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…
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 hate you.’ said Rob Daviau when he approached me at Gen con 2018. ‘I played Detective. You know I was thinking about designing a story-driven game like that for a long time, and you did it. It is everything I wanted my game to be. I hate you.’ I look at him, confused, and he burst into a laugh. ‘Congratulations. You designed a great game Ignacy.’ ‘You played it? Finished the whole campaign?’ I asked ‘Oh, yeah. I invited friends for a game retreat weekend; we played the whole thing. That was the game of the weekend. The only game of the weekend to be precise. Brilliant. I hate you.’ he patted my back, winked, and left. I smiled.
The idea behind the Signature Series was very simple. Invite the best storytellers in the industry and ask them to play with the Detective system. Ask them to write their own unique cases for the game. The fact that the game spoke to the storytellers was a good starting point. Few months after the release of the game, I reached Rob Daviau and Mike Selinker and asked them if they are interested. They both were.
The script When you work with legendary designer, the icon of the industry, like Rob Daviau, designer of Betrayal on the Haunted Hill, or Pandemic Legacy, you might be in an awkward position. What will you do, if the material you get won’t meet your expectations? Will you pat Rob on his back and tell him to try harder? Really?
I was waiting impatiently for a script for his case. Finally, I received the email. At that very same moment, I got a Twitter notification. I checked it. It was Rob’s tweet.
‘I sent @trzewik something. I hope he likes it.”
I took a deep breath and opened the attachment. Read the thing. Read it and loved it. Rob took real-life locations and places, real-life events, and build around them a fascinating crime story. It felt so real and so convincing. He moved the action to 70′, changed the setting of the base game, but kept the spirit and the heart of Detective – solving crimes that feel so real because they are hooked in the actual places and events. It was a load off my mind. No patting Rob on his back and asking him to try harder. His reputation is no joke. He is one of the best storytellers in the industry. That’s a fact.
The twist ‘I want to change how the questioning works in Detective.’ he said to me when we met at Grandcon. ‘Can your team change the way the Antares website works for my case?’ ‘What do you have in mind?’ I asked. ‘I want players to actually ask questions. Type them into the website and then get appropriate answers.’ ‘OK’ I said and greenlighted the idea. We started play-testing – players were able to bring in suspects or witnesses and ask them questions about these particular topics. The questioning changed from reading a pre-constructed transcript into a real discussion with the suspect. Play-testers loved the idea. Portal Games Digital team who was supposed to code it and upgrade the website, not so much.
New rules In Dig Deeper, Rob introduced a few new rules and, by a few, I mean, the exact perfect amount. Not too much, so players won’t be confused and, at the same time, enough to make everybody excited about playing this new expansion. It’s 70′, it’s Starsky and Hutch, it’s police chases. Here is the Gun It rule – players can spend Authority token and ignore the time cost of moving in the city. It’s a one-sentence rule, and at the same time, so much theme enchanted in it and added to the game (you turn on your sirens and slam on the gas pedal!). Rob added few more small tweaks to add flavor to the game, searching libraries or turning in witnesses. With just a few well-designed rules, he changed Detective: Modern Crime Boardgame into Detective: Starsky and Hutch edition!
The conclusion Having icons like Rob Daviau joining the Detective line is a game-changer for the whole series. It not only gives the game a new audience and exposure but also adds new ideas and approaches to the game system. We called this small boxes line ‘Signature series’ because it is what they – great designers – do, they put their signature on the game, their very own stamp.
Dig Deeper is a fascinating new take on Detective: A Modern Crime Boardgame and a great promise of what can be done with this line in the future! I tell you this. I have on my desk script from Mike Selinker, and yes, he puts his stamp on the game too!
I strongly believe that good board game is the one that tells a good story. You play it and suddenly you are sucked into it, you feel chills on the skin. Emotions grow. In a moment you defend castle. You hear roar of warriors. You smell boiling oil. You are into it.
That's how I design my games. I always want to tell a good story. I want players to be into it. As deep as possible.
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