Every single month I get an email from a game designer who is paranoid. He wants to submit a game but first of all he asks me how I make him sure I will not steal his idea and publish it as my own.

Ridiculous amount of young designers believes that I – Ignacy Trzewiczek – am waiting to steal their ideas. Every single day I check my Inbox to see if there is a new game submitted. Game I could steal and win Spiel des Jahres. 

That’s me. The Hunter from darkness. Predator among young designers.

Right. That’s exactly what I do. Steal your ideas.

***

First of all – if you, game designer – consider that I am a thief who wants to cheat you and steal your idea and publish it as my own, if you think I am such a person, then… well, what can I say. Why do you even contact me? Get the hell out off my Inbox! You think I am a thief? Don’t contact me. It is as simple as that.

Secondly – try to think. A little bit. Please.

If I steal your idea and publish it as mine own design what would you do? You’d go to BGG and you’d write that it was your idea first. You’d show scans of your prototype. You’d ask your friends who tested your prototype to confirm that they played this prototype with you. 

That is the moment when I am screwed for good.

Never ever any author will submit the game to me.

Immediately my company earns stealer reputation.

I am dead in 3 months. No one will buy my games anymore.

Even best prototype is not worth stealing. Trust me.

***

Publishers don’t steal ideas. They are square or… or at least they are not stupid.

Send your prototypes to publishers without fear. The worst thing that can happen would be publisher refusing publishing the game. The best that can happen? Great adventure with your own game published and then praised by players.

Sounds nice, right?

I met Silent few years ago. He came to 'Pawn’, convention that I organize in Gliwice since 2006. He was like many gamers who attend con – had a bag full of games, had a passion in his eyes and was able to play games for two days without taking even a 5 minutes break.

After 'Pawn’ he joined our gaming club. He lived in a different city but for a man with passion this is not a problem. He was coming to Gliwice every single week.

Another edition of 'Pawn’ was coming. Silent came to me and said: 'I will help. I won’t play. I will explain games to new gamers.’

We formed Orange Team. Most devoted members of our gaming club. During „Pawn” Orange Team didn’t play a single game. Two days of gaming and they didn’t play even once. They were helping other players. They were explaining rules. For whole damn weekend.

That was incredible. At the end of convention I asked them to come to the stage. And then whole room burst into applause.

Now, 6 years later this is tradition. Every Pawn is supported by Orange Team. Die Hard Gamers who decide to spend weekend on game convention and yet play no single game…

Every single Pawn, at the end of convention I invite them on stage and every single time there is one minute of amazing applause. 400 people claps their hands to say 'Thank you’.

Goose-bumps…

'It’s worth it’ Silent once said to me. It’s worth to explain rules for two days long, but to be there on the stage in that very moment, to see this 400 people in the room who say „Thank you”. This is moment of magic.

***

Silent was one of this first squad in the Orange Team. It was 6 years ago. This weekend we do XIX edition of Pawn. Quite close to a nice anniversary. Six years passed like a flick.

Silent no longer can afford to be member of our gaming club. He has job now. He lives in other place. He got married. Years passed.

He has no time for playing games as he used to have when he was 24. Life finally catched him and holds him tight.

And yet…

I met Silent two weeks ago on a football pitch. 'We do new edition of Pawn, you know’ I said.

'Nice. When?’

'In a two weeks’ I said.

'Do you need a help?’ he asked.

'Try a guess… But well I know it is harder every time…’

'I never turned you down, did I?’ he said.

'You never…’

'I will be there. I am Orange Team. It won’t change.’

We shake hands. Two friends ready to go together to the end of the world.

***

First Pawn was in 2006. Since then about 20 new conventions appeared in Poland. Pawn was first board game convention in Poland. Orange Team was first supporters group. We all started that. Now you have Yellow Team in Gdansk, you have Blue Team in Wroclaw, you have such teams in every single board game convention in Poland.

And Poland is not an island.

There are conventions all over the world. There are people like Silent working hard to help you gamers all over the world. People who don’t play, but help. For whole damn weekend.

Silent, thank you.
Orange Team, thank you.
All teams and all supporters all around the world, thank you.

You guys do an amazing work. I salute you.

Day 0 – Wednesday, 8:00 AM. Hulk.
Have you ever been thinking how these all games get to publishers booth? I’ll tell you how – we bring them there. I may not look like Hulk, but this is exactly how it works – transport company like UPS delivers palettes of games to halls and then we need to unpack all these palettes and take all games to out stand.

1500 copies of Robinson. 1000 copies of Convoy. 1000 copies of Winter. 1000 copies of Dancer. 1000 copies of older stuff like Pret-a-Porter, The New Era, 51st State or Steel Police. Nearly 20 palettes all together.

And there are three of us to do that. Rest of the team arrives to Essen in the evening.

I may not look like Hulk but being honest, after day 0 and unpacking few thousands copies of games I am not sure why the hell I don’t look like Hulk. On Wednesday we carried few tons of games. I talked with Petr from CGE – they had nearly 10 tons of games. They don’t resemble Hulk neither.

Well, some publishers look little bit tired in the first day of the show. Try a guess why…

Day 0 – Wednesday, 2:00 PM. Willson.
At 2 PM I have demo of Robinson on BGG live stream. I go to BGG stand. I am a little bit nervous. Did you hear about stage fright? Yes, I did hear about it too. So I am there, but BGG schedule is torn in pieces. They have 30 minutes of delay. I have to wait and trust me, waiting is not helping. Waiting is making me nervous. Waiting is making me think about few things… That English is not my native language. That BGG has delay and I have to shorten my presentation because they want to lower this time problem. That in a few minutes I am going live. Worldwide.

Sophie from Z-Man Games appears at BGG stand. She greets me. She wishes me a good presentation. She will keep her fingers crossed. I tell her that I am prepared. I tell her that demo of Robinson will be great. I tell her to not worry.

There is only one thing I don’t tell her. I don’t tell her about stage fright. Yes, it just got me and hold me tight.

Finally BGG is ready. They give me microphone. We can start. We start. I am no more nervous. No more care about stage fright. I just do what I can do the best. I talk about my beloved Robinson. And this is live. And worldwide. Yes, it is.

30 minutes later we are done. My mobile starts to beep every few seconds. Many friends from Poland send me immediate feedback. They say it was good demo. I am happy. Few days later, when Essen is done I finally can watch it. Robinson’s demo happens to be – as far as I can see – most popular video from Essen 2012. 1800 views. Woow.

Day 0 – Wednesday, 5:00 PM. Z-Man’s crew
That day at 5PM demo guys from Z-Man came to our stand. We did teach them how to demo Robinson and Convoy. You know, doing demo during convention or fair is not a piece of cake. There is no space for improvisation. This something you have to prepare for.

We’ve spent whole week at Portal’s office training how to explain rules of Robinson in the easiest way possible. At the beginning it was taking us 30 minutes. Later that week we were able to explain rules of Robinson in 10 minutes. It was hard work and lots of trainings.

You need to cut off the crap. Cut off all rules that are not important at the very beginning. Cut off all unnecessary details. Be focused. Be clear. Be understandable.

You have to remember about one important thing – in Essen you will meet gamers from Germany, from France, from Italy, from whole damn world, gamers for whom English is not a native language. Your demo has to be simple. Your demo can not involve sophisticated vocabulary. Your demo has to be easy to understand for any one who can barely speak English.

We spent an hour with guys from Z-Man. We did teach them a special, dedicated for Essen set up for the game with the easiest events and cards, set up that makes demo easy. And we were lucky. Z-Mans crew was a bunch of great gamers. They picked up things in a second. I was sure we were in a good hands.

Later on I visited Z-Man’s stand to check if everything is going well and if they need any help. They showed me that they changed a little bit set up of the game. They start demo from second turn so the game speeds up from the very beginning. It was a great idea. They knew what they were doing. No need to worry. I was happy.

Day 0 – Wednesday, 7:00 PM. Everything is set.
At 7PM we were ready to go, 11 hours after leaving hotel, 11 hours of work without lunch break, dinner break, any break. Few thousand games were set at our stand. Demo of Robinson was live on BGG site. Z-Man’s crew was ready to present Robinson and Convoy.

We were tired. We were hungry. And yes, we were damn happy. Man, it’s Essen. We were waiting for that day for whole year!