I may be wrong in today’s post. I may have not right perspective. But what the hell, this is my blog and I write here what I feel. And I feel and I think, that here in Poland we did a really good of a job and we enriched gaming hobby in past 5 years.

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From my perspective it all started in 2007, when Portal presented Neuroshima Hex in Essen. I remember words that Greg J. Schloesser said that year. It was: „I honestly don’t know much – OK, anything – about the gaming scene in Poland but if Neuroshima Hex is any indication I am impressed.”

Poland was a blank point on the boardgames scene. No gamer known anything about Poland and Polish games. With Neuroshima Hex we had a really good entrance.

Today Neuroshima Hex is worldwide known game, 138th place in BGG ranking, thousands of copies in gamers collections, six new armies published as expansions, more than 20 fan armies published as a PDF files. There are US, French, Spanish, Dutch, Italian (Polish of course) editions, new editions are in progress. This is great what Neuroshima Hex achieved.

Two years later Portal published Stronghold, another great epic game that was widely discussed, was nominated for International Gamers Award, for Golden Geek, for Game of the Year in Poland and then was licensed and published worldwide by Valley Games. Without false modesty I do believe that designing Stronghold was an important for many players. There wasn’t such a game before.

We did a bunch of other games like 51st State or Pret-a-Porter, but Poland is not only Portal…

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In 2010 Polish company – Rebel.pl – published K2, great family game about climbing the second-highest mountain on Earth. It is a great board game, with easy rules and engaging gameplay. It was designed by my friend, Adam Kałuża, who lives 20 miles away from me. This year Adam and his K2 was nominated for Kennerspiel des Jahres. It is a huge success. Many players now decided to try K2 and I believe they will love it, they will try to climb and risk a hard path or easy one, and will have to decide when to attack the mountain and when to rest… Simple rules, great game play. I do believe that designing K2 by Adam was adding a small gem to our hobby…

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If we talk about gems… There is a guy called Edrache, my friend from Poznan, who in March 2010 started a tremendous project called Minimalistic posters. His geek list gathered 886 thumbs and this is not a surprise. It was a great stuff. He decided to design posters for different boardgames. His work was so great that Hans im Glück contacted Edrache and asked him to design 12 posters for their games. They published it in a form of calendar.

I was happy to have my games 'postered’ by Edrache. Poster of Stronghold is hanging in passe-partout in my room. I love it. I have pleasure to know Edrache and play with him my games.

This 886 thumbs is quite a few. Edrache introduced to our hobby something that is interesting and new, something that enriched our hobby.

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We have two war gamers who brought something really special last few years. Rober Żak designed Strike of the Eagle – it was published first in Poland and then licensed and published by Academy Games. I haven’t played it yet, but the reviews are quite clear – this is a great war game. The same situation is with Conflict of Heroes: Price of Honour – Poland 1939 co-designed by Michał Ozon and published by Academy Games. I haven’t played it yet, but it is on my short list to play, already on my shelf, waiting for free evening. These are great games from Polish designers. I am eager to play them.

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And last but not least, my close friend Pancho. In 2000 when I was publishing RPG magazine Pancho was one of writers and he wrote a really great stuff for Warhammer RPG. When in 2010, ten years after he came to me, said that he founded Big Daddy’s Creations and asked for license for Neuroshima Hex for IOS I couldn’t refuse. We knew each other for a decade.

But, I am lucky bastard. Big Daddy’s Creations did one of greatest apps for IOS.

Neuroshima Hex is an example of best adaptation of board game for electronic devices. It was chosen as second best board game app by IGN magazine. They got iOS Game of the Year (GameShark), they got Best Card/Board game – runner up (TouchGen)… They did an awesome job.

And then they did Caylus. And now they do Eclipse. This is great crew from Poland.

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In 3 weeks I do another edition of boardgame convention in Gliwice. We will meet together.

Pancho will bring me some screen shoots and stuff from Stronghold for iPad. I am very excited about this release. I now they will do a wonderful job with this app.

Michał Ozon will bring pre-production copy of CLASH: Jihad vs. McWorld. This is rethemed version of R.R.R. great abstract strategy game I brought from Essen two years ago and showed in Poland.

Adam Kałuża will show Cave, his new game about exploring caves. This is his great passion and hobby and as far as I heard, games is as good as K2. Once again Adam put his whole heart into this design.

I will show them my Robinson Crusoe, another take for epic game with strong theme. Like in 2009 with Stronghold, this time I again spent almost whole damn year working on it, and once again I believe I was able to put into Robinson’s box my passion, imagination, my heart. This is great adventure co-op I was dreaming about for years.

We will sit at the table, share our ideas and designs, drink a beer or tea, and have fun. We are a nice bunch of gamers. This year we will have good stuff for you. Again.

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…

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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.

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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.

you, boardgamers know that vacation is a great time. This is the moment when we can finally play all these great games we were buying and collecting for whole year!
We have many games. We are well prepared for every occasion.

Is it raining for whole day? Everybody on vacation is pissed off except us, boardgamers! Rain, this is great! You must sit in hotel room! Now you have time to open Arkham Horror with all expansions you bought for last decade and play it for 24 hours!

Is it cold? Don’t go sightseeing, it sucks and you can got a flu! Sit at your hotel room, open suitcase and bring it to the table – Twilight Imperium, III ed. Oh, yes, I wish it is cold for whole 2 weeks. No problem at all.

Nice weather? OK, let it be nice weather. I am not big fan of nice weather, but what the hell, I ame prepared! I can go to the beach. I can go to the beach with Cash & Guns, Tichu, Hystericoach and have some fun. Of course, when on the beach, be aware of water, especially if you can’t swim, like me.

You are with kids? Give them Talisman and you don’t need to care about them for next 6 hours. Giving them Talisman is like hiring a nanny but better because it can handle up to 6 kids! What nanny can beat this?!

You are with friends who don’t know boardgames yet? Put Ticket to Ride on table and look how their eyes open with excitement and new born passion. This is huge moment. It is worth playing Ticket to Ride for the 328th time in your life.

You are with die hard geeks? Lucky bastard, make it Neuroshima Hex’s vacation! Start league, play every day, with tables, results and final price. You do drink beer, do you? If not, send you price to Portal, we will handle it.

Oh yes. Boardgames have answer for all vacation situations.

That’s why I have everything with me here on vacations. Settlers of Catan to play with kids. Twilight Struggle to play with my wife. Brawl to play tournament with my friend Widlak. Neuroshima Hex so our kids can play tournament. Prototype of Robinson and Winter so I can test it on my friends. Yes, vacations and games work great together.

But… There is one small question I had to ask.

How the hell I am supposed to pack all these games to my car?! Where to put clothes and stuff?! I need a truck!

Scania, I see a huge market for you here. I will need to rent a truck for two weeks. And my fellow geeks too. What are the prices? Any discount for BGG members?