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(this is guest post by Michał Walczak)

It’s just another average day at Portal Games. I work on new version of our next strategy game. I update rules, I print new cards for prototype, that kind of stuff. I love this job.

At some point Ignacy approaches me and shows me prototype of Tides of Time. Micro game about building macro civilization. Rules can be explained in 2 minutes, you play in 10 minutes and what is most crucial – you want to play again. I love it since the first game. 'Where is a problem here?’, I ask.

Ignacy lays out cards on the table and shows me. There is 5 suits in the game. Some suits are scored more often. Player with three Libraries in hand will score less than player with three Towers. We need to balance this mess.

Numbers! Suits become numbers, everything changes like Matrix. I can sum up values, I can calculate probabilities, I can do math. Yeah, I love math. I turn on my laptop, I open Excel and I start to work. I am so excited.

Soon after Ignacy contacts me with Kristian Curla, designer of the game. And soon after I discover he is mathematician. He works at University. He knows math.

Oh, my. It will be hard to say that I just did some calculations and I know better. He is mathematician. He is shark in this pool.

Anyway, I start working. Towers can’t be stronger than Libraries. Red can’t be stronger than blue. A can’t be stronger than C. I know my job. I fixed everything, the game was balanced, suits were symetrical. Tides of Time fixed. Ignacy will be proud of me.

Actually he wasn’t. After we played he said something like 'It’s boring. You broke the game. It’s not fun anymore.’

Fun. Yeah, I might forgot about fun factor element.

Ignacy wants cards that shake the game. Ignacy wants balance. Ignacy wants more types of cards. Ignacy wants it all on this 18 cards.

Basically he wants me to land Boeing 747 in a phone booth.

That’s what working at Portal is. Doing impossible. So I have math shark on Skype, I have Ignacy in the office. It’s time to work. It won’t be easy, but I will land this damn Boeing in a phone booth. Oh, yes, I will.

18 cards. Time for changes.
Card that scores if you don’t have all suits. Nope, too easy.
Card that works as wild suit. Nope, too easy.
Card that scores each suit you have majority in. Nope, too similar to other strategies already in the game.
Card that score if you have 3 non scoring cards. Nope, it is playing against the goal of the game.
Card that scores if you got more points than opponent. Nope, it’s snowball effect.
Card that copies other card. Nope…
Card that…

I don’t want to sound like complaining but this is hard. You have these ideas for cards, you come up with one idea after another, you put them on the table and you hear over and over 'Nope. Trash it.’

At some point I was asked by Lucas when we are ready with the game. He needed to write rulebook. My answer was simple 'I wish I know.’

We have time tables, we have scheduled work, we have releases planned for Gen Con or Essen, we try our best to do everything as planned. But above that, above planned release date, above marketing and buzz opportunities we have if we get the game for big fair, above all of that is just 'Not good enough. Trash it.’ Mantra that keeps games on play testing tables as long as it is needed.

We wanted Tides of Time for Gen Con. We wanted it really badly. Gen con release is huge for every publisher on this planet. And yet, there was no single moment of me, Kristian or Ignacy saying 'Stop trashing. We need to go to production stage”. We had layout. We had artwork. We had box ready and yet there was struggle, there was testing, there was trashing and looking for best set of 18 cards.

We have them. We have 18 cards. Cards that can shake things. Cards that are balanced. Cards that work in many different ways. We landed a Boeing 747 in a phone booth. Here, at Portal Games everything is possible.

As I said in the previous post and as I was tweeting for couple of past weeks – I am done with Gen con releases. I finished all our boxes for Gen con, I am also done with Stronghold II ed. (I just need to get results from testers, update the balance, if needed). My 2015 to-design list is empty.

I am on vacation.

I received Witcher 3 from CD Projekt RED. I bought Mortal Combat X. I bought DVD with three seasons of Homeland. I bought 6 epic comic books albums (more than 1300 pages all together!). All cool stuff I was waiting to dive into for months. All cool stuff I was postponing because of working on prototypes like madman.

This is time to have fun. I was waiting for this for so long.

Well, there is a problem though – I managed to enjoy my vacations for one week. And then my brain betrayed me.

I am back in design mode. I can’t fight it. Guys, I need a doctor.

Rattle, Battle is ready. Atlanteans are ready. Tides of Time is ready. Huge pressure that kept me busy 18/7 for past few months is gone. Strange feeling it is.

Do you remember from school times when you had a homework to do and you knew it’s there, waiting for you? You might play, you might have fun, but this homework was always there, still not finished, still calling you back home to do work.

With unfinished game it is the same. I can’t actually rest. I can’t fully reset my brain, I can’t just fool around, play video game or watch movie. Unfinished game is there all the time and ask for my attention. Whatever I do, I know I should finish this deck, solve this problem, balance this mechanism, call testers for one more game… It’s obsession. I can’t get this out of my head. Whenever I take shower or have dinner, whenever I watch match in TV or drive a car, I think about the game.

All files to these three boxes are at manufacturers level. I can no longer improve them. It is closed chapter. I am free.

I can play video game. I can watch TV show. I can play board game. And man, this is a strange feeling after these past few months of constant pressure…

Chevee greets me today in a very unique way. He says something like: „We have mistake on cards! There is wrong wording on 10 cards! How did all of us miss this? Is it too late to correct?”

Just to put this in right picture – all cards are already in print. We sent them to manufacturer about 10 hours earlier. That is not a greetings you want to hear, when you open Skype.

'I’ll check what we can do’ I say. Actually I know two things. I know we can do nothing. And I know that such things just happen. You have a game, you have hundreds of pieces, you have cards, tokens, boards and all that crazy stuff. Once a while you’ll miss something and – bum! – you have a mistake. BGG is full of corrections, FAQs and updates for various games.

In video industry you download an update. In board game industry you download PDF from BGG.

Anyway, I call Ralph, who sent files to manufacturer.

'Hi. We have a situation here. There is mistake on 10 cards. Can we abort printing and update files?” I ask.

'I doubt it. We can call manufacturer tomorrow morning, but I think it is too late.”

Yeah, I knew it. Anyway, I don’t give up.

'OK, just in case can you update files and call manufacturer tomorrow first thing in the morning?’

'Sure.’

So I explain Ralph what sort of mistake there is.

'Ah, that! There is no mistake then. We corrected it already. I forgot to tell you. Everything is…’ I hang up.

He forgot to tell. Very funny.