’I don’t like it’, I said when Joanna approached me with her idea for the newest expansion for 51st State. 'Try it though, give it two or three weeks, see what happens. It won’t work, but you need to see it by yourself.’ I said and gave her green light.

It was early March 2020, and her idea for the expansion was a semi-coop variant for the game. Moloch attacks all players at the table, and they need to fight against each other, as usual, and additionally against Moloch cards. It makes perfect sense for the theme of Neuroshima world, but I really hate semi-coop games.

I had so many bad experiences with semi-coop games that I am basically done with this genre. It is tough to design a game that keeps everyone equally engaged for the whole game and to keep players who know that they have no longer a chance to win interested in the game.

So I said Joanna, I vote against the idea, but she should try it anyway.

COVID hit, we all ended up at home working in home office mode, and the playtesting process became super difficult. After few weeks, Joanna said she finally have it ready to show and that she built the prototype on Tabletopia.

I am not a fan of playing board games on the computer. Back then, in March or April 2020, when it all was new to us, I really was not a fan of the tool. But that was the only tool we had. So we played.

The test took us more than two hours. Operating on Tabletopia was a dreadful experience, talking over Skype, trying to understand the prototype, trying to understand Tabletopia, trying to keep my dogs silent for more than 5 minutes. It was 2 hours horror, but…

’It’s not that bad.’ I said. 'Maybe I was wrong. Keep working on it. You might have here something.’

Joanna worked on the expansion for another few months. We all struggled with playtesting, the brainstorming was difficult on Zoom, creating new versions of the prototype was taking much more time than the regular pen and paper method when you can scribble on the card, tweak one or two words and continue playtesting with the new version.

At some point, after months of work and many iterations, it was ready. It was much better than I expected. And what’s more, it was everything I would never create by myself. I would never create a semi coop expansion. I would never create an expansion with double-sided cards. I would never do an alternative co-op variant in 51st State.

Moloch changes the game. Adds a new angle. Throws at players new challenges and choices. It’s manifest of Joanna’s talent and manifest in general of diversity in design. The beauty of different approach and ideas. It’s like First Martians and On Mars and Terraforming Mars, three great games, three different methods, three examples of the power of design.

I was wrong when I said semi-coop is a bad idea. But man, I was so right that I let her work and do what she wanted. She did something I would never do.

So the bottom line, kudos to both of us, right? 😉

I remember this moment very vividly – Przemysław is sitting in my office, it’s 2018, a few weeks before the Detective release. The game is already printed and will soon debut.

’I want you to write me a spy thriller. Cold War era, players taking the role of CIA agents sent to Europe and dealing with some epic KGB operation. Would you be interested?’

He smiled.

***

At that moment, we were after the first demos of Detective at various conventions, and I was pretty confident we have something exceptional here. I knew we would need a follow-up. Changing the role of detectives into spies sounded really cool. New theme, new challenges, different angle and mechanisms.

***

Przemysław Rymer, the writer of the plot, was in heaven. He is a long-time fan of all those books by Frederick Forsyth, Ken Follet, and Tom Clancy. I guess I should also mention his fascination with the political history of Europe. He can quote books by Suworow or le Carre on the fly. He was born ready for this task.

He started building a plot. Based on real Soviet agendas and goals, set in real places and involving historical figures. He was the right man to create the most immersive spy-themed thriller the tabletop industry ever saw. Trust me, he took it seriously.

***

I got the script a few months later. It was around 30 pages long. I was reading it, and it was – believe it or not – sitting on Google at the same time checking the facts and names because the mix between the fictional story and real events and characters was just insane. It was a perfect immersive blend that took me to Europe in 70 in the middle of a secret Soviet operation.

I green-lighted it without any single comment. 'I love it,’ I just said, and we were able to move to the next stage. Make a game around it.

***

It took us months to write the Vienna Connection. Intense, immersive spy-themed thriller as nothing before seen in the hobby. I read a dozen books about the Cold War era and got into it deeply. The year 2020 was, for me, the Cold War-era year. Books, comic books, movies, TV shows, even podcasts! I consumed it all. I even began to run RPG games with my friends set in Berlin of that period. It was crazy.

***

I have a fantastic job. I work with super talented people and create games I always dreamed of. Vienna Connection is on pre-order now, and if you ever wanted to play as a CIA agent in operations against the Soviets, you must play it. I said it. You must play it. It’s great.

And Przemysław? A few months ago, at the beginning of 2020, I invited him to my office again. I asked him to write me another story. And, yes, he smiled again…

***

Link to Vienna Connection pre-order page: https://portalgames.pl/en/vienna-connection/
Link to Portalcon with new titles announcement: https://portalcon.pl/en
My vlog: https://www.youtube.com/c/PortalGamesStudio/videos

Now we saw it all.
We saw Origins „Epic Failure” Online.
We saw Gen Con „XLS of somebody’s else events” Online.
We saw the Dice Tower „Marathon of Gameplays” Spectacular.
We saw BGG „Not Paid Promotion of Discord” Virtual con
And this past weekend. We saw Spiel „Alternative BGG website” Digital.
So, yes, we saw it all.
We are ready to sum up the whole virtual thing now, but before we do, let me today discuss only Spiel.Digital

Vast exhibitor hall
I saw comments on the Internet that it was too much, too much of clicking, browsing, checking, people were saying that the whole website was too big, they were lost, they were tired after clicking on the site.

That is an interesting shift of perception. I myself dedicated 3 hours on Friday to check as many booths as possible, visiting them one after another. After those 3 hours, I was able to check more than half of the booths at Spiel.Digital in the Expert category.

In a real Essen Spiel, after 3 hours, I would probably be done with one hall. One of eight huge halls. I would just barely touch the event.

I found Spiel.Digital much easier to navigate than crowded halls where I am lost after every 20 meters of wandering. Here it was super simple, click, check what they have, click next, check what they have, next, click what they have… After 3 hours, as I said, I already checked half of the whole show. Super easy.

Hidden games on booths
Although wandering through the halls was much easier than in a real life, finding about the release was so so so much harder. In real life you walk by booth, you see game set up on demo tables, you see components, you can stay for 2 minutes and watch people playing and get some idea about the gameplay. Just look at the tables and get a first impression.

In the virtual world, you enter a booth, and you see a link to Tabletopia. No you are logging in, seeing an e-version of the game, and no gameplay in progress, just you and the table. What do you need to do now? Read rulebook? Look for some players to play? Ask for help? You log out. It is as simple as that. You won’t bother.

I heard yesterday a very interesting point – no hidden gem exploded this Essen. No Aquatica, no Spyfall, no other game that was on nobody’s radar before the show and exploded during the show. Small independent publishers had no chance to become supernova of the fair.

It is very simple – we did not try the new games on a massive scale as we do in the real physical world. No viral recommendation happened.

An Introvert’s dream come true
Visiting a booth at Spiel.Digital was an experience suited for an introvert. You enter booth. Nobody chit chat with you. Nobody asks if you need help. Nobody asks you to join a game. You are alone, nobody talks to you, you can read a description of the game, browse through photos, check videos with gameplay or reviews.

No rush. No crowd. No noise. Only you and the complete information about the game in front of you. Personally, I loved it.

But! But then there are publishers. And publishers…

…Publishers disrespected players
More than half of the booths I checked had no materials dedicated to their releases. It is freaking mindblowing. Publisher pays for the booth. Publisher participates in the biggest virtual show of the year. And he is too lazy to upload a freaking photo of the product. Too lazy to upload a single video. He doesn’t even link a review of the product from Dice Tower or any other YouTuber.

I cannot believe how not prepared most of the publishers were. How disconnected they are from the ways and tools of promoting the product in the XXI century. How lazy their marketing teams are.

Many booths at Spiel.Digital were a sad manifest of complete disrespect to attendees.

Buying games was easy
Spiel.Digital did something revolutionary for geeks who buy games – you were able to buy most of the new releases from one general webstore. Instead of buying games at each separate booth (which also was an option), you were able to check Spiele Offensive and Pegasus Spiele webstores, and they had in the offer most of the new releases. In a few clicks, you were able to buy 20 new releases from all these small and big publishers and have it boxed in one package and shipped to your home.

So efficient. So easy. Click, click and you have a new game from Portal, Kosmos, Amigo, Board & Dice, Hobyworld and all other publishers – packed in one box, shipped to your home.

So much better than holding these insanely heavy IKEA bags through the halls and pulling them to your car in the far, far away parking lot.

But…

Buying games lost the charm
You see the crowd at the booth, people holding the new game, the line of gamers excited to buy the new one hot thing is long, and the energy is here, and the need to be in the line, to buy the game, to bring it home, to have it in hand, to open it in the evening in the hotel, to discuss it in the nigh at restaurant, to show it to other geeks what you bough, discuss it… It didn’t happen at Spiel.Digital, right?

When you go to Germany, when you travel to Essen, you want to bring memories from fair. You buy stuff, because it is Essen, it is celebration of new releases, and you want to bring memories home.

Spiel.Digital lacks of this element. When you sit at home, at your desk, when you browse the catalog, there is no charm. No geeks pressure. No hype. No crazy energy. No people proudly holding the game. No need to have it and to have it now!

You can order it two weeks later from your fav online store. Buying games at Spiel.Digital makes no difference from buying on Amazon.

So why care?

The conclusion
Spiel.Digital by far was the best virtual con of the year. Spiel.Digital by far prepared the most epic infrastructure and gave us tools to enjoy virtual board game convention. We were given so many features to have a great time at the con. The site was mindblowing with all the booths, live streams, Tabletopia integration and all other possible features. It’s a stunning effect of hard work and months of preparations. No other virtual con so far was even close to what we received here. I applaud and respect what was achieved here.

Spiel.Digital did all there is to provide board gamers an event to enjoy.

The question remains, though – was it enough?
And even more important question – is it even possible?

Please, let me know in the comments what’s your take on the virtual cons and Spiel.Digital in particular.

Rise of the Empire introduces three pillars that add new gameplay elements to the Imperial Settlers. The first one is well known for all fans who played Imperial Settlers solo variant I published as a free expansion back then in 2014. I will discuss this element today as an opening material for this short series of articles.

Playing Imperial Settlers in the solo campaign mode (free PDF can be found on BGG) or with the Rise of the Empire expansion, you’ll have a series of games that conclude with a special phase at the end of the game – Managing your Provinces. In terms of the theme, it’s the time to manage the growing Empire – taxes, investments, new constructions, and others!

When playing Rise of the Empire campaign, each player receives a dedicated sheet that represents their domain. On this sheet, there is a map where you mark lands and provinces you already conquered. After each game, you mark one new territory. Each of these has a different cost – the cost you must pay to support and keep the province in future games. That’s why the first thing you must do after finishing the campaign game is paying the maintenance cost of each Province you already have in your Empire.

It’s the first of many important choices you must take. When playing Rome, will you conquer the Provinces that have a stone in the maintenance cost? It’s easy to pay for you, sure, but if you spend stone on keeping Province, you won’t have a stone to score points during the game.

As the campaign progresses and you must pay a dozen of resources to keep the Empire intact and keep all Provinces under control, you start to feel like these Roman Emperors, who struggled when the Roman Empire reach the point, when the collapse was the only answer.

After you pay the maintenance cost, the much more fun stuff happens – you draw a new Province card. In the Rise of the Empire, you will find 55 new cards that represent different Provinces. All of them are Production cards, so they boost the Empire’s resource engine. When you play the campaign, you start with all your Province cards already on the table, so the more Provinces, the more strong start in the first turn. The cost, in the end, balances it out in a big way, though…

That’s the first pillar. Gain new Provinces after each game. Get them into play right from the start and have a fantastic start. Have Japanese faction start with the production of Gold and Stone. Play Barbarians who produce a ton of Apples. Command Romans that have a few additional Swords in production from the start… It’s time for your Empire to rise. Eager to find out how it ends!

I am with Rob Daviau at Grandcon, and he goes like 'I have this idea for a new Antares feature, but I am not sure if this is possible…’
’It’s possible.’ I promptly say. He didn’t even manage to finish the sentence, but let me tell you this – when the industry icon has a new idea for Detective, you say you can do this, period. You just have to keep in mind that long conversation with whining Portal Games Digital team is your first step when you get back to Poland.

Rob wanted to give players the feeling, the sentiment of old school adventure video games, those in which you choose some pre-constructed dialog sentences, and you choose one to move the story forward. Instead of reading the transcript of questioning like in the base game of Detective, you’d actively pick the questions you wanted to ask.

The idea was brilliant, but I was not surprised. I greenlighted it, so obviously it had to be good.

Over the months of designing and development, the system was evolving, and Rob was sending me updates. He prototyped the Interview feature, and we were able to play-test it. It turned out Rob went even further with immersion and putting players in the shoes of Detective – there were no pre-constructed questions anymore. There was a blank space and simple instruction: What do you want to ask about?

I typed: KNIFE.

The system reacted: I have it from my father. It’s a family item. What’s the problem?

I typed: ALIBI

The system reacted: I was with my buddies. We were watching baseball. I have a dozen people who can confirm that.

I typed: TRZEWICZEK

The system reacted: I don’t know anything about that.

Strange. But that was a clue. The guy was not a boardgamer.

***

Dig Deeper expansion is a single case that takes players to Boston. Not only it is a new amazing story to discover, not only a new case to crack, but you must understand – this is a new expansion designed by the industry veteran. And with the small tweaks in the system like the Interview feature, you can appreciate and understand what industry icon means. It’s not a blurb on the book. It’s a sign that you will play good old Detective and yet, you will experience something absolutely unique.

I am happy for you. You are gonna love it.