I blame Martin Wallace. I blame Vital Lacerda. And yes, I’ll take some of the blame myself.

Martin designed Brass — an economic game about some old stuff like the coal industry. Vital is incredibly talented, but instead of creating a brilliant game about international trade, he made Kanban, a game about cars. And me? I designed an economic simulation of the fashion industry.

We could have saved the whole thing, but we chose coal, cars, and fashion instead. And so here we are — Trump reactivates coal mines in the US, he buys himself a new Tesla, and wears the most fashionable golf outfits the world has ever seen. I saw pics — he has the best trousers any other president ever had.

It’s all happening because of Wallace, Lacerda, and Trzewiczek.

And yes, I know you might doubt if anyone at the White House plays board games at all. You might even want to comfort me and say, “Ignacy, it’s not your fault.”

Allow me to disagree. They love to play some games. 

He for sure loves Scrabble. Did you know you can get 12 points for a good old-fashioned word like „groceries”? And he knows many words, the best words, he can even create new ones. He is great at Scrabble, he really is. 

Diplomacy taught him how to negotiate with world leaders. And I tell you this, if you are a very stable genius, you will easily win this game. You make the dumbest offers, and your friends at some point will agree — just keep repeating them over and over.  It’s called consequence, baby!

And then there is, of course, the one and only — Monopoly! A board game with only one winning strategy — screw everybody else and get rich by taking their money. His Fav Game of All Time.

Trust me, they are playing board games. Unfortunately, not the right ones.

So, I’m going to whine. Brew yourself a cup of coffee, get comfortable, and let’s begin. The life of a board game publisher is unfair. A comic book publisher, a book publisher, or even a YouTuber—they all have it easier. How they have it easier? When it comes to covers. Yes, I’m whinening about covers.

Officially, my job title is „board game publisher,” but those of you who know me well are aware that I’ve spent the last decade primarily as the head of the marketing department. In that department, everything revolved around A/B testing, analyzing reactions, and doing experiments. It was all about running three ads and seeing which performed better. About uploading a video to YouTube, then changing the thumbnail after two days to see if it improved click-through rates. About sending out newsletters with two different subject lines to see which achieved a higher open rate.

For thirty years, I’d been complaining about players, just like every Game Master. At every opportunity, be it a convention or a reunion, we would eventually end up whining about how terrible and ungrateful our players were. We tried our best, sweated blood for them, were ready to do everything for them, and paid attention to every little detail. And they would still just show up at the session, stuff themselves with crisps, collect PD, and go home, without even as much as “thank you,” “you’re the best,” or at least cleaning those damn potato crisps after themselves.

I mean, preparing such a session takes dozens of hours. It’s like a full-time job. And afterward, you don’t even get a “thank you”.

In the games I design, players have dozens of decisions to make. In the famous „51st State,” each card can be played in three ways. In „Robinson,” each action can be performed in two ways—safely or with risk. Even in my story-driven „Detective,” I crammed in as many choices as possible—there are 36 cards in the deck, but players will only read 18 of them. Which ones? That’s their choice.

I like choices in games. I like making decisions and, most importantly, I love that moment after the game ends when I look at my score and tell myself, „At that moment, I made the wrong decision. If I played again, I would play differently.”

This week, I played a game during which I hardly made any decisions.

I have always been interested in war games. Unfortunately, I didn’t play them much, as I was navigating through the realms of RPGs, miniature games, and, of course, modern board games. There wasn’t enough time for war games. Additionally, I didn’t have fellow wargamers.

So, every six months or so, I would treat myself to one game. Classics like Commands & Colors: Ancients or Manoeuvre found their way into my collection, and I was playing them maybe twice a year. I somehow justified it, telling myself that it made sense, that if the Annual Playthrough Coefficient was at a solid two, it was worth it.