I give Merry car keys. 'You drive. I work.’ I say and I sit in the back seat. I have Robinson prototype all in blood and tears after Vlaada’s comments. My beloved game was hurt and wounded. I had it right next to me. I also had sheets of paper and pencil. And I had three hours of car drive to Poland.

I came to Czech to present my great game. I going back with game torn into pieces. Oh, yes, I am pissed off.

So we are going home. Merry is driving. My daughter Lena is singing. I am working.

***

The problem – if player gets wound and as a consequence he looses skill, he is unable to fight back and get out of troubles. But on the other hand, if player gets wound and there are no consequences, he is not afraid of getting wounds. And this sucks.

I look at the notes from last night, new rules I designed in the hotel room. 'It is step in good direction…’ said Vlaada. 'Good direction’… I’ll show you 'step in good direction’…

I torn it all into pieces. I don’t want good direction. I want: 'Ignacy, this is brillant’.

Did I mention I may be a little bit angry that day? Just a little.

I took clean sheet of paper. I wrote: WOUNDS. CONEQENCES. LOOSING SKILLS.

I crossed out LOOSING SKILLS.

WOUNDS. CONSEQUENCES. I need new approach. I need new point of view. Merry is driving. Lena is singing. I am working. And I am really pissed off.

***

It always starts from a story. So I am sitting in the car and I am trying to imagine myself on the Island. I am trying to imagine that I got hurt. I am trying to imagine what is happening…

I am unhappy. I am scared. I am complaining. I want rest of team mates know that I got wounded so they know I won’t be able to work as hard as I wish. They are sad, demotivated, morale drops down. I am complaining…

Morale drops down. Hmm… Interesting. When player gets wound morale drops down. That is a new point of view.

There may be track of morale. It would show if players are motivated or not. It is one track for all. If one player gets wound, it affects this track. All group suffers. He is complaining. He is crying. He is hurt and wounded. Morale of team goes down…

Oh, yes! I got it! Merry is driving. Lena is singing. I am pissed off but I am getting close to start being happy.

***

So what we have here? Solution fits the story – which is always very important for me – if player gets wound and another wound and another one at some point he starts to complain demotivating the whole group. I can imagine it. It works with the theme, with group of people on deserted Island. Spirit of the team. One for all, all for one.

What else we have? If player gets wounded, he doesn’t loose any skills. I disconnected skills and wounds. You have skills till the very end, no matter how wounded you are. So when player is in trouble, if he gets wounded, game is not kicking him down. He is still capable to fight back.

What else? If player gets wounded whole group suffers. It means that he doesn’t want to be hurt because all players will have troubles but on the other hand if he suffers, he can still play and act and don’t feel like being next to the game. He is not having this bad feeling of being excluded from the group. He is in the game till the very end.

The problem solved. Certainly, at that moment in the car I did have no idea how morale of team would work, but it was just small detail, right? The thing – shifting wound penalty from one player to whole group was the most important.

***

Few hours later I found something more. I can differentiate characters. Explorer will have only one level of complaining. He can gets six wounds in a row and he will say no single complain. He is explorer. He used to be in much worse shit. The cook? My dear, cook is moaning pig, he complains after he gets three wounds, and then he complains after two wounds and then again, two wounds and again he is grumbling. You better have food for cook, if he is hungry, he will get 2 wounds and then will lament like a slaughtered calf.

It is fun. It – in very simple way – help diverse characters. And it help feel the character, feel the theme, feel the story. One characters will decrease morale often, other not. Ones are moaning pigs, other are tough like John McClane. This is simple and this is fun. This is good.

***

When we arrived home I was relaxed. My game was repaired. Vlaada pointed problems in my game, I managed to solve some of them during way home and now my game was much better than 3 days before. When I reached home I turn my laptop, open BGG and sent geek mail to Vlaada. I was eager to once again thank him for his help. And very eager to tell him that problem is already solved.

Well, what can I say… I may not look like Bruce Willis. But when I am pissed of I am getting better. Just like John McClane…

Czech Republic is close, so when friend of mine recommended me this small Czech convention that took place 3 hours car drive from Gliwice I didn’t think too long. I took my wife, my daughter, I took Robinson and off we go! It was March or April, spring time, great time for nice weekend in Czech. This is a beautiful country as I heard!

Certainly, I didn’t see much of Czech country. I didn’t see Czech at all. I spent two days in games room playing Robinson Crusoe and Convoy. But my wife said country was nice. She went for a small trip when I was playing…

Anyway, at some point when I was looking for new players to play test Robinson, Vlaada Chvatil appeared in the room. One of players asked him to join test game. Vlaada looked at me, looked at Robinson and said: „OK, let’s play.” We began.

The game was hard. Players quickly got wounded. Few times they were very unlucky. Because of wounds they started to loose their character’s skills (when you got some level of wounds, you were loosing skills) and they looked like in despair. Since 4th turn Vlaada started to complain.

’We are going to die. We won’t make it’

I was in good mood. The game was tough, they really needed to fight hard to survive on the island. I liked it. 'Stop complaining, fight. Do your best!’ I told Vlaada.

5th round. They got another couple of wounds and again lost some of character’s skills. 'We gonna die next round’ said Vlaada.

’Stop doing that!’ I said. 'You need to fight. You need to do your best. You need to survive. Think, try to find solution.’ I insisted.

’I do. But there is no solution. Game will kill us next round.’

Other players weren’t demotivated as much as Vlaada, they saw chances, they tried. Vlaada gave up. He saw that the end is close.

6th round. They are dead. Vlaada is right. They didn’t make it.

***

’You should try harder.’ I said. 

’Game has bad construction. We had no chances.’ Vlaada answered. He was thinking, watching cards, character boards, dices. 'If I may suggest… Well, in my opinion you have problem here Ignacy. When players got wounded, they loose skills. This is bad.’ he said.

’Are you kidding? This is awesome! It’s like Die hard! You got wounded, you are bleeding, you have broken leg, you feel pain all over your body, but you can not give up, you need to fight!’ That was exactly what I wanted. You got wounded, you loose skills, you have to try harder. 'It is like Bruce Willis, right? Wounded, bleeding but still fighting back!’

’Ignacy, it ain’t a movie. It is a boardgame.’ Vlaada replied. I don’t know if Vlaada likes Die Hard, but at that very moment, he didn’t look like he was a big fan of John McClane.

’Vlaada, c’mon! It’s like in Die Hard movie! You know, Bruce Willis in torn shirt, lots of blood and fight till the very end. Bruce Willis never gives up. That is the feeling I want to have here in Robinson. I want you bleeding, suffering but still fighting for survive!’

’It’s a boardgame. You are designer. Not director. Remember?’

***

’There is a serious problem here.’ Vlaada said. 'When you get few wounds, you loose level of wounds and you loose skills of your character.’

’Yes, this represent that you are tired, hurt and you loose your abilities…’

’Take the story aside for a moment. Focus on problem. You get wounds when you are in troubles. When situation gets tough. Whey you have problem. But the game is not helping. It is knocking you down. You got wound, you are in troubles and what is more, game takes your skill away. It is double hit. You need tools to get away from problems. But here in Robinson when you are in troubles, game takes away your tools. You get the point?’

’Yep.’ I may be John’s McClane’s fan, but I am not an idiot… 'But if character gets wound and there are no consequences, getting wound will not be problem! I need players to be afraid of wounds!’

’It doesn’t work. This mechanism is bad. You are in troubles. You get wound and at the same moment you loose tools to scramble out of this shit. This is bad.’

He was right. He just took whole 'wound mechanism’ and throw it to the bin.

I hate when people are right.

I took my prototype. I went to the room.

No, I was not crying. True John McClane’s fans don’t cry.

***

That night I didn’t sleep well. To be honest I didn’t sleep at all. Well, maybe two or three hours. Let’s face it – if Vlaada Chvatil says that your game has a problem, you don’t sleep. Right?

I spent few hours rewriting rules. Tried to find solution. I wanted players to be afraid of getting wounds but on the other hand I understood what Vlaada said about taking skills away. I changed levels of wounds that take away character’s skills. I changed skills, now when you loose them you don’t suffer as much. After few hours I had new set of skills, new levels and I was sure that now, when players got wounded, they will still have chance to fight back. But still, getting wound was bad, was something that players will try to avoid.

I caught Vlaada on breakfast. 'Got minute for me after breakfast?’ I asked. 'Yes. Actually I wanted to talk with you. I was thinking about the game last night.’

I showed him my notes. I showed him how I changed levels and skills. I showed him how I changed wound rules and consequences of wounds.

’Is it ok? This is what you were talkin’ yesterday?’ I asked.

’Well… It is step in right direction’ he said.

For all of you who don’t get it – 'step in good direction’ is polite way of saying 'Man, it sucks. Try harder.’

We talked about other problems of Robinson for an hour. Then I packed Robinson, Convoy, my wife Merry and my daughter and we drove back to Poland. My prototype was devastated.

So here is my advice for all of you – think twice when you decide to take prototype to Czech next time…

To be continued…

We are preparing final files to print Robinson Crusoe. We are ordering wooden cubes, we are ordering cards, we are preparing tens of tokens. We are doing all that stuff that I really really hate. One mistake and man, you are in serious trouble. Robinson is a huge epic game. Reminds me Stronghold. Reminds me August 2009…

***

In August 2009, when we were finishing work on Stronghold every single day I was wondering what mistake we will do. I wasn’t wondering if we make mistake. I was wondering what mistake it will be. Oh, yes, I was sure that we will botch something. Nearly 150 tokens, nearly 100 cards, 60 pages long rulebook in 3 languages, more than 300 wooden pieces. It was a big production with 'FFG’ impetus. It was like ride on rollercoaster. It was fast, exciting and it had to end badly. In August 2009 I had no doubts about that.

We were not FFG. In Portal there was 3 guys. 3 guys making biggest game in their lives. 3 guys scared as a hell. 3 guys that wanted to make good worldwide impression. 3 guys that tried to do 'FFG production’.

We had no marketing department and yet we were on #1 place on The Hotness list on BGG for many weeks before Essen. We had no budget for advertisement and yet we had movie trailer presenting Stronghold. We had no copywriters and yet with our GDJ series we were one of the most discussed games before Essen fair.

Production of Stronghold exceed our possibilities. Not twice. It exceed it ten times. We were doing our best. And yet every day we were motivating each other to try harder. It was our life time moment. Our biggest game.

You, gamers, saw cover and board of Stronghold, you read GDJ stuff, you watched movie trailer, you were participating with this whole hype and buzz, and then, after Essen you were nominating us for International Gamer Award or Golden Geek but did you know that this whole fuss was done just by 3 friends?

Production department in Portal? Whole department – Michał Oracz.
Testing team? Oh, sure! Big big team! Rafał Szyma and Ignacy Trzewiczek (and bunch of our close friends).
Marketing department? His Majesty Storyteller Ignacy Trzewiczek
Artwork director? Michał Oracz, again.
Game development team? One Man Team – Ignacy Trzewiczek, again.
Movie trailer? Michał Oracz.
Essen stand design? Michał Oracz.
etc.

Yes, it was crazy. But we did it. There was no mistake in Stronghold. We did one of the most famous and respected games of 2009. It was awesome.

***

Today Portal is twice as big. We have 3 guys responsible for Neuroshima RPG and Neuroshima Tactics miniature game and 3 of us responsible for boardgames. We grown, but still – in a fact – we are bunch of few friends doing their best to bring you best games possible. This year we will bring Robinson Crusoe. This year again we have to exceed our possibilities. This year again we will do everything we can to stand next to FFG and other great publishers.

Have dreams. Have courage to follow these dreams. Do your games. You don’t need to have big budget. You don’t need to have 20 people crew. You don’t need anything except passion and will to fight. Fight for your success. It is at your fingertips.

Last weekend in Bulgaria there was a final of The Volleyball World League. Polish team beat US team 3:0. It was nice, thank you very much Americans 😉

Anyway, when I was watching the match I realised that you can learn a bit as a designer when you take a second to talk about volleyball.

You know, for almost my whole life rules of scoring in volleyball worked like that: when you serve and win the point, you score. If opponent serves and you win the point, you don’t score, you just have the right to serve. If your attack is successful now, you score. If the opponent wins, he only has the right to serve…

Official volleyball federation was founded in 1947. For 40 years people were playing like described above. If you serve, and I win, I don’t get a point. I only get the right to serve. So now I serve, but this time you win, so you don’t score but now you can serve… And it goes like that for two hours. Score? 0:0.

Watching volleyball was kinda’ boring for over 40 years.

And then somebody finally figured it out. This game is broken, he said. We have to change the rules. You need to score after every successful attack, no matter who served.

You know, it’s not easy to change the rules of a game that is played for almost 50 years. A game that was played in world championships, during olimpics, a game with officiall leagues in almost all countries all over the world.

But the Federation of Volleyball had the balls.

They had the guts to say: „Our game sucks. We can make it better.” And they changed the rules. It was 1998, 41 years after Federation was founded. They had the guts to remove rule that was making volleyball boring.

Volleyball got much more simple. It is fast, extremely engaging. It is a great sport now.

***

This is a nightmare for a designer. You design a rule. You test the game, you play a lot, you get used to this rule. Finally you’re stuck with it. You don’t ask yourself an important question:

„Does my game really need that rule?”

It is hard to ask that question. There is a risk that you could hear „No”. You would need to delete this rule. The rule you got used to. The rule you like. Exactly that rule…

So you’re stuck with it. Your game is filled with rules that don’t bring anything to the gameplay. They don’t make the game better. They don’t bring more choices. They don’t bring more emotions. They just are. They just are because you got used to them after these all those test games.

All those rules could be removed if you had the guts to ask the question.

***

I am a young designer. Yes, I was lucky to make some – I believe good – games like Stronghold or The New Era but this is just the beginning. I am aware of that. I am still in the primary school of designing. I am learning every single day. I have flaws that I need to get rid of. I know that. 

One of my flaws is putting to many rules into my games. I have difficulties with designing simple games. It’s hard for me to delete rules, to ask myself a question: „Does my game really need that rule?”

But I am working hard. I am trying to be better. I am aware of the problem and I believe this is a good beginning. I see the problem. This is always a good first step.

During the last months I was working damn hard on my Robinson Crusoe game. The game is ready. Works really great. I am proud of it and I can’t wait for you guys to see it. But it’s not going to print yet. I still have a few weeks left.

During these weeks I will ask myself the question.

In 1998 the Volleyball guys showed that they have guts. Now it is my time to act.