Time for big news, right? The big news is – I go to Kickstarter. Not with new game, not with new prototype, not with cool edition of some of my older games.

I go to Kickstarter with something unique, I go there to fulfill one of my dreams – take best of my articles I wrote about games and put them into one real book. Have collection of stories about creating 51st State, Pret-a-Porter, Robinson Crusoe and all other more or less funny stuff I wrote here for the past few years.

I took 35 articles I like most. I choose photos and pictures that are connected with these stories, photos of prototypes, conventions I attended, people I work with.

Yes, Merry pictures too.

In some cases I added some comments (from today’s perspective), in some cases I deleted some parts. I put as much love as I could to give you unique book. And here I am, with a Kickstarter.

Why Kickstarter? Because this is an answer platform. This is a place where I can ask: 'Is anybody interested in a book about boardgames?’

You give me an answer.

Why back a book with materials you can find online?

To have all the best from this blog in one volume?
To have unique book on the shelf?
To have unique gift for some of you gaming or not gaming friends?
To say 'Thank you mate, I like your blog!’
To… I don’t know.

This is a Kickstarter. This is a tool to show dreams and try to make them real thing. So here I am, with my dream and my book.

What is your answer?

Since 2009 I had a fun at Essen. I was doing interviews, demos, was signing games and basically hang out with gamers. Coolest job on that planet.

It was possible, because my friends from Rebel Games (they are my distributor) took care of all business stuff. I did not need to do any business. Only fun stuff.

Unfortunately, this year things gonna change. Portal grows. Rebel grows. We have too much to do at fair. Rebel can not do my job for me anymore. We are friends. We help each other, but at some point we just have to make hard decisions. One of them is – Essen is no longer a party time for me. I need to go to work.

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I am telling you that because for the past few years at Essen I was super available for you. I was always having time to chat, always time to sign box, take photo… I was at Portal Games booth nearly all the time just to have fun with you, gamers.

This year it is gonna change. For most of the time I will be sitting somewhere at business lobby and do serious stuff. Sign contracts, not boxes.

Since some of you may want to talk to me at Essen, ask some rule questions, or whatever else and many of you at my Twitter feed was telling me that will drop by to say hello, I am more than afraid that someone could be disappointed coming to Portal Games booth and see no Trzewik there. I decided I will post here hours when I will be sitting there for 100% available for you to chat, have fun and talk about games. I am happy to meet you at Portal booth:

Thursday:
10:30 – 13:00

Friday
14:00 – 16:00

Sunday
12:30 – till end

Not too much. I know.

For the rest of the time I will be running here and there, from one meeting to another. I will try to be at Portal Games booth as often as possible, between meetings, but I have many many of them this year. I am sorry I can not be as available for you as in the past.

But! (there is always a but!)
I have an idea! We can meet on Thursday, 24th of October at pub! After halls close, me and Portal Games team will go to Drago an der Gruga, Alfredstraße 122 45131 Essen restaurant that is VERY close to Essen halls.

I will try to reserve tables on Wednesday. We can hang out, have a good time and talk there! (Next Wednesday I will post right from Germany confirmation that reservation of tables is made.) I hope we will have a good time there!

What is more…
Let’s be honest! This time I am not author of new Portal Games release! You guys shouldn’t hunt me anyway! You need to hunt Michiel Hendriks! Have him sign your copy! Take picture with him! Congratulate him great game! 

I am happy to say that Michiel is our guest and will be at Essen at Portal Games booth all the time. He will be available for you, running demo games, smiling, signing boxes. Although he can’t draw a cow (like I do!), but on the other hand he looks much better on the pictures than I do!

This year Michiel is in the spotlight!

What is more…
What is more, we will have Mateusz Bielski at our booth too! Author of amazing art for our games, responsible for many great artwork for Legacy, Convoy, Theseus…

Mateusz will be there with us. He will sign cards, he will sign boxes, he will draw you cool drawings. And let’s face it, Matuesz is like superman – he can draw a cow and he does look better on the pictures than me!

What is more…
What is more we will have Marion who co-developed with me and Robert (and army of great testers!) Voyage of the Beagle. If you want to meet most devoted Robinson Crusoe fan in Germany, Marion will hang out with us at Essen every day and will present you Voyage of the Beagle and gossip about developement process!

We have great games, we have great guests, we will have great Essen! You are all invited! Hall 1 booth E142

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And since I like to have always something interesting for you and always try to have a surprise… I am happy to announce that next Thursday, 24th of October I start small project on Kickstarter! I have this small crazy idea and I want to see if this small dream can turn into reality. 

You will be first to know.

Next Wednesday I will announce it. I hope some of you find it interesting. Trzewik goes Kickstarter!

(yes, drawing of cows are involved in this project!)

***

And because my blog is about good stories and today’s post has nothing to do with a good story I would be very disappointed to provide you only boring stuff and you would be disappointed too…

But… (there is always a…)

There is a man who few days ago wrote funny and really amazing post about me, Portal Games, Michiel and Legacy. I am happy to redirect you right to his blog and I wish you great read of his post. He has a good story for you in place of me today…

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/blogpost/23935/what-trzewiczek-portal-and-legacy-did-right

See you at Essen guys! Looking forward to meet all of you! Wish me luck at Essen

I was afraid of 2013. No, really. Look at our previous years. There was a sad cycle going on…

2007
We published Neuroshima Hex. It was amazing success for our small company then! We were first time in Essen, we got great reviews, licenses were sold to ZMAN and IELLO. We were in heaven.

2008
We published Witchcraft. I love this game, but we had no success with it. It wasn’t popular, it was too abstract and heavy, barely we managed to sell all copies. No reprint ever done. No licenses sold…

2009
We published Stronghold. Man, that was ride of my life. We were sold in a few weeks, we sold licenses to US, German and French market. Countless nominations for awards. Great ratings. We were in heaven indeed.

2010
We published 51st State. It wasn’t that bad. Although we screw up with rulebook, with tokens… We did lots of mistakes… Game got good ratings, got some nominations for awards, was licensed… But it was few miles away from being in heaven…

2011
Well, 2011 was far from heaven. It was quite opposite than heaven. We published Pret-a-Porter. What a crazy idea that was! Yeah, game had great ratings at BGG. Yeah, was nominated to IGA, Polish Game of the year, even Tom Vasel said he may like fashion… But sells were terrible. After two years we barely sold all copies. No licenses sold. No commercial success. Never again I will do a game about fashion

2012
OK, that was heaven. Robinson Crusoe. What can I say. You know everything…

2013
And here we are, 2013. I was scared. It seemed that for the past few years we had this sucking cycle – after very good year for us, there is a year of much smaller success. It seemed like for small company like ours creating worldwide known game is very exhausting. Game that goes year after is never that popular. It is good, it has good reviews and ratings, it even gets awards, but it has no commercial success.

So here we are, 2013, year after Robinson. My experience say this year may suck. I was really scared.

***

Last week I announced pre-orders for our bundle pack, for Legacy, Theseus and Voyage of the Beagle. 

Soon after you decided to send me an email.

Yes, you. I mean… All of you.

I should expect unexpected…

This weekend I sent 290 (two hundred and ninety!) emails as replies to your pre-orders and questions. There were moments when I almost cried in front of monitor. I spent whole damn Saturday and whole damn Sunday answering your emails. It was hardcore weekend.

I replied one email, I received 2.
I replied one email, I received 3.

At some point, Saturday evening I got breakdown. After spending 6 hours with my laptop replaying emails, I got more emails in my inbox, than before I start replaying. Never had such situation in my life before. emails were coming faster than I was able to answer…

But I survived. I will remember this weekend for a long time, but I survived and I replied every single email I received from you guys.

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Today I am happy to announce that it looks like Portal Games has grown up. We are adult company now. We had a tremendous success with Robinson Crusoe and this year, second time in a row we are doing damn good again, this time with Legacy and Theseus. 

At this moment I have twice as much pre-orders for Legacy as I had for Robinson.

And you keep sending me new ones. Every. Single. Hour…

Essen 2013, we are coming. Second time in a row, we are going to rock and roll!