I am a huge fan of children‘s games. I have a big collection of board games for kids and even though my own kids got older and they won’t play with me anymore, I still keep these kids games in my collection. I won’t get rid of them. I will play with my grandchildren, right?!

There are some real gems among games for children. Ramses II. Labyrinth. Gulo gulo – to mention only a few classics.

And yet, even though these days game stores offer so many great innovative children‘s games, there is still a ton of mere unimaginative variants of memory games.

Yes, sure, kids like memory games. They have a great memory, they beat their parents easily and they enjoy it.

Once.
Twice.
Thrice.

But then at some point…

***

I was a teacher for a few years, and I was conducting board games classes. I would play with kids for hours. I would bring them stupid toyish games like Louping Louis, Operation, or Funny Bunny. Kids loved them.

I would bring different versions of memory games, with Chicken Cha Cha Cha, Monster Chase, or Ramses II being the highlights among many others.

And I would also bring them some more difficult games. Games like Batik Kids. Pickomino. Wicked Witches Way. Ribbit. And many more.

And guess what!

After a few lessons more and more kids were moving towards the more difficult games. They liked the challenge. They wanted to think deeper. They wanted to play something more than just another memory or toyish game. Operation and Funny Bunny sank into oblivion.

***

In 2015, Portal Games launched an amazing economy game for children (!) on the Polish market. It is called My Happy Farm and was designed by the authors of Mysterium. It quickly won the hearts of board game fans in Poland.

Soon after the release, we decided to buy full rights to the English version of the game and to release it worldwide. This week it’s going to hit retail stores in the U.S.

It is a very smart design. It challenges young players, it makes them think and engage with the game from the very beginning till the last minute of the play. Children will need to plan carefully in advance, they’ll need to sow and plant, harvest, feed the animals – they will have to manage the whole farm!

That’s a challenge they‘re going to love.
That’s a story they will understand.
That’s a task that will sound cool for them.

(and BTW: harvesting and feeding is something that you all love, too – I am looking at you, Agricola fans!)

Yesterday we began the game’s promotional campaign. We say: “Don’t feed your children with another memory game.”, and I strongly, strongly, strongly believe in this message.

We all know they deserve much better than just another memory game.

Remember the movie you saw last year? The one you didn’t like? Let’s face it. You will never have a chance to meet its director and tell him that he let you down.

And the book? Remember the book you read a few months ago? You’ll probably never meet the author of this book. You will never be able to discuss with him or her what you liked and what you didn’t like about it.

BTW: the game you played last week and you didn’t like? Go to GenCon or Essen and tell its designer what you think.

***

Of course not every designer attends GenCons. Not every designer is easily approachable. Not every designer is so open as to discuss and hang out with the fans. But many of us are. Many of us meet you—players—at conventions, hang out with you in pubs and talk vividly on social media platforms.

We love interaction, we love you and your feedback.

And we don’t want to fail you.

***

I always say that I am responsible not only for every game I’ve designed, but I also take full responsibility for every game Portal has ever published. I put my name—the Portal logo—on it and this means I fully recommend this design.

For years I’ve been building trust, I’ve published one title after another and I’ve never ever let myself disappoint you. I want you to know that if a game was published by Portal Games, that means I personally accepted it and I personally recommend it.

It takes years to build trust. It takes dozens of designs published year after year to build this repeating recognizable pattern of well-playtested, engaging, challenging games.

These days more and more often I read comments like ‘It’s a game from Portal Games so it tells a great story” or ‘It’s a game from Portal Games so I know it won’t disappoint me.”

It took years to build reputation and trust.

And you know what? It would take a second to lose it. But don’t worry. I put my name on these boxes. And trust me, I wouldn’t put it on anything less than the best…

Edited by Piotr, thank you!

In the latest #askboardgames show I answered a very interesting question about keeping my motivation high during a long process of designing a board game. In fact, this question is not only about being motivated and focused this whole time. It’s about much more than that. It’s also about frustration, despair, and being stuck with no idea how to fix the damn prototype.

I had that feeling again only yesterday. It was another test of First Martians. Another test game when everything works smoothly, everything goes well, and yet I know the game is missing something. My testers says the game is great, but I know it’s bullshit. There is something wrong with how the gameplay works. Something I cannot name, something I cannot identify, but I know there is a problem. I am pissed off. I am playing another game, everything works, all mechanisms function well and it just drives me mad.

Don’t fucking pretend you are finished. Don’t try to look awesome. You suck. You are a bad game. I won’t publish you.

It’s not that late, sometime about 10PM but I feel like I am done for today. I am so frustrated I cannot focus on anything. I don’t want to read a book. I don’t want to watch a movie. I don’t want anything. Angry and frustrated, I go to bed. This day ends early and in an extremely bad manner.

***

It’s Friday morning. I‘m standing next to my desk with a cup of hot tea. After yesterday’s test session, the prototype is like a battlefield. I look at it with anger. I think about Robinson and I try to find the mysterious thing that is missing here in First Martians. That final detail, that invisible something that makes a difference.

And then it hit me. In a split second I can see everything clearly. I grab a piece of paper. I note it down.

And then I smile.

Despair and pure happiness. Every designer’s inseparable brothers.

edited by Piotr, thank you!

It’s October 2009. Outside Poland no one heard a shit about me. I am a random Polish dude with his first big game being released during the Essen Game Fair. One day I got an email from the BGG team. They were preparing the very first Essen live stream and asked me if I was interested in presenting my game.

Hell, yes, I was. I scheduled a 30-minute-long demo in front of a camera.

And then I start practicing.

I prepared the whole demo at home and I practiced, day after day. Like an actor preparing for the play, I practiced my demo over and over again.

When the Essen’s time finally arrived, I was scared as shit. My spoken English was really poor and I had never done a live recording before.

And yet, I delivered one of the best demos of that show. My video was viewed an astonishing number of times. The game’s buzz grew like crazy.
***
It’s October 2012. I have a big game for the Essen show. It is called Robinson Crusoe. The BGG team contacts me again about a live stream. I immediately reply that yes, I am interested. I schedule the date and time.

And I start practicing.

I prepare the whole demo at home. I go for explaining the essence of the game. I go for emphasizing the most awesome key selling points of the game. And I go further than that. I prepare a hand out, I prepare Wilson – a volleyball with a handprint just like in the memorable movie with Tom Hanks.

Once again I am scared as shit. Once again my spoken English is pathetic. And once again I deliver one of the best demos among those live stream videos. When we finish recording and the camera is off, John from the BGG team asks me to keep one copy of Robinson for him. He will pick it up right after he finishes all the recording. He is not going back to the U.S. without the game.

In the meantime I receive dozens of text messages from Poland with friends telling me that they watched the demo and it rocked.

Practicing like crazy before the recording clearly paid off.
***
For the past few days Eric Martin has been publishing his interviews from the Nuremberg Fair. No finger-pointing, but let me just say this – once again there were publishers who did extremely poor demos. Boring. Unprepared. Chaotic. No hooks and no selling points presented, no idea and no concept behind it.

Honestly, I don’t get it.

BGG offers you the best exposure you can ever get. It’s free advertising. It’s John and Eric flying to Germany with a camera and giving you a chance to present your game to audiences worldwide. They approach you and say: “Hey, we have a few thousands viewers and we’d like you to present your game to our community. Interested?”.

Can’t you prepare a good demo? Can’t you find in your company a person who speaks fluent English, performs well in front of a camera and knows what he or she is going to talk about? Can’t you show some respect both to the BGG and to their viewers by preparing for the demo? Is it that hard to do a good show and promote your game?

Why are you so lazy? I don’t get it. Really.
***
Anyway, when contacted by the BGG before the Nuremberg Fair I did the same thing I had done a couple of times before. I told them I was interested. I scheduled the recording’s date and time. And then I began to practice. I noted down all the major key selling points and unique mechanisms we had in Cry Havoc – one of our big Gen con releases. I prepared every minute of this monologue.

And then I did the same thing for my game about Mars. I noted down a dozen of real life examples from the First Martians gameplay to show all players who were anxious about the app integrated with the boardgame that this was nothing to be afraid of. In short, during a few-minute-long video I was shooting with one example after another, like a freaking machine gun to convince the viewers that the app and First Martians combine into the most immerse experience they’ve ever had in their boardgaming history.

You won’t believe how many tweets, emails and text messages I already received after this video was published. All of them said: “I was skeptical. Now I am excited.”

I did my homework. I took the time to prepare. And I won a few hearts over.

So my message to my fellow publishers today is – show some respect. Prepare your demos. Make me excited about the game you are presenting.

Follow me on Twitter at: @trzewik

Follow me on Snapchat at: trzewik23

Watch my #askboardgames show at: #askboardgames

At some point she – out of nowhere actually – says something like: ‘This weekend we played Robinson, me and my family. We had a great time. My mom was so excited that she was standing next to the table, because she just couldn’t sit still. And you know, she is not a gamer, she never plays board games. We won. I know, I know, we played a few rules wrong, I double checked the rulebook after we finished the game. We had an amazing time together, though. It was great.’

This is my oxygen. This is why I work. This is why I stay up till 1AM cutting out prototype pieces and trying to playtest the shit out of this mess. This is why I have the strength to struggle with a prototype that is not working the way I want it to work. This is why I will trash bad ideas and look for good ones over and over again. This is why I am ready for sleepless nights and for long weeks of bad mood when I can’t find a solution and the prototype is not working.

I am ready for all this mess.

Because at the end of this struggle there is a family somewhere out there that will have a great time together.

And this is my oxygen.

edited by Piotr, thank you!