I try to play as much as I can. I do play because I like games, I do play because I am vulnerable to hype, I do play because I love to see new great ideas from other designers.

Of course, for most of the time I need to play my own prototypes and it takes a lot of time, I have not enough time to play games published by other designers. I do my best, but still, it is damn hard to catch up with all those great games published every year.

Yesterday I was writing about great games of 2013. Today I want to write about great – so it seems! – games of 2013 that I did not play yet. My disgrace list consist of games that were not on my radar, games I haven’t played, games I have nothing about:

• Battle for souls,
• Serpent’s Tongue,
• Targi,
• Pax Porfiriana
• Sushi Go!
• La Boca

I know nothing, literally nothing about these games. How on Earth this is possible that these titles missed my radar? Have you played them? Any recommendations? 🙂

Without a doubt you saw nominations for Golden Geek Awards. I wrote about this awards in one of my recent posts – basically this is you, this is you gamers giving us, designers and publishers your vote. You choose what you liked most. This is vox populi. I love it.

I looked at nominated games and woow, so many great games!

Board Game: 2-Player Game – look at these titles! BattleCON: Devastation of Indines is one of the games Tom Vasel was raving about for many months, super fun street fighter type game. I have it on my shelf, I will play it in a few days. I can’t wait. BattleLore (second edition). Do I need say anything more? New BattleLore. This is a game! The Duke – one of highlights of Gen Con 2013, I was really dreaming about this game but price was a little bit too high for me, but I know it is an amazing game and I know, one day I will buy it. Le havre for two. Brillant. Mage Wars – I wrote a dedicated post to Mage Wars few months ago. What a game! Polis, super board game from Spain, I am eager to play it, I heard so much good stuff about this title. Star Wars X-Wing (yes, Sam Healey you see that? Two player game. 2 not 3 ;), pure awesomeness, with cool models, simple rules and super fun game play. And this is only half of this. Can you believe it? All those games published in the last few months.

or let’s look at card games:

Board Game: Card Game – Let me begin with Love Letter, small game that changed our hobby, began new trend, opened whole new category of games. This is a game that make a revolution in our hobby! And I love it and my Merry love it and I can’t say enough good words about this mini game. On the other hand, Mike Selinker’s Pathfinder. What a box! I will play it tomorrow, but even though I haven’t played it yet, there is no doubt – this is great title. The one that will be played and played over many years.  Smash Up for those who like pure fun, Bruges for those who hate theme in games 😉 Legendary, Mage Wars…

Category that blows my mind is Family games. I mean, this is hall of fame of our hobby. Look at this: Escape, a game that changes 10 minutes into celebration of pure fun, let me stay around table with my kids and throw dice, shout, scream and have most intense 10 minutes ever. Mice and Mystic which combines super production value with storytelling like no other. What can be better than gather around the table with family and tell a story… And we have more, we have Rampage that is super crazy, we have this little Qwixx, small game that looks not interesting, but when you start playing, you just keep rolling dice and have fun. And Tokaido with the most amazing artwork I’ve seen for years and Forbidden Desert. And Days of Wonder is back with a good title, so we can run for relics…

Is our hobby innovative? Oh, man, look at this category! Escape and Space Duel with real time dice rolling, Love letter with a game that consist of only 16 cards,  Pathfinder that manages to put RPG into cards (I will play tomorrow, I will play tomorrow, I will play tomorrow), and last but not least, Terra Mystica with bringing euro-boring-experience onto highest ever level! 😉

And this list go on, with Lewis & Clark (man, I love this game), Caverna (I bought it yesterday), Spyrium, Tzolkin, Freedom, Going, going, GONE!

I mean, when I saw this list, when I saw all those games in one place and when I understood – this is just a small part of our hobby, these amazing games are just a tip of the iceberg, just releases from one single year this blew my mind. This is whole damn IKEA Expedit bookstand full of super cool games that were published in just 12 months.

Our hobby is in a great moment. And two games that I published, Robinson Crusoe and Legacy are in a very good company. I am so proud. Thank you for putting me there.

I am not tech guy. I have constant and rather pathetic problems with computers, with GPS, with smart phone, with everything. I mean, there is no electronic device on this planet that I can use without problems. Each of this smart tech gadgets failed me someday in the past. I hate them.

But!

Even though I hate them, I know how they are important. I know that I need to use my smart phone to be in touch with my friends at Twitter, I need to be in touch with our fans at Facebook, I need my smart phone to post pics to Instagram. I use technology to be in touch with people who like my games.

The question – why the hell at every big convention there is no free wi fi?  Why I can’t tweet when I am at Gen Con and I meet cool people? Why can’t I upload photos right from the heart of Essen? Why I can’t share news on Facebook when I am at Nurnberg?

Do organizers of this events know that me, and 10 000 other bloggers would make a huge positive buzz around this event if they have free wi fi?

So my my question today is: people who run this events don’t know about this huge technology shift that has been made in the last 2 years, they don’t know that we all use smarthones and post photos and updates every damn minute to be in touch with our friends? They don’t know we need free wi fi these days?

Or for some reasons this is impossible because of technology problems. Anyone knows the reason? Anybody can explain me this mystery? Is it technology or is it people?

I desecrated Nurnberg fair. I say this straight, I went there and desecrated it. Celebration of our hobby, everybody happy, smiled, everybody’s wearing suit andtie. Publishers present new games, talk about plans, praise their achievements. Beautiful hall, exhibitions, presentations, lasting four days celebration of gaming world.

Well, and me. His Majesty Trzewik, wearing blue jeans, with a backpack on his back, blown hair and a big problem with lackoftime. I ran into halls, I met each partner, with whom I wanted to meet and click, I’m gone. Nuremberg took me six hours and forty minutes.

I exaggerated my objectives point of view for the fair. I had meetings and I had nothing more. In 6 hours I made 10 meetings. A taste of the fair?No. Discovering plans of other publishers? No. Having fun? Nope.

This was bad. This was crazy.

I will never do it again. Next year I will lower my objective oriented approach. I will spend more time having some fun. So, sorry for lack of report from Nurnberg. I have only few photos. And not to many anecdotes…