The Indie Game Developer Network (IGDN) is a trade association for developers of indie role-playing games, board games, card games, and LARPs. [1] They present the annual Indie Groundbreaker Awards at Gen Con. [2] [3] [4] Their other programs include a scholarship to attend the game designer convention Metatopia, a mentorship program, and a peer coaching program. [5] [6]
The Indie Groundbreaker Awards began in 2016 and are offered in 5 categories: Game of the Year, Best Art, Best Setting, Best Rules, and Most Innovative. They are judged by a rotating panel of game designers. After the Indie RPG Awards gave their final set of awards in 2017, [7] IGDN's Indie Groundbreaker Awards took on their function in the tabletop role-playing game community of evaluating and recognizing achievements in independent game design.
Award Winners by Year
2016
Award | Game | Credits |
---|---|---|
Game of the Year | A Real Game [8] | Aura Belle |
Best Art | Fall of Magic [9] | Ross Cowman (Heart of the Deernicorn) |
Best Setting | Downfall [10] | Caroline Hobbs (Less Than Three Games) |
Best Rules | Death of Legends [11] | Imaginary Empire |
Most Innovative | 183 Days [12] | Tiny Knives |
2017
Award | Game | Credits |
---|---|---|
Game of the Year | Seven Wonders [13] | Pelgrane Press |
Best Art | Fellowship [14] | Liberi Gothica Games |
Best Setting | War Birds | |
Best Rules | Masks: A New Generation [15] | Magpie Games |
Most Innovative | The Beast |
2018
Award | Game | Credits |
---|---|---|
Game of the Year | Bluebeard's Bride [16] | Whitney "Strix" Beltrán, Marissa Kelly, Sarah Doombringer (Magpie Games) |
Best Art | Bluebeard's Bride [17] | Whitney "Strix" Beltrán, Marissa Kelly, Sarah Doombringer (Magpie Games) |
Best Setting | Arecibo [18] | Evil Hat Productions |
Best Rules | Damn the Man, Save the Music [19] | Hannah Shaffer |
Most Innovative | Feast [20] | Sharang Biswas |
Groundbreaking Supplement | Harlem Unbound [21] | Chris Spivey |
2019
Award | Game | Credits |
---|---|---|
Game of the Year | Dialect: A Game About Language and How It Dies [22] | Kathryn Hymes and Hakan Seyalıoğlu (Thorny Games) |
Best Art | Bluebeard's Bride: Book of Rooms [23] | Whitney "Strix" Beltrán, Marissa Kelly, Sarah Doombringer (Magpie Games) |
Best Setting | The Way of Pukona [24] | Evil Hat Productions |
Best Rules | Good Society (game) [25] | Storybrewers Roleplaying (Vee Hendro and Hayley Gordon) |
Most Innovative | Verdure [26] | Sharang Biswas |
2020
Award | Game | Credits |
---|---|---|
Game of the Year | Companions' Tale [27] | Laura Simpson |
Best Art | Humblewood [28] | Hit Point Press |
Best Setting | Afterlife: Wandering Souls [29] | Angry Hamster Publishing |
Best Rules | Mazes [30] | 9th Level Games |
Most Innovative | If I Were a Lich, Man [31] | Lucian Kahn |
2021
Award | Game | Credits |
---|---|---|
Game of the Year | Crescendo Giocoso Ritornello [32] | The Italian Chamber Orchestra |
Best Art | Lutong Banwa [33] | Diwata ng Manila |
Best Setting | Karanduun - Make God Bleed [34] | Joaquin Kyle Saavedra |
Best Rules | Slayers [35] | Spencer Campbell |
Most Innovative | This Discord Has Ghosts In It [36] | Will Jobst and Adam Vass (World Champ Game Co.) |
2022
Award | Game | Credits |
---|---|---|
Game of the Year | Brave Zenith [37] | Giuliano Roverato and Rodrigo Melchior |
Best Art | A Fantastic Longing for Adventure [38] | Tim Hutchings |
Best Setting | Arcon: City of Neon Daylight [39] | Kienna Shaw and Jason Cutrone |
Best Rules | GUN&SLINGER [40] | Nevyn Holmes |
Most Innovative | My Body is a Cage [41] | Batts |
2023
Award | Game | Credits |
---|---|---|
Game of the Year | Slugblaster: Kickflip Over a Quantum Centipede [42] [43] | Mikey Hamm |
Best Art | Dinocar [42] [44] | Julie-Anne Muñoz |
Best Graphic Design | Butter Princess [42] | Brian Sago, graphic design by Mike Martens |
Best Setting | Gubat Banwa [42] | Joaquin Kyle Saavedra |
Best Rules | Saltfish and Almanacs [42] | Storybrewers Roleplaying (Vee Hendro and Hayley Gordon) |
Most Innovative | The Sticker Game [42] [45] | Cassi Mothwin and Joshua Peters |
An indie role-playing game is a role-playing game published outside traditional, "mainstream" means. Varying definitions require that commercial, design, or conceptual elements of the game stay under the control of the creator, or that the game should just be produced outside a corporate environment. Indie role-playing game designers participate in several development communities and game distribution networks. Indie games also grant their own awards committees.
Evil Hat Productions is a company that produces role-playing games and other tabletop games. They are best known for the free indie RPG system Fate, Blades in the Dark, and Thirsty Sword Lesbians, all of which have won multiple awards.
David Vincent Baker is a designer and theorist of tabletop role-playing games and the owner of indie role-playing games publisher Lumpley Games, which also hosts the archives of The Forge. He and his wife Meguey Baker designed Apocalypse World, the first game in the Powered by the Apocalypse system. Apocalypse World won Game of the Year, Best Support, and Most Innovative game at the 2010 Indie RPG Awards, and was 2011 RPG of the Year at both the Golden Geek Awards and Lucca Comics & Games. Baker also designed Dogs in the Vineyard, which won the 2004 Indie RPG Game of the Year and Innovation Award and was one of three games shortlisted for the 2004 Diana Jones Award.
Powered by the Apocalypse (PbtA) is a tabletop role playing game design framework developed by Meguey Baker and Vincent Baker for the 2010 game Apocalypse World and later adapted for hundreds of other RPGs.
Meguey Baker is a tabletop role-playing game designer, independent publisher and quilt historian. She and her husband Vincent Baker designed Apocalypse World, the first game in the Powered by the Apocalypse system.
Blades in the Dark is a tabletop fantasy role-playing game by John Harper, set in a fictional city of Doskvol, inspired by Victorian London and Gothic fiction. The game was crowdfunded on Kickstarter in 2015 and published at the start of 2017.
Whitney "Strix" Beltrán is a narrative designer and Project Narrative Director at Hidden Path Entertainment. Her writing and design career includes the indie game Bluebeard's Bride. She also founded the advocacy initiative Gaming as Other to promote inclusivity in the gaming community.
Banana Chan is a Chinese Canadian game designer and writer for tabletop role-playing games and board games. Chan and Sen-Foong Lim created Jiangshi: Blood in the Banquet Hall (2021). Chan has written for over twenty tabletop games, including the official Dungeons & Dragons campaign setting Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft (2021), Dune: Adventures in the Imperium, and the third edition of Betrayal at House on the Hill (2022).
Thirsty Sword Lesbians is a narrative-focused tabletop role-playing game that emphasizes telling "melodramatic and queer stories". The game was funded via a 2020 Kickstarter campaign and published by Evil Hat Productions in 2021. It uses a modification of the Powered by the Apocalypse game system.
Jeeyon Shim is a second generation Korean American game designer and writer. A former outdoor educator, her body of work is strongly influenced by themes of connection to the natural world. Playing Shim's narrative games often involves creating a keepsake artifact.
Lucian Kahn is an American role-playing game writer/designer and musician based in Brooklyn. His work focuses on LGBT, Jewish, and subcultural themes, typically utilizing satire and farce. His games include Visigoths vs. Mall Goths and If I Were a Lich, Man, and his music includes Schmekel.
Avery Alder is a Canadian tabletop role-playing game designer. She designs games with themes of LGBTQ self-discovery, community building, and post-apocalyptic survival. In collaboration with Benjamin Rosenbaum, Alder invented the Belonging Outside Belonging system, which became a template for future designers' games. Her work is a topic of scholarship in the history of game design.
Magpie Games is an American tabletop role-playing games publishing company. Their 2021 crowdfunding campaign to fund the publication of Avatar Legends: The Roleplaying Game raised over five million dollars, breaking the record for Kickstarter's highest earning tabletop role-playing game. Other notable publications include Bluebeard's Bride and a role-playing game adaptation of the board game Root. The publisher has won IndieCade, ENNIE Awards, and Indie Game Developer Network awards.
Wanderhome is an indie role-playing game by game designer Jay Dragon about animal people in a pastoral setting, based upon the Belonging Outside Belonging game system by Avery Alder and Benjamin Rosenbaum. It is published by Possum Creek Games. Unlike typical tabletop role-playing games, Wanderhome does not use dice, turns, or a gamemaster, focusing instead on the characters' emotional journey. Dialogue takes the place of battles, and gameplay revolves around question prompts.
Visigoths vs. Mall Goths is an urban fantasy tabletop role-playing game with LGBTQ dating sim elements by Lucian Kahn, with art by Robin Eisenberg. The ancient Visigoths have time traveled to 1990s Los Angeles and are battling mall goths for control of the mall. The game's tone is silly and the setting has many puns. The game was inspired by 1990s movies The Craft, Empire Records, Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure and Clueless.
Bluebeard's Bride is a gothic horror tabletop role-playing game based on the Bluebeard folktale. It was designed and written by Whitney "Strix" Beltrán, Marissa Kelly, and Sarah Richardson, and published by Magpie Games in 2017. Players represent five aspects of a woman's mind as she explores the mansion of her frightening new husband.
Jiangshi: Blood in the Banquet Hall is a tabletop role-playing game about Chinese immigrants to North America managing a family restaurant while battling Jiangshi, legendary hopping vampires. The game was designed by Banana Chan and Sen-Foong Lim, who are both Chinese immigrants. It was published independently in 2021 after a Kickstarter campaign raised over US$100,000. The instructions focus heavily on authentic portrayals of Chinese history and immigrant experiences. The default scenario takes place in San Francisco's Chinatown during the 1920s, but the game box comes with a book of scenarios by a variety of writers offering more adventures in different cities and historical periods. The game's tone can range from serious to comedy horror. Themes include fighting racism, exploring intergenerational knowledge and relationships, coping with economic hardship, and working together as a family.
Grant Howitt is a tabletop role-playing game designer, publisher, and journalist. He won six ENNIE Awards for his game Heart: The City Beneath. His game Honey Heist, which inspired an online trend of self-published games with one-page rulesets, has been featured on Critical Role, The Adventure Zone, and Friends at the Table. Through his publishing company Rowan, Rook and Decard, Howitt is a co-designer on Kieron Gillen's DIE: The Roleplaying Game.
If I Were a Lich, Man is a boxed set of three comedic, Jewish tabletop role-playing games about creative resistance against authoritarianism. The games were written by Lucian Kahn and illustrated by Ezra Rose. The box contains three games: "If I Were a Lich, Man," "Same Bat Time, Same Bat Mitzvah," and "Grandma's Drinking Song." It was published by Hit Point Press in 2023 after the publisher's kickstarter campaign raised $84,590 in two weeks. It won an ENNIE Award and an Indie Game Developer Network award.
Sharang Biswas is an Indian American designer/writer of tabletop role-playing games and interactive media, a writer of speculative fiction, an adjunct professor of game studies at NYU Game Center, and a freelance games journalist. His work focuses on LGBTQ and science fiction and fantasy themes. Biswas has won multiple awards for his game writing work as both a solo designer and a collaborator: one IndieCade award, four ENNIE Awards, and two Indie Game Developer Network awards. He was an Artist in Residence at the Museum of the Moving Image.