It was 2015, I think. Our fan base in the US was growing like crazy, it was almost 10 years after our Essen debut, and I felt stunning support from the geeks’ community. At some point in the office, we came up with the idea to make a photo contest for our fans. It was almost a decade ago, far before Tik Tok, Facebook groups, and all that jazz. Instagram was already a thing, but not too much in the board games niche. We had a ton of standard product photos but wanted some creativity. We asked fans for help.

The contest, as you can assume, was super successful, we received many photos, photos that I was posting on Portal Games’ social media channels for years. The creativity of Portal Games fans was impressive. The photo above is the one that won the contest. It’s been years, and I cannot express how much I love the simplicity of the idea behind it and the message it sends.

It’s exactly what Robinson Crusoe is all about. The unknown. The walk. The adventure.

I remember being a kid and being honestly perplexed when my school friends were complaining about Robinson Crusoe. Thick, boring book, with no dialogues. They whined. In Poland, Robinson Crusoe was mandatory reading in school. Every kid was complaining. For me, it was the novel of my life, even though my life was like ten years long at the moment. I loved it.

Years passed. High school. College. Life. I was a book worm, and geek, and a gamer. I discovered RPG, found a game company, wrote few RPG games, started a family. Robinson Crusoe was with me all the time. I read it few more times, watch all the movies about it, even designed an indie RPG game about castaways that never got published.

Then I discovered board games. I designed Witchcraft (2008), Stronghold (2009), 51st State (2010), and Pret-a-Porter (2010). Early 2011 I felt I am ready. I felt I have enough skills and knowledge about game design to do Robinson Crusoe justice and make it into the best board game I can ever design.

It was 10 years ago.

As for today, the game has nearly 100k logged plays on BGG. It sold in more than 200k copies worldwide. Released in 12 different languages all over the planet. And exactly today, on Sunday, April 11th, 2021, the new edition of the game, this full-blown fantastic Collector’s Edition, passed 2 million USD on the Gamefound platform. Quite the milestone.

And even though the design is 10 years old, I still look at it with pride and satisfaction, and I strongly believe I did Robinson Crusoe justice.

I like to think that this 10 years old Ignacy would be pretty darn proud of me right now.

Here is a couple of cool tweets that made me smile this past week. I hope you’ll enjoy them too!

@trzewik first, build a shelter.

— Keith Collins (@MajMalfunction) August 18, 2015

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@trzewik Great family gaming night! Played Rattle Battle Grab the Loot!! The whole family had a blast! 9yr old wins pic.twitter.com/ye7vJJKx1B

— OneBoardGamer (@OneBoardGamer) August 17, 2015

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Then we put together weird ships in Rattle, Battle from @trzewik. pic.twitter.com/cZDiWyb6p5

— Dan Thurot (@DanThurot) August 17, 2015

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@trzewik Which Imperial Settlers characters have WAY MORE image thumbs on BGG? Inside-the-box NINJAS! #PortalatNight pic.twitter.com/muDdEHPuIk

— Chris Schreiber (@knobuddy) August 19, 2015

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Few days ago nominations for Golden Geek Awards began – biggest and most important award from players. There is a few famous awards in our hobby:

Spiel des Jahres – award from Germany, oldest award in our hobby. It all began in 1979! This award is super important in Germany – when you get it, your game will sell like crazy. Rest of the world looks at SdJ with interest and respect.

International Gamers Award – award organized by group of reviewers and insiders from our hobby. These are gamers from different parts of the world. There are 20 people involved in the committee. First award was given in 2000. I have an honor to got nominations for IGA for my three games: Stronghold, Pret-a-Porter and Robinson.

The Dice Tower Awards – young award (founded in 2007). Committee includes people from The Dice Tower Network – biggest group of podcasters. In 2009 Portal Games was nominated for Small Publisher category and last year Robinson Crusoe was nominated for Game of the Year category.

And there is a Golden Geek Award, award where committee is quite big – these are users of boardgamegeek.com On one hand this is very young award (it all began in 2006), on the other hand number of people allowed to vote is mind-blowing!Boardgamegeek.com has 800 thousands users and although not every user can vote, this is still damn huge committee! This is vox populi. These are gamers for whom we do design games! I had a honor to got nomination for Golden Geek for Stronghold and for 51st State.

What’s coming this year? Couple of titles have a chance! Geeks can vote for Robinson Crusoe, Legacy, Theseus and Voyage of the Beagle. This is resume of my work for the past few months 😉

If some of these titles make you happy, if you had a good time with one of these games, if you think that some of these areworth nomination… Don’t hesitate! Here is link to voting page.

This is time for you to act. This is how you say Thank you to publishers and designers. This is how you show your respect to thier work.

If you find my work worth your vote, I say Thank you. Thank you very much!

Last Friday I sent to play-testers 8th scenario for Robinson Crusoe. As you who played this board game know, Robinson Crusoe is some sort of portal to different adventures – each of them very deeply inspired by classic adventure stories created by Julius Verne or his followers. From Castaways scenario till Robinson Family, each scenario was inspired by one of great books or movies of this great genre.

8th scenario goes further. It tells an amazing and what is most important true story of doctor Livingstone. And I would die, if I don’t tell you this story…

***

David Livingstone (born 19 March 1813) was a Scottish medical missionary and an explorer in Africa. He run a couple of successful expeditions, he was kind a though bastard with a passion in his heart. You can learn more about him and his expeditions reading history books, but for now just take it for granted – he was the Explorer. 

And as you can guess, one day he got into troubles. He got lost.

Livingstone completely lost contact with the outside world for six years. Only one of his 44 letter dispatches made it to Zanzibar. One surviving letter to Horace Waller, made available to the public in 2010 by its owner Peter Beard, reads: 'I am terribly knocked up but this is for your own eye only, … Doubtful if I live to see you again …’

This one letter arrived. Was frightening. And had potential of a good story. That’s where New York Herald and young journalist Henry Morton Stanley come up…

***

New York Herald announces that is sending expedition to find and rescue doctor Livingstone. And it is going to go live…

Today we have all types of reality shows, from Big Brother, Real Housewives of Miami to MTV’s True live. In 1871 they had their own – Tracking doctor Livingstone. Every single week New York Herald was publishing report written by Henry Morton Stanley sent right from Africa with description of his adventures and progress of expedition. They had the story.

Reading biography of Julius Verne I found an interesting part. Story of tracking doctor Livingstone was so popular those times and New York Herald got so much attention and higher sells, that editor of magazine ordered Stanley to not find Livingstone too soon! So Stanley was visiting different parts of region, writing dreadful stories of his journey and was keeping the story alive for many months. 

Awesome, isn’t it?

Finally he found doctor Livingstone…

***

So you can imagine. You are in a heart of Africa. You found a village. There is a white man there. Only one white man in this region, and saying this region I mean thousands of miles around you. It is the town of Ujiji on the shores of Lake Tanganyika, 10 November 1871. Clearly this is the end of expedition. Clearly Stanley’s found Livingstone. So what does he do? He approaches Livingstone and says words that will become one of the most famous quotes of journalism. He says: 'Dr. Livingstone, I presume?’ 

It is always good to remember about etiquette, right?

***

8th scenario for Robinson tells this story. You are taking expedition to find doctor Livingstone. Keep this story in mind when you will play it. Let us honor this two great explorers of XIX century!