I was afraid of 2013. No, really. Look at our previous years. There was a sad cycle going on…

2007
We published Neuroshima Hex. It was amazing success for our small company then! We were first time in Essen, we got great reviews, licenses were sold to ZMAN and IELLO. We were in heaven.

2008
We published Witchcraft. I love this game, but we had no success with it. It wasn’t popular, it was too abstract and heavy, barely we managed to sell all copies. No reprint ever done. No licenses sold…

2009
We published Stronghold. Man, that was ride of my life. We were sold in a few weeks, we sold licenses to US, German and French market. Countless nominations for awards. Great ratings. We were in heaven indeed.

2010
We published 51st State. It wasn’t that bad. Although we screw up with rulebook, with tokens… We did lots of mistakes… Game got good ratings, got some nominations for awards, was licensed… But it was few miles away from being in heaven…

2011
Well, 2011 was far from heaven. It was quite opposite than heaven. We published Pret-a-Porter. What a crazy idea that was! Yeah, game had great ratings at BGG. Yeah, was nominated to IGA, Polish Game of the year, even Tom Vasel said he may like fashion… But sells were terrible. After two years we barely sold all copies. No licenses sold. No commercial success. Never again I will do a game about fashion

2012
OK, that was heaven. Robinson Crusoe. What can I say. You know everything…

2013
And here we are, 2013. I was scared. It seemed that for the past few years we had this sucking cycle – after very good year for us, there is a year of much smaller success. It seemed like for small company like ours creating worldwide known game is very exhausting. Game that goes year after is never that popular. It is good, it has good reviews and ratings, it even gets awards, but it has no commercial success.

So here we are, 2013, year after Robinson. My experience say this year may suck. I was really scared.

***

Last week I announced pre-orders for our bundle pack, for Legacy, Theseus and Voyage of the Beagle. 

Soon after you decided to send me an email.

Yes, you. I mean… All of you.

I should expect unexpected…

This weekend I sent 290 (two hundred and ninety!) emails as replies to your pre-orders and questions. There were moments when I almost cried in front of monitor. I spent whole damn Saturday and whole damn Sunday answering your emails. It was hardcore weekend.

I replied one email, I received 2.
I replied one email, I received 3.

At some point, Saturday evening I got breakdown. After spending 6 hours with my laptop replaying emails, I got more emails in my inbox, than before I start replaying. Never had such situation in my life before. emails were coming faster than I was able to answer…

But I survived. I will remember this weekend for a long time, but I survived and I replied every single email I received from you guys.

***

Today I am happy to announce that it looks like Portal Games has grown up. We are adult company now. We had a tremendous success with Robinson Crusoe and this year, second time in a row we are doing damn good again, this time with Legacy and Theseus. 

At this moment I have twice as much pre-orders for Legacy as I had for Robinson.

And you keep sending me new ones. Every. Single. Hour…

Essen 2013, we are coming. Second time in a row, we are going to rock and roll!

A very talented designer with a very hard name… [http://files.neuroshima.org/ready7a.mp3] 

At the beginning Theseus was called Pandora. We really liked the name, it was easy to remember, it had great connotations with mythology, it was widely known word. And there was one tiny problem – there were 5 different games with that name in BGG database.

So we had to find something new. That’s how we found Theseus.

*

Pandora was inspiring word. At some point Michal came to office and said that he has this idea for fifth faction. It’s called Pandora. 

’It will be a disease’, he said. 'It will grow and affect enemy in a nasty ways. Very different, very unique faction.’

Yeah, idea was cool. But I had to make his dream collapse.

’We can’t afford 5th faction in the box. My budget is already very tight. We aim for 36 euro box. We have unique boards, lots of cards, wooden pawns… There is no way I can add something more. Keep Pandora for expansion. We design game for 2-4 players, we will have 4 factions. I can not put more cards and boards into box, sorry.’

Michal said he understand it.

We got back to testing 4 factions. Weeks passed. Finally we changed name from Pandora into Theseus. I forgot about 5th faction…

*

One Wednesday Michal came to office to play-test Theseus. 

’I have Pandora with me’ he said.

’It’s called Theseus now. Get used to this name, man!’ I said smiling.

’I mean fifth faction. Pandora. I have it ready.’ he said.

’I told you I can’t afford it. Production of the game is already very expensive with those all unique boards.’

’Let me show you’ he said.

He took zip bag and poured few tokens. He looked at me with pride with his eyes and smiled.

’Can your budget handle few more tokens?’ he asked.

’That’s it? Few tokens?’, I was really stunned.

’Yes’ he said.

’And it works?’, I couldn’t believe he really did Pandora faction.

’You will love it’, he said.

*

So here we are. We have game for 2-4 players with 4 different factions… and he have 5th faction in the box. It’s added because we have dreams. It’s added because we believe impossible is possible. It’s added because Michal is stubborn son of a bitch and couldn’t agree budget taking control over his game. He spent as much time as needed and used his talent and passion to design faction that will fit my budget.

We give you more than you expect. We want you smile when you open the box. We want you think: „These guys at Portal really love their job…’

***

Me and Michal have one history – we both have RPG roots. Portal Games was founded in 1999 as a RPG company. We wrote together few RPG, dozen of expansions, countless number of articles and adventures for RPG. 

We both love good stories.

However, our approach to board game design is totally different. I design story driven – often too fiddly – huge games like Stronghold or Robinson. He designs quite abstract, very clear games like Neuroshima Hex or Witchcraft.

(What is funny, both of us think that our games are super thematic.)

At some point, when I was talking with Michal about Theseus I was really surprised with his approach – it looked like all faction cards have not only rules but also a story behind them. Michal exactly knew why each card was in the game not only in terms of rules and balance, but also in terms of story of this faction.

He knew exactly what’s going on on this space station.

’We should show it to players.’ I said.

’What?’ he asked.

’Show them why these factions are on Theseus and why are they fighting.’ I said.

It took us few weeks to find a good way to show you this story…

*

Do you know term gamebook? Have you played or at least hear about Choose Your Own Adventure or Fighting Fantasy? Played Freeway Warrior created by Joe Dever?

We have RPG roots. We can tell stories. We can tell you what’s going on on Theseus in a really fun way…

*

I must say, it was not easy. I must say, it was much more work than we expected. I must say… I was crazy when I got this idea about writing 4 small gamebooks, one for each of the 4 main factions. 4 short stories that will unfold mysteries of Theseus. I admit, it was insane dream. Dream that showed me back of each faction board hiding QR code that heads player to small PDF file with a gamebook dedicated to this faction…

We didn’t have to do it. This is effort no one expect from us. This is something that isn’t industry standard.

It’s added because we have dreams. It’s added because we believe impossible is possible. It’s added because we want to raise bar.

We want to add more than you expect. We want you smile when you open the box. We want you think: „These guys at Portal really love their job…”

***

Dear gamers,
Yes, we love our job.
I believe that none of you, who read this blog doubt it.
Expect unexpected. And watch us raising bar.

Ignacy Trzewiczek
Portal Games

I was struggling for couple of weeks about this post. I knew that I need to tell you about Theseus. I knew that you wait for information about this brand new game designed by Michal Oracz. But I also knew that I love this game…

I can’t talk about it without passion and love. I can’t talk about it other way than just praise. I can’t pretend that I am not amazed with Theseus. I can’t convince you that my description of the game is in the slightest way neutral. I can’t state that anything I say about this game is objective truth.

Because it’s not.

These all words below are words coming from the mouth of a fan.

Everything I say today, you need to divide into half, because I am fan of Theseus.
Everything I show you today, you need to treat with reserve, because I am fan of Theseus.
Everything I point as a great in this game, you need to consider carefully having in mind… that I am fan of Theseus.

I am honest. I don’t want to give you some marketing bullshit that big companies would give you. I just want to tell you truth – why I am in love with Theseus.

***

Factions
We have Marines, Scientists, Aliens and Greys. Each faction has 3 action pawns and 25 cards. 

*

They all look quite the same… till the moment you start playing Marines…

…till the moment your Marines put Battle position on one of the Sectors and make hell to every single opponent’s pawn that will be so stupid to stop there.
…till the moment your Marines put Barricades card on one of the Sectors and become immune to opponent’s attacks there.
…till the moment your Marines put Mine card in one Sector, and second Mine card in other Sector and another one in yet another Sector… You’ll hear sounds of explosions every time your opponent moves his pawn. 'I love smell of napalm’ you’ll say. You play Marines. No f… doubt about this, right?

*

These cards look quite the same… till the moment you start playing Aliens…

…till the moment your Aliens use Vent shortcut cards and simply ignore rules of movement in the game. Shsh, shshs… you sneak in shadows and move among the sectors the way you want to move – ignoring every rules that would stay on your way…
…till the moment your Aliens put Tentacles in one of the Sectors making it damn hard to move through, making it trap for enemy, making it place where they will die… …till the moment your Aliens put Incubator card and start growing new small aliens that will infect enemy…

*

These cards look quite the same… till the moment you start playing Scientists…

…till the moment your Scientists use Camera cards and begin gather Victory Points in spite of the fact that enemy tries to kill them. Enemy shoots but you don’t give a shit, you’re dying, but you’re gathering data and enemy can’t do anything about this.
…till the moment you use Med labs to keep you alive, till the moment you use Remote control cards to make space station work for you every round! You use technology to outsmart enemy. Yes, he shoots but you are the smart one, you are not afraid of stupid marine, are you?

*

These cards look quite the same… till the moment you start playing Greys…

…till the moment your begin take Control over other player’s pawns and start messing with them. Telepathy is a strong weapon, trust me mate.
…till the moment you use Transfer card to steal life points from enemy and use them to heal your units…
…till the moment you simply use Teleport and do whatever you need… Yeah, Greys can do nasty things…

*

Just like with Neuroshima Hex, Michal took few cards (tokens in Neuroshima Hex) and make the impossible – unique factions that differ in a way that seems unachievable! They let you play different strategies and let you feel their unique theme even though there is only few cards in the game. 

This is Michal’s strength. This is his footprint. This is his mark. Factions.

***

Two levels of decision

When you activate one of your pawns, you move it number of spaces equal to the number of pawns that are in this very sector.

Let’s say there is 1 your pawn and 2 enemy’s pawns in the sector. If you move your pawn, you will move exactly 3 spaces and later on your enemy will move exactly 2 spaces. That’s the rule.

This is clear, right? How this influence game play? When you move, you change movement of the enemy. You move out from the Sector and his movement changes. This let you do amazing stuff.

Each round you decide:
– which Sector you want to reach with one of your pawns,
– which Sector you don’t want enemy to reach in his round with one of his pawns.

Every single round is important choice to be made. Every single round you have decision – if you mess with enemy and make his movement sucks or you focus on your goals and move your pawns to get maximum benefit possible.

This allows you to test different strategies – you can play more nasty and try to think about enemy future movement, you can play more focused on your goals and try to earn as much as possible with each of your moves.

And always, after each game it leaves you with this amazing feeling: 'I should play it differently at this particular moment…’

***

Living board

With nearly every move you make, you can put into a game one of your cards and install it on any Sector or you can discard one card from opponent’s reserve. Once again, you play nasty and discard enemy cards or you focus on your faction and install as many your cards as possible.

Board is changing, constantly changing into unique blend of new features and abilities. One of the Sectors is in Fire, other has Trap detector installed, in one sector Aliens installed Nest, in the other Roots, one sector is dominated by Scientists with Recorders, Med lab and Secret passage, other is in control of Greys…

Each time you play, board has different features and combos. Each time you play you try to make Sectors work for you. Each time you play you create some kind of deadly mechanism, you put cards into play, you put them in different Sectors so they begin to work together and give you deadly tools…

This game is about creating deadly tool. This is about reshaping board into your home, it is about making it safe place for you and deadly place for enemy. This is about slowing him in this sector and putting Mine there and then starting Fire in the next Sector. You make him cry each time he steps into this region of the board…

At some point the board is full. At some point board is working in it’s unique own way. At some point it will be clear – you did your job better or the opponent. Each time you move you cry or you smile? Moving among the Sectors makes his Faction die or your…?

During tests we were noting down some of the most amazing combinations we managed to create. We knew that they are unique, that replaybility from these 100 cards and 7 sectors is huge and we need to save this spectacular combos. We will make a small video about them. We want to show you how incredible things can be created with this game.

***

Theseus is amazing tactical game. It is unforgiving game. You need to be focused. You need to make important choices. It is a deadly challenge, with low luck factor. Challenge that may leave you after play with this sad feeling: 'He smashed me down, because he played better.’

Depending on your character you will say: 'Revenge!’
Or you pass and look for less confrontational game.

I say 'Revenge.’