“What are the points for in the end?” she asked after I finished reading the rules.
„I don’t know,” I replied, „I haven’t read that part.”

Blasphemy? Madness? Idiocy? Perhaps. Or it’s a worthwhile consideration, a topic worth exploring? Just take a look for yourselves. How many times have you said it’s just the first game, that you’re playing without any pressure, that you’re only getting to know the game, that it’s all chill and cool? But then, in the end, you start counting the points. Suddenly, Krzysiek has 117, Wojtek has 104, and you have 32. And it’s supposed to be chill and cool, but those 32 points sting. It’s the first game, you’re still learning, but these 32 points feel bad anyway.

After all, the first game is about exploration. It’s about understanding the game’s mechanics, searching for synergies, and trying to uncover all those little gears and hidden wheels that drive the entire mechanism. You move in a certain direction, tinker with something, and enjoy the sandbox where you build your little castle, having a great time. But then, boom, the game ends, and you’ve utterly failed with just 32 points, a resounding defeat. It was fun, but now it’s not.

It’s happening. It’s happening right now, before our very eyes, and I have no doubts anymore. I missed a few shots, I predicted changes before, heck, I tried to actively make them happen, but it was resistant, tough, without success, I was wrong. Seventh time’s the charm. Now we really take these damn game instructions and throw them in the trash.

But before we get to that, one paragraph about how I was wrong. It was the year 2018, Amazon was promoting its Alexa left and right, during my few weeks in the US that year, no other product attacked me as persistently with ads, billboards, from everywhere literally. I returned to Poland and told the team that it’s the future, that it’s like an improved Google, because you can talk to it, that it’s an improved Google, because you can upload apps into it, that it’s an improved Google, because we can upload instructions for our games into it and players will be able to talk to this Alexa and ask her for details.

It is Thursday, July 29, 2015. Late evening, the four of us are sitting in a hotel room at the Hilton in Indianapolis. It’s me, Multi, Chevee, and Jeff. A few hours ago, the first day of Gen Con ended. We are here with the release of the game Rattle, Battle, Grab the Loot. The game has been well-received. From the first pallet containing 240 units, we have only a few boxes left.

„Should we announce it as sold out?” I ask.

Everyone at the convention has seen how boxes have been disappearing from the stack of games throughout the day, and by the end of the day, only a few units remained. I could post a short tweet that Rattle, Battle, Grab the Loot sold out on the first day of Gen Con. We have a success story, distributor interest in the title, fans upset that they missed out on a hot game, and the press and media will pick up on it. We will be featured in every Gen Con report as one of the games that generated enormous interest. Of course, we will be bored to death at our booth for the next three days, but we will return to the company victorious. The news will spread throughout the industry that Rattle, Battle, Grab the Loot was one of those titles worth paying attention to.

What is the difference between a designer and a developer? It’s roughly like the difference between a father and a grandfather. Like the difference between a mother and a grandmother. The mother gets up at 2 am to feed the baby, while the grandmother sees the baby on Sunday after dinner, chats with them, says sweet nothings, proud of her grandchild, as if it couldn’t get any better! The father rocks the baby in his arms for two hours because the baby has colic and is screaming so loudly that he can be heard throughout the neighborhood. The grandfather, on the other hand, comes around during the holidays, tells a nice story, gives a gift, offers some advice, and then goes back home. He went through all of that, now let the young parents struggle, he’s too old for that.

Testing Thorgal gives me wild joy. I come, play, give my opinion here and there, ask for something to be changed or added, and then I go back to my duties. Let the young parents…

I’m playing a game called Nevsky with my buddy from the USA over WhatsApp. He makes a move while sitting in Charlotte, North Carolina, records a video message, and sends it to me via WhatsApp. I update the board here, make a move, record a video message and send it to him. He updates the board there… It’s not the fastest way to play, a game takes us about two months on average, but that’s not what I’m talking about today. Today I’m talking about rolling dice. And about how players are crazy.

Last week during the game, there was a battle under the city of Koporye (photo above shows the castle!). My troops approached the castle and encountered a unit of Rus, who occupied the fortress. An exciting moment. Tokens of our troops land on a special battle board, charges start, dice rolling, fingers crossing, all that jazz—the salt of war games.