Trust
Remember the movie you saw last year? The one you didn’t like? Let’s face it. You will never have a chance to meet its director and tell him that he let you down.
And the book? Remember the book you read a few months ago? You’ll probably never meet the author of this book. You will never be able to discuss with him or her what you liked and what you didn’t like about it.
BTW: the game you played last week and you didn’t like? Go to GenCon or Essen and tell its designer what you think.
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Of course not every designer attends GenCons. Not every designer is easily approachable. Not every designer is so open as to discuss and hang out with the fans. But many of us are. Many of us meet you—players—at conventions, hang out with you in pubs and talk vividly on social media platforms.
We love interaction, we love you and your feedback.
And we don’t want to fail you.
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I always say that I am responsible not only for every game I’ve designed, but I also take full responsibility for every game Portal has ever published. I put my name—the Portal logo—on it and this means I fully recommend this design.
For years I’ve been building trust, I’ve published one title after another and I’ve never ever let myself disappoint you. I want you to know that if a game was published by Portal Games, that means I personally accepted it and I personally recommend it.
It takes years to build trust. It takes dozens of designs published year after year to build this repeating recognizable pattern of well-playtested, engaging, challenging games.
These days more and more often I read comments like ‘It’s a game from Portal Games so it tells a great story” or ‘It’s a game from Portal Games so I know it won’t disappoint me.”
It took years to build reputation and trust.
And you know what? It would take a second to lose it. But don’t worry. I put my name on these boxes. And trust me, I wouldn’t put it on anything less than the best…
Edited by Piotr, thank you!
I strongly believe that good board game is the one that tells a good story. You play it and suddenly you are sucked into it, you feel chills on the skin. Emotions grow. In a moment you defend castle. You hear roar of warriors. You smell boiling oil. You are into it.
That's how I design my games. I always want to tell a good story. I want players to be into it. As deep as possible.
Just wanted to say thanks for all of the effort you put in to making all of Portal’s games great as well as this blog. You are the only designer my entire family recognizes by name, designed one of only two games that’s in the whole family’s top 5 (Robinson being my all time favorite game) and Portal games easily holds the top spot among publishers for us (which is saying something given how many games some other companies produce). Really can’t speak highly enough of your work and look forward to every new release.