We prepared cute infographic for Polish version of Portal Games. It shows  how many conventions we visited last year, how many different countries, how many new releases that had premiere at convention and finally how many kilometers we did.

Quite a numbers, huh?

And you know what? When I look at my calendar for this year, it looks like we are going to double this ’kilometers’ number. Ha!

You designed a game. It got published. It was hell of a job to design it, to make it really great and what is most important, to make it real.

You did it. You have it in your hands. You have it on your shelf. You are proud daddy. Right?

And since – without having doubts – this is an amazing game you are eager to see reviews, opinions. You want to imbibe feedback that’s coming. Oh, yes. Gamers will praise you, will say nice things, will congratulate you… Yeah…

Here is what you can do now:

Either you gonna end up being stuck in front of monitor for the next half of the year searching for all reviews, comments, discussions.

Either you sit on your ass and start to work on new project.

That’s your choice.

Woody Allen doesn’t give a shit about reviews. When it’s done, he just walks away.

I’m not Woody Allen. I’m high. Handsome. And I can’t walk away.

So here is my advice. Stop talkin’ about Robinson or I won’t do new game.

Hello! People! I can’t focus on my new project!

Few days ago nominations for Golden Geek Awards began – biggest and most important award from players. There is a few famous awards in our hobby:

Spiel des Jahres – award from Germany, oldest award in our hobby. It all began in 1979! This award is super important in Germany – when you get it, your game will sell like crazy. Rest of the world looks at SdJ with interest and respect.

International Gamers Award – award organized by group of reviewers and insiders from our hobby. These are gamers from different parts of the world. There are 20 people involved in the committee. First award was given in 2000. I have an honor to got nominations for IGA for my three games: Stronghold, Pret-a-Porter and Robinson.

The Dice Tower Awards – young award (founded in 2007). Committee includes people from The Dice Tower Network – biggest group of podcasters. In 2009 Portal Games was nominated for Small Publisher category and last year Robinson Crusoe was nominated for Game of the Year category.

And there is a Golden Geek Award, award where committee is quite big – these are users of boardgamegeek.com On one hand this is very young award (it all began in 2006), on the other hand number of people allowed to vote is mind-blowing!Boardgamegeek.com has 800 thousands users and although not every user can vote, this is still damn huge committee! This is vox populi. These are gamers for whom we do design games! I had a honor to got nomination for Golden Geek for Stronghold and for 51st State.

What’s coming this year? Couple of titles have a chance! Geeks can vote for Robinson Crusoe, Legacy, Theseus and Voyage of the Beagle. This is resume of my work for the past few months 😉

If some of these titles make you happy, if you had a good time with one of these games, if you think that some of these areworth nomination… Don’t hesitate! Here is link to voting page.

This is time for you to act. This is how you say Thank you to publishers and designers. This is how you show your respect to thier work.

If you find my work worth your vote, I say Thank you. Thank you very much!

So we play Tash-Kalar – me, Michał Oracz, Multi and Walec. Another Essen 2013 release that needs to be tested, analyzed and hopefully praised.  After 60 minutes we are done. Alliance of Walec and Multi wins. Both of them are so fucking excited like they just  won at lottery. I mean, I know, they kicked Boss’s ass but hey, chill out boys. 'You won’t believe it’ Walec says. 'I have prototype of  the exact the same game. I wanted to present you it in two weeks’ he says to me. 'Only difference, my board has hexes. Rest exactly the same.’ ’You won’t believe’ says Multi and takes sheet of paper from his desk. 'Here is a draft for my prototype. I was going to finish it this year. This is exactly this game.’  And he shows us his notes. This is Tash-Kalar indeed. 

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So here is my advice, young designers – don’t make notes. Make games. Because when you are taking notes, some one is just finishing his work on this very same idea… 🙂

Winter in Poland still looks like Autumn. No snow. If you want to see winter, you need to look for it in the internet. Here is a good place to start – newest photos from Hoth! Mr. Avanaut you do awesome work, sir.

Please, just take a look…