In November lastyear, as a way to unwind after a very stressful year, I began working on a crazy project. I made a fanzine. Old school, true fanzine, like as if someone sent it to us straight from 1992 or 1994 via time machine. I invited many friends from the industry to join the project and in a few weeks we put together an issue. Several dozen pages of text about SF, fantasy and tabletop games. I printed a small number of copies, sent them to friends and fans, and put the rest in an online store. I had a great time creating this project. My friends when writing the texts. The readers when reading.

We are currently working on the second issue. And who knows, maybe we’ll even do a third. It’s a freaking amazing side quest from my regular job.

I used to print prototypes and ship them all over the globe to my fellow publishers and partners to present them with what we created. I used to go to conventions in Europe and in the US to meet with them and run demos of games. That’s how it used to be. It’s no longer the case.

Today I met with 4 publishers, and I run demos for our partners in Spain, Netherlands, Scandinavia, and Ukraine. None of us left the office. No prototype was shipped. All happened via Table Top Simulator. The game demos went nicely and smoothly. Most likely, I secured the future of my game for a couple of countries.

It’s good to be a publisher and have all these modern tools.

I had it with On Mars, which, although it is a really complicated game, it didn’t give me any trouble. For three years, working on First Martians, I practically lived on Mars. So I easily absorbed On Mars whole. I also had it with Kanban, which I didn’t understand. On the other hand, my wife moved through the nooks and crannies of its rules as if she had been playing it for years. She loves cars and everything related to them. Kanban was her game. And I had it today with Expedition: Northwest Passage. I sat down and played. Everything went smoothly from the first to the last minute.

It’s an old truth: when we understand what a game is about, if it presents the theme well and realistically, we usually understand the rules in no time, and the game is pure pleasure.

We can look at the picture and discuss the good old times of playtesting Robinson Crusoe (and this particular case, it’s most likely playtesting HMS Beagle). But I have a much better idea. Let’s look at the shelf behind and try to guess how many of these board games I still own! 🙂