It was some time ago when I heard about VivaJava: The Coffee Game for the first time. What a stupid idea I thought. In my defense I can say only two things: I don’t drink coffee and I don’t know what even VivaJava means. I didn’t pay attention to any news about this game and I labeled it as a stupid idea. Game about coffee? Really?!

It was also some time ago when I first heard about Compounded. Game about chemistry. OMG, that was bad theme for a game! For me chemistry equaled school and serious problems. Yeah, trust me, I had some problems with chemistry when I was in college. When I saw cover art for Compounded and its logo I really liked it. If only it is not about chemistry, huh?

It was a few months ago when I saw cover art for New Bedford. I saw it on the front page of BGG site and I gave this cover Thumb Up even though usually I don’t do this. Some publishers are my friends, some are not, I try to not thumb up too often. It’s geeks, gamers, users job to give thumbs, not publishers. But well, this cover was a masterpiece. Thumbs up from me.

Three dots. VivaJava, Compounded, New Bedford. Believe it or not, but at this point I wasn’t able to connected these dots yet…

***

It was BGGcon when I was playing Black Fleet with a bunch of gamers, having a tremendous time and talking about games. At some point discussion was about good game for 7 players and they mentioned VivaJava.

This coffee game?! I asked really surprised.

It’s very good, especially with 6 or 7 players! they replied.

A coffee game?! It was hard for me to believe it.

Yes, it is pretty neat. You should try it. 

That was a surprise for me but, well, if they say I should try, I have to try. I noted down to check coffee game later.

That was an epic moment of my ignorance, but well, I am just this funny dude from Poland, right? After I came to Poland, it  finally clicked. Listen to this…

The cool guy with whom I was battling like crazy in Black Fleet happened to be Darrel Louder, designer of Compounded. I began to investigate this. I discovered that Compounded was published by Dice Hate Me Games, publisher who also published VivaJava. And then I discovered that not only Compounded looks amazing, but VivaJava also is a beautiful, stunning graphic design. And yes, of course, few seconds later I discovered that this amazing cover for New Bedford is part of the team – Dice Hate Me Games.

Oh, really?

It took me a few years. I was receiving different signals and finally I managed to connect it all, to put it on the map along with a Dice Hate Me podcast, with Unpub events and with T.C. Petty III, with whom I was tweeting like crazy at Gen Con 2013 trying to set a session of Robinson Crusoe. It was all here, in front of my eyes.

***

Every story needs an ending. I prefer good endings and this story has one. First of all, I have Compounded on my desk, signed by Darrell. VivaJava is in my top5 games to bring home from Gen Con 2015. But there is more. I realized one more thing. Super tiny but funny detail. It was Chris Kirkman, CEO of Dice Hate Me Games who bought the very last copy of Why Can’t We Be Friends at BGG.con

In the evening I found one lost copy of this expansion in my luggage and I think I tweeted about this or something, and Chris found me and bought it. Of course, I had no idea that he is the guy behind all these great designs and games. It was few days before I connected the dots.

***

Two weeks ago Imperial Settlers won Dice Hate Me Game of the Year runner up award. Luckily, at this point I had all dots connected.

Last weekend was pretty unusual for me. Believe it or not, but I did not play any new games. Yeah, I know. It’s like hashtag woow, hashtag really?!

It was crazy rush to discover all those new releases from Gen Con, and then to discover all those releases from Essen, and then to play games I brought from BGGcon (and in the meantime trying to catch up with different releases on Polish market). It was six months of reading rulebooks, setting up new games over and over. Playing new game once or twice and opening a new one. And another one. And another one.

So last weekend we did with Merry something extraordinary. We closed (literally!) all those new ’to-play’ games in a closet and we decided we won’t open it for a few days. Then we took old games from shelf. Those with dust on them. Those we love and we had no time to play for a long time.

We played Lewis & Clark. We played Dragonheart. We played Theseus. And I tell you, it was a tremendous weekend.

With old game it is so simple. When you play it, you feel like home. You know all rules, you don’t browse through rulebook, you don’t feel confused. You feel comfortable, you feel safe.

You can really explore the mechanisms. You start seeing all those small cogs that fuel the game. You can easily understand what does opponent (this is so important!) and prepare and react for that. You see the whole picture, the whole game play instead of just trying to understand what’s going on on your part.

If I can make a crazy comparison I’d say that playing those new games over and over is like watching one episode of a great show. It’s like watching 5th episode of House of cards. It’s like watching 8th episode of Homeland. It’s like watching 11th episode of Lost.

You watch this episode, you understand there is something here, something you like, but to be honest you don’t exactly understand what’s going on.

Playing old game, is like starting to watch first episode of second season of House of Cards after you just finished season 1. You now everything, you understand the plot, you know characters, you are ready to taste it with all your senses. It’s a treat.

So my message to you today is – give old games some love. I promise you, you won’t regret it. Hashtag treat.

When I was a kid and I was thinking about future I had that dream about computers that will be so awesome someday that it will be possible to get footage of Harrison Ford from Indiana Jones movies and use it to make Indiana Jones V and VI, and VII and VIII…

There will be some sort of character director who will exactly program this computer Harrison Ford character and that way best actors will be immortal.

It was stupid idea.

It was stupid idea, because the problem with sequels in most cases is not aging actor, but screenwriter who is unable to come up with a story that is as good and magical as it was in base movie.

In 2015 we will have sequels for Terminator, Mad Max and of course Star Wars.

Please, screenwriters! Let a little bit too old actor be the only problem…

You saw plenty of Top10’s these days, huh? Many blogers and vlogers published their Top10 of 2014. These lists are super popular and are really fun to watch or read.

(BTW: There is even a geek list dedicated to different Top10 lists and it calculates the ultimate winner from different lists).

Craziness but I like it. We wait the whole year, we play lots of games and now we want to sum up the year and prepare for 2015.

Imperial Settlers appeared on some of these list. The game made it to some of these Top10’s and let me tell you – this is super flattering and super kind. Seeing my own game in one of the tops of the year is something extraordinary and really really cool.

But!

But it wasn’t on all of these list! Really! There are some people out there who doesn’t think Imperial Settlers is that good! Tom Vasel? No! Dan Thurot? No! Dan King? NO!!!

So much disappointment for me! 😉

But being serious – 2014 was great and motivating. I look at many of releases and I know I need to try harder now, because our industry is growing like crazy and our hobby is in an amazing shape now. Imperial Settlers was the best Portal Games could put out in 2014 and we were proud that we did catch up with big releases at Gen Con 2014 but now we are in 2015 and I have to do something better, I have to try harder, because everybody improves, everybody tries harder, everybody pushes our hobby beyond limits.

I tell you this, it’s awesome feeling. This race for putting better and better games, having better and better components, this competition of talent, passion and creativity.

My friends, fellow publishers and designers. It was a great time to compete with you in 2014. I honestly congratulate you Five Tribes and Star Realms, and King of New York and Spyfall and many more…

But it is January 2015 now.

I challenge you. It’s time to raise the bar. Again.

So we are officially done with great year of 2014. I know that dust after the battle has not yet settled, I know that we have not yet played all the games we purchased in December, we are still excited about all great releases of 2014. I know that. All those list of Top10 games of 2014 are poping up just like ads when you visit website with illegal movies. I mean one after another. Like crazy.

You are still excited about Dead of Winter or Imperial Assault or Mysterium or Spyfall and many other great games that were published in 2014 and you did not have chance yet to play them.

Right? So much good stuff to play!

But here is the best – when you are trying to catch up with 2014, all publishers are already working damn hard to give you another set of great games in 2015. While you are catching up with all those great 2014 titles, we are doing final touches on 2015 releases. In February there is Nuremberg fair and publishers will present all those great designs to each other and negotiate local editions, and then in March there is Gama Trade show, and few weeks later Origins…

Time goes like crazy. I see all your tweets about you discovering Imperial Settlers, but let’s face it – I am already preparing for the new battle, I am already preparing for Gen Con 2015, I am already preparing new games. And so does each of publishers.

2014 was amazing year for our hobby. But let me tell you this: 2015 will be better.