Welcome back to my dinner with Ignacy. The food has arrived, and I have been endlessly entertained by tales of an early gaming industry in Poland. Our waiter, however, seems a bit more concerned that Ignacy is barely eating. Little does he know, Ignacy sustains himself with storytelling, potatoes, and onions.
Waiter: Is that all you’re having? The sides?
IT: Yes.
Waiter: OK, just checking. I just want to make sure you’re not waiting on something, or sent something back to get more food.
IT: Yes, yes.
DTD: I tried very hard to make him eat more.
Waiter: Those lamb chops are beautiful.
See, Ignacy? I made the waiter happy with my gluttony.
DTD: Well, I didn’t try hard enough to, like, limit how much I’m gonna eat. But…
Waiter: Couldn’t talk him into it, huh?
DTD: No, I tried.
I think I bullied Ignacy to also order broccoli to go with his potatoes.
IT: There are legends about me. You ask Tom Vasel about how much I eat, and you will get a whole anecdote about it.
DTD: Oh, I’ve gone to eat with Tom. That’s a different world.
I have gone to buffets with Tom and the Dice Tower gang. Those people can damage a buffet.
IT: So, the thing is, we were at GAMA [Expo] in Vegas. And Tom and the gang, Zee Garcia, everyone, they went for the dinner.
DTD: Yeah.
GAMA, the Game Manufacturers Association, is the professional organization for the gaming world – designers, publishers, retailers, media. They proport to represent them all. The once a year industry convention, GAMA Expo, was held in Louisville Kentucky in 2024. From 2018-2023 it was in Reno, Nevada. And before that it was held in Las Vegas for many years.
IT: And they went, “Hey Ignacy, come with us.” And they went for the buffet.
DTD: Of course they did.
IT: So, you got access to everything, and you can take as much as you want.
DTD: Yeah.
IT: It was my second day in Vegas. I got terrible jet lag. I knew nothing, what to do with myself. I was unconscious, basically. So I went to this buffet. I took… Later, I took potatoes, small piece of meat, and that’s it. I just want to, you know, to survive. They got all these whole plates of food. And they look at me. And I had this small plate. I was so confused.
DTD: [laughing] I can picture it.
IT: And Tom was like, “Ignacy, it’s all free. Like you have as much as you want.” “Yeah, but that’s enough for me.” And since then, Tom is always telling this anecdote – Ignacy eats nothing. But back then, I was unconscious in this restaurant.
Let’s just remember that we are at a nice steakhouse and Ignacy pretty much ordered potatoes and tea. I think the truth is he eats nothing.
DTD: And now, this is the most American thing ever. You’ve gotten in trouble … For not ordering enough food.
IT: It’s suspicious, right?
DTD: It’s very suspicious. They know you’re not from around here. That is too funny. Wow. I have to write Eric [Lang] now, and not ask him how he, how he can sleep at night after he stole Ignacy’s mechanism.
Last time we talked about how the games Cry Havoc and Rising Sun pretty much ended up coming up with the same mechanisms for combat.
IT: No, no. That will make him that make him mad.
DTD: It probably will. He won’t talk to me. [laughs] So, I want to hear about some of the stranger games. Some of the… I want to know about Alien Factions.
IT: Alien Artifacts?
The card game Alien Artifacts released in 2017, a 4X style engine builder where players need to decide to play cards for victory points or for abilities. An expansion, Discovery, came out the following year.
DTD: Alien Artifacts, I’m sorry. I played it like crazy. Is there any plans to bring anymore to it?
IT: No, no.
DTD: It’s done?
IT: There is a very rude story of this game. We published the game. It got amazing feedback, amazing reviews. It sold out very quickly, and we got from our distributor information, “Hey, reprint it, we need more. It is selling like crazy.”
DTD: Yeah.
IT: We reprinted it. The reprint arrived to the warehouse. Nobody wants the game anymore. Because it’s no longer new, it’s no longer hot. Because four months passed, there’s a new kid in there, you know, that is cool.
DTD: Wow.
People often forget how volitile and unpredictable the board game market is. And this is often the answer to the questions “Why didn’y you print more of my favorite game” or “How come the game I want is always sold out?” Publishers tend to be pretty gun shy of printing too many, then being stuck with unsellable inventory, and therefore err on the side of print less rather than print more.
IT: And the game just stopped selling. And we publish a couple of expansions to make it, you know, moving. Make some hype about this. But no, it was dead.
DTD: Nothing worked?
IT: It was dead.
DTD: That’s so strange.
IT: October, November 2018, and the game is cool. Everybody loves it, everybody plays it. February next year, nobody cares. And this is very difficult in this industry. If you have this momentum, more people just come buy and buy. But if you have this moment of silence, people forget about the game. There’s something… the attention goes to something else. And we are done. Nobody cares. Yeah, we wanted these reprints three months ago. Now we don’t want it anymore.
DTD: Yeah.
The industry really is one of the moment. Or even of the future. The game everyone wants is the one about to come out.
IT: And we had to shut down the line. We thought, we made the clearance sale of the base game. And that’s it. And it, I cannot understand it… I mean, I understand it, but I cannot at the same moment that…
DTD: If we could understand it, then somebody would be, you know, selling a lot of games.
IT: One day, the game is amazing. One day, everybody forgets about it. This is, this is the way.
DTD: That just fascinates me, and I’ve actually had some designers tell me that they design their game knowing it will only be played once or twice.
IT: Yep.
Being a fleeting product, one that for the most part is bought on release day, played a few times, then forgotten, how does a designer deal with replayability?
DTD: So, they make sure that the points are going to be kind of high, and the players are going to do kind of well. Even when they have no idea what they’re doing. Only because they know it’s gonna be forgotten. I guess the solution to that is to make a one use story game. [laughs]
IT: Yeah, but this is true. That we are creating this content and more stuff and more stuff. And then we all know in the industry that we have in this industry this challenge to play the game 10 times. You know all this? We have these board with meeples – “I played this game 10 times!” This is like a freaking amazing achievement in our industry!
DTD: Yeah.
IT: And yet, you as the customers. No offense, but, you demand from me high replayability. While I know you will play this game two times, and you will buy new games. And they will be on the shelf. So, this like… You demand from me high replayability, and we both know you pay this two or three times.
Players famously demand replayability, solo mode which almost no one uses, amd several other features that look good on paper, but just are not used enough to justify the extra design time. We are a demanding lot.
DTD: To be fair, I think I represent a very different market.
OK, I am a demanding lot.
IT: So there’s a thing. Exactly. That most of the customers who play one or two times… But then there are these couple of guys, who love this game, and you play like 100 times. And I need to remember about them, because…
DTD: And they will get very good at it.
IT: So we put a lot of content in these games. But I know that lots of that is just wasted energy, because we will not even discover that. But yes, this is part of this industry, state of the industry – [there] is so many new games, so many exciting… New releases at GenCon, new releases at Origins [Game Fair], new releases at [Spiel] Essen. And on and on and on.
For newcomers, there are a few major board gaming conventions each year. The largest convention in the US with about 70,000 attendees each year is GenCon, held in Indianapolis each August. The largest in the world is probably Spiel, held in Essen Germany each October. Spiel does not count attendees, but instead individual turnstile entrances, so one person can count 3 times during the weekend. Essen had 193,000 turnstile entrances last year. The Origins Game Fair is put on by GAMA, the Game Manufacturers Association, and held each June. Origins reported 17,000 attendees in 2024.
Other notable large conventions include PAX Unplugged in Philidelphia, held in December. PAX is a relatively new convention, started in 2017, but is important, being the first convention in the US to feature new titles from Essen. Attendance in 2023 was over 30,000. The UK Games Expo held in Birmingham in early June, is becoming a big player with over 39,000 unique attendees.
DTD: And that the real gamers, the people obsessed with the industry, we are… terrible people. We want whatever’s new. It doesn’t matter what it is. We want it, because it’s new. And then we’ll complain about it. And then we’ll look for the next new thing, and we’ll complain why you didn’t make another one. I know it’s true. [laughs]
IT: You see pictures of delivered Kickstarters. You see the stats of all these expansions that people get, because “all in”. And you see it…
DTD: And you know, none of them got opened.
IT: Yeah. Yeah, they will not play. Never, never, never.
DTD: I tried. But I know I fail. I went and I pulled all of the data from boardgamegeek, for the top 20,000 games.
IT: OK.
DTD: And I tried to figure out simple questions. What year was the best for games? What year was the worst?
IT: OK.
DTD: There are no answers, except that newer games are always better. That’s the only answer you can get from boardgamegeek. If it’s newer, it will rate better.
IT: Interesting.
I originally did this statistical analysis in 2018, and it was indeed very flat. I recently went ahead and redid it in 2024, and two big results did come out. First, 2015 had more games within the BGG top 10,000 titles than any other year. And 2012 also had significantly more titles within the top games.
2015 had such top 50 releases as Pandemic Legacy, Through the Ages, 7 Wonders Duel, Viticulture, and Blood Rage.
DTD: And that… That made me sad. [laughs] It was very difficult to try to remove that bias. I did… Here’s a funny story – I got very excited because I found one year that was a lot better, in terms of ratings, than any other year. It was 1925.
IT: 1925?
DTD: 1925 was the best year.
IT: 25?!?
DTD: It’s because there was only one game released. It was Bridge, and the ranking for Bridge is better than the average ranking for any other year.
IT: OK. [laughs]
DTD: So, tell me stories. Tell me stories about Imperial Settlers. Because I always tell people that Imperial Settlers is part of the most complicated relationship story I’ve ever heard. There was 51st State, which made Imperial Settlers, which made 51st State, which made other Imperial Settles, which made Empires of the North, which made…
IT: Correct. People in the company make fun of me, that I designed three games in my life. And just receiving them on changing the titles, and releasing them again and again and again.
51st State alone has the original version, the Master Set, and the Ultimate Edition.
DTD: Well, I wasn’t going to say that, but…
IT: Yeah, I have a reputation in the company – “Created three games and he’s selling them for 10 or more years under different titles.” Yeah, with the Imperial Settlers, it was my wife’s idea.
DTD: Really?
Merry is an absolutely delightful and brilliant person.
IT: So my wife, gets very easily… The word “addicted” is not the right one, but like, if she likes something, she goes all in.
DTD: Yes, “obsessive”.
IT: Oh, yeah. And she got upset with 51st State. To the level, that I could not play this game anymore with her. She was inviting our friends, so she can play with the 51st State, because I said that I’m not playing this game anymore.
DTD: [laughing]
I have definitely had my wife insist on playing one game over and over. I won’t say what game. But definitely not one I designed…
IT: It was too much for me. And literally, there was a friend of mine coming…
DTD: [laughing harder]
IT: No, seriously!
DTD: [laughing] No, I think it’s wonderful.
IT: A friend of mine, coming to my house, playing with my wife, 51st State. Because I don’t want to play with her. That situation.
DTD: OK.
There are so many inappropriate jokes I want to make about this situation. It is taking all of my energy and focus to ignore these impulses.
IT: And at some point, she figured out that she would play with the kids.
DTD: OK.
IT: Because she needed opponents. She needed to play with someone. But 51st State – too complex for the kids. And the theme sucks. So, she said, “Make me a simpler version, so I can play with our kids.” And I took The 51st State, took a piece of paper…
51st State is a game of guns, ammo, mutants, and gasoline in a post apocalyptic world. The theme is pretty violent. Very “Angry Maxwell” in nature.
Waiter: Just checking – how are we doing?
DTD: Doing very well, thank you.
Waiter: You need anything?
IT: Thank you.
DTD: I’m good.
IT: Change scrap into the stone and wood to build. Change fuel, as a trade, into the gold. I was just making thematic, thematic, thematic changes. Change the gun – not killing for the kids.
DTD: No, no guns.
Imperial Settlers is much friendlier in theme and art. Delightful apples, cute little workers, cartoonish cards.
IT: No, no, no, no guns. But we have to change it. So I literally took the 51st State, make it simpler, and sweet, and I hand wrote all the cards at home.
DTD: Wow.
IT: And I gave it to my kids and to my wife. And they played. And it worked. And they were playing a simpler version of 51st State. All the same cards. And then I was, like, “Hmmm.” And I put it to the company, and said “Hey, this is what I did for my family. It works. It’s simpler than 51st State. Check it out.”
DTD: Right.
IT: They played, and said, “We have something here.” And then the decision was to make it an official product. And then I thought, “OK, so it’s super simple. I will just make it a little bit more complex, but it’s super simple.” But then, after the whole year passed, because I came up this stupid idea to come up with the factions. 51st State has the factions. Because… And then there were so many months of Romans, the Japanese, etcetera, etcetera. So, the project that we thought in the company, retheming the 51st State, and sell – one year of direct developing and changing. But overall, it was a breaking point for the company. It sold so well.
DTD: Yeah.
Imperial Settlers won many awards from 2014-15, including the Polish Gra Roku, or game of the year. It is currently ranked number 333 in BoardGameGeek’s top games of all time.
IT: It was a massive hit for me. And this is my most important example at my seminars about game design. Because this is famous phrase – “Ideas are shit”. Everybody has heard this. But this is a phrase, nobody actually understand it, or things that is like it. Just a fancy phrase. But this is true. And I say it every seminar. Ideas are nothing. Everybody has ideas. Execution matters. And they don’t understand what I mean. And I’ll give you and example – 51st State, Imperial Settlers. The same idea, is the same mechanism. Multi use cards. The same basic mechanism. 51st State, I sold 3000 copies. Imperial Setters, 30,000 copies, 12 different languages, lots of awards. The same. Only difference – execution. Cute artwork – stupid artwork. Wooden pieces – cardboard pieces. Beautiful.
DTD: But then you went back and re-executed 51st State. Twice. [laughs]
IT: Because I knew how to execute.
2010 – 51st State
2014 – Imperial Settlers
2016 – 51st State Master Set
2019 – Imperial Settlers: Empires of the North
2019 – Imperial Settlers: Roll & Write
2023 – 51st State: Ultimate Edition
2023 – Imperial Miners
And this doesn’t count numerous factions and expansions.
DTD: Yeah!
IT: I learned the craft. I learned how to make a better rulebook, how to make cute components, how to make … not icons on the cards, but the text. So, there is the user experience easier. So, we re-change the 51st State, and it was a success. And now, at every single seminar, I say “execution”, not “idea”. How you create this idea in the actual product; it is good, user friendly, easy to understand, easy to play, smooth.
DTD: Yeah. There was a famous sociologist, [Marshall] McLuhan. And he said, it doesn’t matter what you tell somebody. What matters is the method that it gets there. If I call you on the phone, or I write you a letter, or I tell you in person, it doesn’t matter what I said. What matters is how it came across, so it’s execution.
The famous line from his book Understanding Media is “The Medium is the Message”.
IT: Yep.
DTD: So now I’m gonna call you the Marshall McLuhan of board game design. [laughs]
IT: This is a great example for all the people who are starting in the industry. Like the same idea – one game, so-so. One massive hit for me. The same rules, basically.
DTD: Wow. Yeah, I loved both of them. And I felt… I guess at the point when I was playing them, they felt different enough.
IT: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
DTD: So… And I understand they evolved separately. Of course, or you wouldn’t be doing new versions.
IT: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
DTD: Yeah. Wow. So, then after Imperial Settlers, you went back and did 51st State the Master Set.
IT: And then Empires of the North.
DTD: And then Empires of the North, which is new and… Well, I don’t know. I think Empires of the North is more different than 51st State is. The mechanisms are new.
Empires of the North, codesigned with Joanna Kijanka, uses a new action selection mechanism. Whereas, 51st State and Imperial Settlers are very much the same game mechanistically.
IT: So, the idea was, that we felt in the company that creating new factions for Imperial Settlers is boring. Fans are tired of them, but we need to give them something more. But they love the experience. They are just tired of playing the same factions. So, I said to Joanna Kijanka, generate a new game that is basically the same as Imperial Settlers, because people love the game, but it has to feel new, fresh. Like they have to have this new discovery. But the same, like the old one. Something new like, you know, like to fall in love again, right?
DTD: Of course. Yeah.
This is one of the big problems in any creative industry. People want new products, be they movies, games, music, books, etc. But people also crave familiarity. So we all want a brand new board game that happens to be just like the one we already love. Maybe not just like it…
IT: And she was having some prototypes, then I helped her change the few things, and we came up… And I think that we achieved that.
DTD: Oh, she’s so good.
Joanna worked on so many of Portals biggest titles – Robinson Crusoe, factions for 51st State and the Imperial Settler family. Additionally, she co-designed Dreadful Circus with Bruno Faidutti.
IT: Oh yeah. When you play Empires of the North, it’s like Imperial Settlers, which I love, but different enough. And people can enjoy that. I think that is done, mission accomplished. Like all the fun of Imperial Settlers with something new. But not crazy. The same good games that we love. It is what we wanted to achieve.
DTD: Yeah, I think you did the magic bullet, that everybody wants a new product. But they want to replay the one they know.
IT: It’s like this song. You like the songs that you know, right?
DTD: Yeah, like I don’t want exactly the one I know, but that’s why expansions do so well.
Board Game Expansions are a double edged sword. They sell well based on the popularity of the original product. But even though they may cost as much to design, in both time and resources, as any other game, the expectation is that they will be significantly less expensive.
IT: I am proud of Empires of the North. Well executed, what we want to achieve, and we achieved that. And the game was very successful.
DTD: Oh yeah. And I know, it’s a strange word, but when Empires of the North came out, it felt very, very professional. It felt done and polished and perfect. It was exactly what it, what it wanted to do. There’s very few games I’ve felt that level…
IT: But that is an experience of the company, having Joanna helping me out. Having all the feedback of years.
DTD: Oh, sure.
IT: Now we know how to do it. Done, It is done. And it’s good, because we know how to do it, because we did so many different versions of these games, and I have Joanna helping me with the different factions, wording. And we have our editors, who are here at the Dice Tower Con. And we get so many of these cards now, he can make this side like… Now we have this know-how. And you get it with this experience.
DTD: That is fantastic.
IT: We failed a couple of times, to finally nail it down. And the present game is like, a very, very good execution of the engine-building card game.
DTD: So, are you planning on releasing another version of one of your three games? [laughs]
Imperial Miners released in 2023.
IT: So, we did in Poland, we did a contest for the new factions for the Empires of the North.
DTD: Right.
IT: Lots of submissions. But the most interesting was Undead. And that got us thinking, so we were doing all this after Atlanteans, Japanese, Romans, whatever. But we never did Martians, or Undeads, or Lemmings, or Vampires…
DTD: Wow.
IT: And it opened so much more room for cool powers and abilities and artwork and…
DTD: Wow! I love the idea.
IT: So, this is something that we will do…
DTD: Doing great. Doing great.
IT: So, we will start designing it next year. It will publish the following year, but the team already is excited. Like this one fan just opened this space. So, we can go fantasy.
DTD: You can do anything!
IT: And Joanna said, “I’m doing Vampires.” So I said, “OK, you will do Vampires. You got your Vampires.”
DTD: [laughs]
IT: So many cool, thematic ideas, and for the features like… and the artwork… So, it will be some Empires of the Mythic Lands or something like that, yeah.
I am so excited for this, be it either an expansion or a new version of Empires.
DTD: Wow. That’s very… So please tell me if there’s anything you do not want me to publish.
IT: No, no, it’s OK. We will… People know that we are playing. We will do something more. So, there’s nothing, kept secret. And we announced this winner over in Poland, that he won. And he has… This will be published. But there’s no official where and when, but, but you know that this…
Ignacy said I can publish this. He really said it. You are all my witnesses.
However… In a recent conversation with Ignacy, he remembers the contest and the development, but admits he does not know where that project is going in 2024. Or maybe he is just being sly.
DTD: It will happen.
IT: Yeah. So all the fans are already predicting what we are planning in Poland.
DTD: Wow.
IT: But then it is going to be… Once again, with the whole 51st State line of family games, the thing is that I love, I really love this game. I’m very proud of it, but I love it. Joanna loves it. So, for us, play testing and coming up with these new factions, it’s not a job.
DTD: That is so good to hear.
IT: We are just… She’s bringing you factions, and “show me what you have”. And I’m coming with ideas – I’ll show you what I have. And we just play, and sometimes during the lunch break, we play KeyForge. Sometimes during lunch break, we play our factions because we enjoy this game.
Keyforge, released in 2018 by Fantasy Flight Games, is a deck construction game by designer Richard Garfield, similar to Magic the Gathering, however The entire deck is the unit, not individual cards. Beyond this, decks are absolutely unique – each printed deck is unlike any other existing deck in contents, title, and graphical symbols.
Unfortunately, disaster hit Keyforge in September 2021, when the publisher announced they had lost the algorith to create decks. The game title was subsequently sold to Ghost Galaxy, headed by Fantasy Flight founder Christian Petersen. Ghost Galaxy continues to create decks and support the product.
DTD: So, you’re excited. Yeah.
IT: So like, we’re actually looking forward to when we have this timeline in the company. “OK, it’s time for you to start doing on this project”. And we cannot wait for it.
DTD: I love hearing that.
IT: This is what I said in the seminar, with the No Man’s Land expansion for 51st State, yes? She just [snap], and it works.
DTD: Right.
IT: And we had fun. We played a couple of playtests. It works, and it was just pure pleasure. We noticed them so well, that no one said, “we played tested this 100 times.” No, I play tested this No Man’s Land three times. It works. And I knew it.
DTD: [laughs]
IT: And I know the system so well, and Joanna knows this, knows so well. We know what the powers, what the ability were, what the cause of the cards. We did it so many times, that now we will run it, our way to play test it here. Of course I will not. Because I don’t have it with me.
DTD: I’m so sorry about that.
Ignacy has a horrible habit of having his luggage get lost when he travels to conventions. And this convention was no exception.
IT: Yeah, but the idea was that I will give this prototype to you people. You will play for the whole week, maybe give me some feedback. I guess it will not be drastic changes. And it’s just pure pleasure. So that’s why, when fans ask me, “Ignacy, we know that 51st State is this niche of this big Imperial family. Will you continue, when you support this line?” Because creating one small expansion a year or every other year – low budget for us, because it’s very cheap to produce, I love it. Joanna loves it. Why not?
DTD: That’s great. Can I ask, is Imperial Settlers one of the… Is it the company’s best seller? Or is…
IT: Yeah.
DTD: OK, I wasn’t sure if it was that or Robinson [Crusoe].
IT: So. So the most copies we sold [are] of Detective. It exploded.
DTD: Really, Detective? The original Detective? Wow.
IT: Yeah, but you have, you have to have in consideration, regarding nomination for Spiel des Jahres.
DTD: Yes.
Detective: A Modern Crime Board Game was nominated for the Kennerspiel des Jahres in 2019. And it is well known that nominations and wins directly translate into game sales, especially in Germany.
IT: So, in Germany, there were like 50,000 copies. It was insane in Germany. Huge print runs with the Spiel.
DTD: I’ve heard that.
IT: So, Detective is the most. Then the Robinson Crusoe, and then Imperial Settlers.
DTD: Wow.
IT: This is, this is the game that allowed us to grow, allowed us to make some mistakes, and not go out of the business. Like this is like, “cushion”, you say. That it is always safe, landing safe.
DTD: Cushion, yeah.
I find it interesting that Ignacy’s interpretation of a “cushion” in this colloquialism is a soft place you can land safely. My interpretation was that a cushion was a pile of resources, a soft buffer zone so that business can wax and wane.
IT: Like, if sometimes we make a game that is not a best seller, no worries – Robinson, Detective, Imperial Settlers make us comfortable. We can experiment, and then just have a great success and earn some money. Sometimes lose money. But nothing bad happens to the company.
DTD: Friedemann Friese told me, you know, “I made Power Grid. Now I can make anything I want. And I don’t care if it sells.” [laughs]
Well, I am paraphrasing and being flippant. I interviewed Friedemann during the Essen Spiel in 2019. And he explained that Power Grid, providing a constant source of income, allowed him to be more experimental in his future game designs.
IT: And this is good for the designer, for the company, because it allows you further risk. I had a very interesting discussion with one of the German publishers, and he was complaining about the German industry in general, that winning Spiel des Jahres is so huge an impact on your finances, if you win Spiel des Jahres, that all the German publishers are obsessed with trying to win this award. And they are not ready to risk, not ready to do something outside of the scope of what Spiel des Jahres may light, what is trending right now, what they appreciate, because all of them just want to win this damn award.
DTD: And if they do win it, you know there’s going to be the dice version, the card version, the children’s version. [to waiter] Oh yeah, thank you. And I see that. I didn’t realize how big an impact it has.
IT: It basically… It ties their hands, like they obsess to every five or four years have this award. Because it’s… Then you can for three years, you can do nothing, just reprint this game, because it won, right? And so, I don’t know the German market well, obviously. I don’t work in there. But this publisher told me, like this is very bad for the industry. Because they don’t want to risk, they don’t want to do anything to go outside of the scope of what the award… And you see these trends in the German games, right?
DTD: Yeah.
Three years of Castles of Burgundy variants, three years of Quacks of Quedlinburg, three years of MicroMacro: Crime City, three years of Dorfromantik.
IT: They try to… One year, one game wins the award. Next year, there’s only copycats.
DTD: Lots of them.
IT: Yeah.
DTD: They just announced the 4th Ganz Schön Clever [Clever 4Ever].
Ganz Schön Clever won the Kennerspiel des Jahres in 2018.
IT: And nominated for the Spiel des Jahres for the kids – Ganz Schön Clever Kids [Auch schon clever].
DTD: And Quacks of Quedlinburg Kids.
IT: This is like, because it is so much important for the sales.
DTD: Yeah. I mean, I don’t doubt that Wolfgang Warsch makes some very, very good games.
IT: Yes. Yes, please. He is brilliant.
Wolfgang Warsch designed both Quacks of Quedlinburg and Ganz Schön Clever, along with Wavelength, The Mind, and many more.
DTD: But, no, I definitely see the obsession once they win.
IT: I remember… So, I was nominated, not for the Spiel des Jahres, but for the Kennerspiel, for the smaller, the expert one, yes? The Kennerspiel des Jahres. So, I was nominated. The day they announced the nomination, we got a phone call from Pegasus Spiele. They ordered 20,000 copies.
DTD: That day!
IT: I mean, we said, “We will win!” “We don’t care if you win. Nomination is enough. And prepare.” And then we get all the briefing from Pegasus Spiele, because you know… This is a respected publisher in Germany and they, for years, they know how this goes.
DTD: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
IT: So, they briefed us how many copy they will need if we got the award, how many if we got just nomination, and nothing, nothing more. Whatever. The thing is, we got the whole plan from them. For all the scenarios possible.
DTD: Wow.
IT: And we got with our manufacturer. If we won, this will happen if we will not win. It will happen. Prepare for this scenario, for this scenario. Because whatever will happen, it’s very important to have these games on the market. So, this is how the game is important. It’s about how the award is important. So yeah. It was once again a super surreal experience to be invited to Berlin for the ceremony of Spiel des Jahres, being this very beautiful dinner.
It is so interesting hearing the back story of what it is like to attend the Spiel des Jahres, especially since the awards just happened now, in 2024. Congratulations to Sky Team for winning the Spiel, and Daybreak (e-Mission) for winning the Kennerspiel.
DTD: But they don’t tell you ahead of time?
IT: No. So… And this is very interesting. You need… the day before, there is a fancy dinner. Everyone is invited. All the dignitaries and all the designers and all the publishers. Like, about 50 or 60 people, to the dinner. They talk with you, chit chat and nice, nice talk. They tell you what will happen the next day, that you will be invited for the stage. “We will ask you two questions. Prepare good answers for these questions.” Like, the briefing of what will happen. Then the following day, before the ceremony, there’s rehearsal. [laughs]
DTD: Really?
IT: They treat it very, very seriously. So, everybody’s in position. They pretend that they are announcing, you go to the scene. They ask you the question, you tell the question, thank you, thank you, thank you. You go down, you do the rehearsal. And then in the mid-day the actual thing starts. And so, super stressful moment. Like you, you feel this little… You have all these national wide TV stations, all these cameras on these big TV, everyone focuses on big TV. They were doing reports. All these major journalists, all these… Reiner Knizia, Stefan Feld. All these big names sitting. Everybody, you know, fancy dress. And you sit thinking, “This is the Spiel des Jahres ceremony. This is happening, right?” So super surreal.
DTD: Wow, I had no idea it was that big. I mean, I will set my alarm and get up at 3:00 in the morning so I can hear it.
The Spiel des Jahres is all over the news in Germany, and is often attended by celebrities and politicians. For the first time in 2024 there was a live stream in English.
IT: It’s like… You feel like… And there was Minister of Culture, the German Minister of Culture there on the stage, talking about the board gaming culture, and how they appreciate the culture of board gaming in German and blah blah blah. Minister is gone, now the etcetera…
Claudia Roth is the current German minister of Culture.
DTD: Wow.
IT: And I was so stressed that I would say to myself, “God, I want not to win. I don’t want to go to the stage.”
DTD: [laughs]
IT: And when they announced that Wingspan won, I was happy it won. But I was, for the split second I was happy then I was… OK, I was sad that I did not win, but for the first moment, it was “GOOD, NOT ME. She’s in trouble.” It’s so much pressure, because you see… Ohh…
DTD: I talked to Elizabeth [Hargrave] about it, and it was…
IT: She was nervous as well?
I interviewed Elizabeth over a wonderful ethiopian meal in December 2020. During the Pandemic. OK, it was a zoom meeting. And much like Ignacy, when I did the interview, I did not know Elizabeth, but now am lucky enough to call her a friend.
DTD: Well, it was really her first game. And expectations were strange, because I heard the company was not sure the game would do very well.
IT: Yup.
DTD: So, they underprinted. Because they didn’t really, they were questioning whether to even print what they did. And then it just went crazy. So yeah, it took her really by surprise. And she’s not an obsessive gamer. She’s played a few games, but you know, wanted one themed more to what she liked, and just put together what she knew. And it just caught fire.
IT: Yep. Yep. Yep.
DTD: But it really surprised her a lot.
Elizabeth has become much more of a gaming afficianado since this interview, and her most recent title, Undergrove, just released during GenCon 2024.
IT: It was. It was an amazing day. When the whole pressure… They announced the award, the pressure is gone, and you can smile. Finally, you can chit chat with all these… And it was a great day. We were hanging around, making photos, talking to journalists, but when the pressure is gone, amazing day. But the morning, I was so stressed out. Like I wanted to… I don’t want to be there, I just wanted to go home.
DTD: That’s amazing. I need to try to use my press badge and try to go one day.
Hey Speil Committee – I am a real media and press member. Honest. I have even held Spiel awards.
Thank you 1 More Time Games founders, Julian and Roman for an amazing Austrian visit.
IT: It’s amazing. And you feel like… this is the Spiel des Jahres. This is completely different gravity than the… Whole respect to all the other awards, but…
DTD: Oh, I know because none of the other awards make much of a difference.
IT: But this is that different… This is Spiel des Jahres. You feel it.
DTD: That’s crazy.
IT: And then we’ll just keep representing Detective for Germany. I was very happy with that.
Come back next time for the final installment of dinner with Ignacy Trzewiczek. Yes I am still copy and pasting the spelling. In the conversational climactic conclusion, we talk about dirty tricks Ignacy pulled in the early Portal days, we speculate on Spiel winners for 2022, Ignacy reminisces about the successes his early team members have made, and a surprise guest interrupts dinner.