Since 2009 I had a fun at Essen. I was doing interviews, demos, was signing games and basically hang out with gamers. Coolest job on that planet.

It was possible, because my friends from Rebel Games (they are my distributor) took care of all business stuff. I did not need to do any business. Only fun stuff.

Unfortunately, this year things gonna change. Portal grows. Rebel grows. We have too much to do at fair. Rebel can not do my job for me anymore. We are friends. We help each other, but at some point we just have to make hard decisions. One of them is – Essen is no longer a party time for me. I need to go to work.

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I am telling you that because for the past few years at Essen I was super available for you. I was always having time to chat, always time to sign box, take photo… I was at Portal Games booth nearly all the time just to have fun with you, gamers.

This year it is gonna change. For most of the time I will be sitting somewhere at business lobby and do serious stuff. Sign contracts, not boxes.

Since some of you may want to talk to me at Essen, ask some rule questions, or whatever else and many of you at my Twitter feed was telling me that will drop by to say hello, I am more than afraid that someone could be disappointed coming to Portal Games booth and see no Trzewik there. I decided I will post here hours when I will be sitting there for 100% available for you to chat, have fun and talk about games. I am happy to meet you at Portal booth:

Thursday:
10:30 – 13:00

Friday
14:00 – 16:00

Sunday
12:30 – till end

Not too much. I know.

For the rest of the time I will be running here and there, from one meeting to another. I will try to be at Portal Games booth as often as possible, between meetings, but I have many many of them this year. I am sorry I can not be as available for you as in the past.

But! (there is always a but!)
I have an idea! We can meet on Thursday, 24th of October at pub! After halls close, me and Portal Games team will go to Drago an der Gruga, Alfredstraße 122 45131 Essen restaurant that is VERY close to Essen halls.

I will try to reserve tables on Wednesday. We can hang out, have a good time and talk there! (Next Wednesday I will post right from Germany confirmation that reservation of tables is made.) I hope we will have a good time there!

What is more…
Let’s be honest! This time I am not author of new Portal Games release! You guys shouldn’t hunt me anyway! You need to hunt Michiel Hendriks! Have him sign your copy! Take picture with him! Congratulate him great game! 

I am happy to say that Michiel is our guest and will be at Essen at Portal Games booth all the time. He will be available for you, running demo games, smiling, signing boxes. Although he can’t draw a cow (like I do!), but on the other hand he looks much better on the pictures than I do!

This year Michiel is in the spotlight!

What is more…
What is more, we will have Mateusz Bielski at our booth too! Author of amazing art for our games, responsible for many great artwork for Legacy, Convoy, Theseus…

Mateusz will be there with us. He will sign cards, he will sign boxes, he will draw you cool drawings. And let’s face it, Matuesz is like superman – he can draw a cow and he does look better on the pictures than me!

What is more…
What is more we will have Marion who co-developed with me and Robert (and army of great testers!) Voyage of the Beagle. If you want to meet most devoted Robinson Crusoe fan in Germany, Marion will hang out with us at Essen every day and will present you Voyage of the Beagle and gossip about developement process!

We have great games, we have great guests, we will have great Essen! You are all invited! Hall 1 booth E142

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And since I like to have always something interesting for you and always try to have a surprise… I am happy to announce that next Thursday, 24th of October I start small project on Kickstarter! I have this small crazy idea and I want to see if this small dream can turn into reality. 

You will be first to know.

Next Wednesday I will announce it. I hope some of you find it interesting. Trzewik goes Kickstarter!

(yes, drawing of cows are involved in this project!)

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And because my blog is about good stories and today’s post has nothing to do with a good story I would be very disappointed to provide you only boring stuff and you would be disappointed too…

But… (there is always a…)

There is a man who few days ago wrote funny and really amazing post about me, Portal Games, Michiel and Legacy. I am happy to redirect you right to his blog and I wish you great read of his post. He has a good story for you in place of me today…

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/blogpost/23935/what-trzewiczek-portal-and-legacy-did-right

See you at Essen guys! Looking forward to meet all of you! Wish me luck at Essen

Day 0 – Wednesday, 8:00 AM. Hulk.
Have you ever been thinking how these all games get to publishers booth? I’ll tell you how – we bring them there. I may not look like Hulk, but this is exactly how it works – transport company like UPS delivers palettes of games to halls and then we need to unpack all these palettes and take all games to out stand.

1500 copies of Robinson. 1000 copies of Convoy. 1000 copies of Winter. 1000 copies of Dancer. 1000 copies of older stuff like Pret-a-Porter, The New Era, 51st State or Steel Police. Nearly 20 palettes all together.

And there are three of us to do that. Rest of the team arrives to Essen in the evening.

I may not look like Hulk but being honest, after day 0 and unpacking few thousands copies of games I am not sure why the hell I don’t look like Hulk. On Wednesday we carried few tons of games. I talked with Petr from CGE – they had nearly 10 tons of games. They don’t resemble Hulk neither.

Well, some publishers look little bit tired in the first day of the show. Try a guess why…

Day 0 – Wednesday, 2:00 PM. Willson.
At 2 PM I have demo of Robinson on BGG live stream. I go to BGG stand. I am a little bit nervous. Did you hear about stage fright? Yes, I did hear about it too. So I am there, but BGG schedule is torn in pieces. They have 30 minutes of delay. I have to wait and trust me, waiting is not helping. Waiting is making me nervous. Waiting is making me think about few things… That English is not my native language. That BGG has delay and I have to shorten my presentation because they want to lower this time problem. That in a few minutes I am going live. Worldwide.

Sophie from Z-Man Games appears at BGG stand. She greets me. She wishes me a good presentation. She will keep her fingers crossed. I tell her that I am prepared. I tell her that demo of Robinson will be great. I tell her to not worry.

There is only one thing I don’t tell her. I don’t tell her about stage fright. Yes, it just got me and hold me tight.

Finally BGG is ready. They give me microphone. We can start. We start. I am no more nervous. No more care about stage fright. I just do what I can do the best. I talk about my beloved Robinson. And this is live. And worldwide. Yes, it is.

30 minutes later we are done. My mobile starts to beep every few seconds. Many friends from Poland send me immediate feedback. They say it was good demo. I am happy. Few days later, when Essen is done I finally can watch it. Robinson’s demo happens to be – as far as I can see – most popular video from Essen 2012. 1800 views. Woow.

Day 0 – Wednesday, 5:00 PM. Z-Man’s crew
That day at 5PM demo guys from Z-Man came to our stand. We did teach them how to demo Robinson and Convoy. You know, doing demo during convention or fair is not a piece of cake. There is no space for improvisation. This something you have to prepare for.

We’ve spent whole week at Portal’s office training how to explain rules of Robinson in the easiest way possible. At the beginning it was taking us 30 minutes. Later that week we were able to explain rules of Robinson in 10 minutes. It was hard work and lots of trainings.

You need to cut off the crap. Cut off all rules that are not important at the very beginning. Cut off all unnecessary details. Be focused. Be clear. Be understandable.

You have to remember about one important thing – in Essen you will meet gamers from Germany, from France, from Italy, from whole damn world, gamers for whom English is not a native language. Your demo has to be simple. Your demo can not involve sophisticated vocabulary. Your demo has to be easy to understand for any one who can barely speak English.

We spent an hour with guys from Z-Man. We did teach them a special, dedicated for Essen set up for the game with the easiest events and cards, set up that makes demo easy. And we were lucky. Z-Mans crew was a bunch of great gamers. They picked up things in a second. I was sure we were in a good hands.

Later on I visited Z-Man’s stand to check if everything is going well and if they need any help. They showed me that they changed a little bit set up of the game. They start demo from second turn so the game speeds up from the very beginning. It was a great idea. They knew what they were doing. No need to worry. I was happy.

Day 0 – Wednesday, 7:00 PM. Everything is set.
At 7PM we were ready to go, 11 hours after leaving hotel, 11 hours of work without lunch break, dinner break, any break. Few thousand games were set at our stand. Demo of Robinson was live on BGG site. Z-Man’s crew was ready to present Robinson and Convoy.

We were tired. We were hungry. And yes, we were damn happy. Man, it’s Essen. We were waiting for that day for whole year!

Last year there were 650 game releases in Essen. A year before – as far as I recall – there were 630 . This year, the record probably will be beaten again. How many of these 600 games will get to players’ wishlists? How many of these games will manage to attract attention and leave players without 20 or 30 euro? How many games will be remembered after a year or two?

Essen 2010? 7 wonders. Vinhos. Troyes. Inca Empire. London.
Essen 2009? Dungeon Lords. Stronghold. Egizia. Small World.
Essen 2008? Dominion. Ghost Stories. La Havre. Space Alert.

600 new games each year. But only a few of them stay with us for a really long time. That’s truth. The Brutal and cruel truth..

The authors and publishers of these upcoming games are on the stand today and they start preparing for the most important race of the year. Race for players wallets. How will they try to seduce?

Theme
Great, new theme? If you have the theme, you will attract players, even if they’ve never heard about you and your publisher. Tell them that you do a 4X game, and you will immediately gather true circle of science fiction geeks. And believe me, this is a very good start. In 2009, I had my Stronghold. I had great theme. That was it. The game blasted off like a rocket.

A year earlier, in 2008, I presented in Essen a game called Witchcraft – wizards fighting each other. Have you ever heard about this game? Well…

Name
Do you have a name that makes people buy every single game of yours? An author with a recognized name is a treasure. People look for his new games, they are driving a spiral of excitement and expectation. Gossips, shots of prototype, sneak peeks from test games…

If your name is Martin Wallace, Uve Rosenberg or Bruno Faidutti, you are probably a lot less scared before Essen than young designer like Ignacy Trzewiczek.

Publisher’s reputation
Does your publisher have a known brand? Did previous games get him good reputation? Has he a bunch of regular customers who go back year after year for his titles? Such a faithful player base is a blessing.

In 2007, Portal was an anonymous company from even more anonymous Poland. I remember words from Neuroshima Hex review written by Greg J. Schloesser for Counter magazine: „I honestly do not know much – OK, anything – about the gaming scene in Poland but if Neuroshima Hex is any indication I am impressed.” Then, in 2007 we were starting from nothing.

Today, five years later, we are in much better situation, we are those people who made Neuroshima HEX, 51 State or Stronghold. I feel that, through our hard work, step by step we are getting closer to famous brands, slowly approaching CGE, Fragor or Ystari Games.

Demo games and prototypes
Had your game been presented at large cons? Did you go with the prototype and tested it by playing on every possible convention? If so, that is good. There are relations and session reports on various sites written by people who were lucky and played the game before its release. At opiniatedgamers.com there are first opinions, BGG is full of rumors – someone out there was playing, and someone saw, and it was a damn good…

Game becomes legend. You are lucky bastard. There is nothing better than a rumor saying that there is a great game out there, and there are some players who played it and apparently the game is great…

Traditional Marketing
If you can afford it, you will have banners on most important board games’ websites. You’ll expose the cover, show preorder offer, bundle offer or whatever. Finally, you get some attention, you are positioned in their minds. You show up on their wishlists. Your cover becomes recognized, theme is well known, even – in the end – people remember your stand’s number and Essen promotion price of the game.

Not very subtle, but it does its work.

Visual side
Okay. Time of honesty. Rise a hand to admit, but honestly, that sometimes a cover was so amazing that you just put the game in your bag not even knowing a single thing about rules. It is just the cover. The board? It’s the same thing. Hands up who had never heard of Mr. Menzel. People buy stuff with their eyes. Clothes, furniture, games, doesn’t matter.

Zack & Pack? I knew nothing about this game, yet I bought it. Golden Compass? I saw the board and bought the game. With a good illustration on the box player has zero chance of defense reaction. He sees the artwork and he buys the game.

Two years ago we paid a hell lot for Stronghold’s cover. For Pret-a-Porter we hired Tomasz ‘Morano’ Jedruszek. It was the most expensive artwork in the history of my company. This is the guy who works for the FFG on a daily basis and who made covers for Middle-earth Quest, Battles of Westeros or A Game of Thrones LCG. This is the guy.

A good cover is like Aikodo. It throws a man to the ground and simply makes him defenseless.

Preorders and promo stuff
A great preorder offer? Some promo stuff for free? This is something that can make a difference. If a customer has a choice of two games and cannot decide which one to pick, it is better to have some kind of limited bonus in your game for Essen occasion . A few extra cards. Additional tokens. Unique extra miniature figure.

The player will rather take the game with special Essen free figure. This second game he will probably buy after Essen. Or not at all.

Luck
Or maybe you just have a bust of luck? And maybe your stand in Essen – by accident – will be positioned next to some famous publisher and you will have large traffic? Or maybe you’ll manage to convince people that you printed only 500 copies of the game and they have to buy it now or never? Or maybe the game will be played by the boss of big US game store at a hotel lobby in the evening? Maybe he will fall in love with the game? And the next day he will buy 250 boxes from you?

Conclusion
You’ll need it all. In Essen, six hundred new games will have their debut. Famous BGG Geeklist „Top Ranked Essen Games” contains slightly more than 20 titles. So – 20 games make it and the other 580 go overboard and you will never hear about them again. This is brutal. This is cruel. This is Essen.

In 2009 and 2010 I had the honor to have my games in this 20 games list.

However, this year – after doing Neuroshima HEX, Stronghold and 51st State – I’m going to Essen with the game about clothes and fashion. Pret-a-Porter. Fashion. Clothes. Hot models.

This is crazy. I can’t believe it.

And you cannot imagine how scared I am.