Small room, maybe 20 tables in total. Everything is well taken care of, with heart poured into literally every element. There are elegant red tablecloths, huge prints of game tokens decorating the walls, and a cafeteria offering free coffee, tea, and snacks.

This convention was made for fans, by fans. I stepped into the room, and immediately felt like I went at least two decades back. Back to all the events organized by fantasy clubs, to all the non-commercial conventions made with real passion. For fans, by fans.

It had no right to succeed. Not that I wasn’t curious or intrigued. I wanted it to be a great experience, but I just knew it was bound to fail.

Even before it all started, I said: “After 45 minutes, I will stop listening to the rules explanation. I have my limit of information absorption, and it’s exactly 45 minutes.”

And, of course, he didn’t explain all the rules in 45 minutes. It took him another 15 minutes, but I stopped listening. I’m a wordy person—if I say I will process nothing more, I will process nothing more. I had to learn the rules of transporting ground troops with amphibious aircraft in practice when German soldiers landed on my shore in Plymouth.

Przemek, who was explaining the rules, wanted to make it easier for us. He prepared three A3 pieces of paper with tables describing the rules and actions of smaller factions in the conflict—Yugoslavia, Belgium, Greece, and a dozen other countries. Player’s cheat sheet. On three A3 pieces of paper. For some people, it’s helpful. For others, it’s a reason for a heart attack before the game.

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.

Those guys couldn’t agree for the life of them, and it’s strange because the matter was simple, basically, no room for disagreement – one of them bought Frostpunk, they played it, and instead of rating the game on BGG and giving a clear message to the world whether the game is good or bad, they started arguing. Absurd.

Steve: First of all, the game looks AMAZING. The so-called table presence is at the highest level here, large beautifully illustrated cards, huge tiles of terrain, a lot of large, double-layered boards, and of course, the tower – a gigantic model of a generator, into which we will throw coal cubes and check whether the generator has burned out. You look at the table with Frostpunk spread out, and you’re blown away. It’s brilliant.