Indie Boardgame Publisher

[Valamir]

Since there've been a recent spate of threads interested in boardgame publishing I thought I'd throw up a link to Viktory.

Its an independently published wargame which could be summarized as Axis & Allies meets Diplomacy played on a Settlers of Cataan map using Risk and Monopoly pieces.

It actually has some pretty clever mechanics which earn big props from me because Peter Morrison laid out his specific design goals for the game and, like 'em or not, the rules zero in on those goals like a laser beam....which has been my own soapbox for RPG design.

But what I think is really pertinent to us here (aside from the coolness of the indie movement taking root in other game categories) is some of the very nice support offered on the website.

In addition to posting the game rules and having pictures of the components (pretty common in the board game world...especially via Boardgame Geek) the site has several down loadable videos of actual people actually playing the game.  Most are small rules explanation clips, but one is an hour long complete game from first to last move with narration of rules and strategies.

Everyone who orders also gets a week of daily emails, each one a canned discussion on a different aspect of game strategy.  Sure, there's nothing in those emails that couldn't be combined into a "strategy essay" and made available for download or online viewing...but I gotta say, while I may have skimmed such an article...getting them piecemeal by email was pretty cool.  It was a reminder of "the game is coming, the game is coming" and filled up that void between the initial interest that got me to order and when the game actually arrived (yesterday...the same day as the last of the strategy emails...)

Most of us indie publishers have some cool things on our website, but how many of us have thought of regular (monthly?) emailing those cool things to our customers.  Something like the 101 ideas from Conspiracy of Shadows, or a new Town from Dogs in the Vineyard would seem to be ideally suited to that sort of thing.

[Clinton R. Nixon]

That is a pretty neat scheme for game support. It worked well enough to sell me the game pretty much immediately, so it seems to be working.

I've thought for a long time about doing a monthly newsletter with support for all my RPGs - in theory, it would be a nice benefit for the RPGs you own, and you might see something that would cause you to buy another one.