We are preparing final files to print Robinson Crusoe. We are ordering wooden cubes, we are ordering cards, we are preparing tens of tokens. We are doing all that stuff that I really really hate. One mistake and man, you are in serious trouble. Robinson is a huge epic game. Reminds me Stronghold. Reminds me August 2009…

***

In August 2009, when we were finishing work on Stronghold every single day I was wondering what mistake we will do. I wasn’t wondering if we make mistake. I was wondering what mistake it will be. Oh, yes, I was sure that we will botch something. Nearly 150 tokens, nearly 100 cards, 60 pages long rulebook in 3 languages, more than 300 wooden pieces. It was a big production with 'FFG’ impetus. It was like ride on rollercoaster. It was fast, exciting and it had to end badly. In August 2009 I had no doubts about that.

We were not FFG. In Portal there was 3 guys. 3 guys making biggest game in their lives. 3 guys scared as a hell. 3 guys that wanted to make good worldwide impression. 3 guys that tried to do 'FFG production’.

We had no marketing department and yet we were on #1 place on The Hotness list on BGG for many weeks before Essen. We had no budget for advertisement and yet we had movie trailer presenting Stronghold. We had no copywriters and yet with our GDJ series we were one of the most discussed games before Essen fair.

Production of Stronghold exceed our possibilities. Not twice. It exceed it ten times. We were doing our best. And yet every day we were motivating each other to try harder. It was our life time moment. Our biggest game.

You, gamers, saw cover and board of Stronghold, you read GDJ stuff, you watched movie trailer, you were participating with this whole hype and buzz, and then, after Essen you were nominating us for International Gamer Award or Golden Geek but did you know that this whole fuss was done just by 3 friends?

Production department in Portal? Whole department – Michał Oracz.
Testing team? Oh, sure! Big big team! Rafał Szyma and Ignacy Trzewiczek (and bunch of our close friends).
Marketing department? His Majesty Storyteller Ignacy Trzewiczek
Artwork director? Michał Oracz, again.
Game development team? One Man Team – Ignacy Trzewiczek, again.
Movie trailer? Michał Oracz.
Essen stand design? Michał Oracz.
etc.

Yes, it was crazy. But we did it. There was no mistake in Stronghold. We did one of the most famous and respected games of 2009. It was awesome.

***

Today Portal is twice as big. We have 3 guys responsible for Neuroshima RPG and Neuroshima Tactics miniature game and 3 of us responsible for boardgames. We grown, but still – in a fact – we are bunch of few friends doing their best to bring you best games possible. This year we will bring Robinson Crusoe. This year again we have to exceed our possibilities. This year again we will do everything we can to stand next to FFG and other great publishers.

Have dreams. Have courage to follow these dreams. Do your games. You don’t need to have big budget. You don’t need to have 20 people crew. You don’t need anything except passion and will to fight. Fight for your success. It is at your fingertips.

you, boardgamers know that vacation is a great time. This is the moment when we can finally play all these great games we were buying and collecting for whole year!
We have many games. We are well prepared for every occasion.

Is it raining for whole day? Everybody on vacation is pissed off except us, boardgamers! Rain, this is great! You must sit in hotel room! Now you have time to open Arkham Horror with all expansions you bought for last decade and play it for 24 hours!

Is it cold? Don’t go sightseeing, it sucks and you can got a flu! Sit at your hotel room, open suitcase and bring it to the table – Twilight Imperium, III ed. Oh, yes, I wish it is cold for whole 2 weeks. No problem at all.

Nice weather? OK, let it be nice weather. I am not big fan of nice weather, but what the hell, I ame prepared! I can go to the beach. I can go to the beach with Cash & Guns, Tichu, Hystericoach and have some fun. Of course, when on the beach, be aware of water, especially if you can’t swim, like me.

You are with kids? Give them Talisman and you don’t need to care about them for next 6 hours. Giving them Talisman is like hiring a nanny but better because it can handle up to 6 kids! What nanny can beat this?!

You are with friends who don’t know boardgames yet? Put Ticket to Ride on table and look how their eyes open with excitement and new born passion. This is huge moment. It is worth playing Ticket to Ride for the 328th time in your life.

You are with die hard geeks? Lucky bastard, make it Neuroshima Hex’s vacation! Start league, play every day, with tables, results and final price. You do drink beer, do you? If not, send you price to Portal, we will handle it.

Oh yes. Boardgames have answer for all vacation situations.

That’s why I have everything with me here on vacations. Settlers of Catan to play with kids. Twilight Struggle to play with my wife. Brawl to play tournament with my friend Widlak. Neuroshima Hex so our kids can play tournament. Prototype of Robinson and Winter so I can test it on my friends. Yes, vacations and games work great together.

But… There is one small question I had to ask.

How the hell I am supposed to pack all these games to my car?! Where to put clothes and stuff?! I need a truck!

Scania, I see a huge market for you here. I will need to rent a truck for two weeks. And my fellow geeks too. What are the prices? Any discount for BGG members?

Last weekend in Bulgaria there was a final of The Volleyball World League. Polish team beat US team 3:0. It was nice, thank you very much Americans 😉

Anyway, when I was watching the match I realised that you can learn a bit as a designer when you take a second to talk about volleyball.

You know, for almost my whole life rules of scoring in volleyball worked like that: when you serve and win the point, you score. If opponent serves and you win the point, you don’t score, you just have the right to serve. If your attack is successful now, you score. If the opponent wins, he only has the right to serve…

Official volleyball federation was founded in 1947. For 40 years people were playing like described above. If you serve, and I win, I don’t get a point. I only get the right to serve. So now I serve, but this time you win, so you don’t score but now you can serve… And it goes like that for two hours. Score? 0:0.

Watching volleyball was kinda’ boring for over 40 years.

And then somebody finally figured it out. This game is broken, he said. We have to change the rules. You need to score after every successful attack, no matter who served.

You know, it’s not easy to change the rules of a game that is played for almost 50 years. A game that was played in world championships, during olimpics, a game with officiall leagues in almost all countries all over the world.

But the Federation of Volleyball had the balls.

They had the guts to say: „Our game sucks. We can make it better.” And they changed the rules. It was 1998, 41 years after Federation was founded. They had the guts to remove rule that was making volleyball boring.

Volleyball got much more simple. It is fast, extremely engaging. It is a great sport now.

***

This is a nightmare for a designer. You design a rule. You test the game, you play a lot, you get used to this rule. Finally you’re stuck with it. You don’t ask yourself an important question:

„Does my game really need that rule?”

It is hard to ask that question. There is a risk that you could hear „No”. You would need to delete this rule. The rule you got used to. The rule you like. Exactly that rule…

So you’re stuck with it. Your game is filled with rules that don’t bring anything to the gameplay. They don’t make the game better. They don’t bring more choices. They don’t bring more emotions. They just are. They just are because you got used to them after these all those test games.

All those rules could be removed if you had the guts to ask the question.

***

I am a young designer. Yes, I was lucky to make some – I believe good – games like Stronghold or The New Era but this is just the beginning. I am aware of that. I am still in the primary school of designing. I am learning every single day. I have flaws that I need to get rid of. I know that. 

One of my flaws is putting to many rules into my games. I have difficulties with designing simple games. It’s hard for me to delete rules, to ask myself a question: „Does my game really need that rule?”

But I am working hard. I am trying to be better. I am aware of the problem and I believe this is a good beginning. I see the problem. This is always a good first step.

During the last months I was working damn hard on my Robinson Crusoe game. The game is ready. Works really great. I am proud of it and I can’t wait for you guys to see it. But it’s not going to print yet. I still have a few weeks left.

During these weeks I will ask myself the question.

In 1998 the Volleyball guys showed that they have guts. Now it is my time to act.