of experience you're looking for," Roberts said. "It can be something where you're intensely focused for hours, or it can be something where you're mostly chatting and you're hardly paying attention to the game — the game is almost a background activity. But it's still nice, because it brings people together and becomes the excuse to get together because at the end of the day, what you're really enjoying is spending time with people."