Blog

BLOG: There is no such card!

I am playtesting my new game with my wife Merry. It’s a draft version, very early stage, just a few cards, and me checking if there is any potential here. Turns come and go. Step by step Merry is getting stronger and finally, I can see nothing’s going to change

BLOG: Managing provinces

Rise of the Empire introduces three pillars that add new gameplay elements to the Imperial Settlers. The first one is well known for all fans who played Imperial Settlers solo variant I published as a free expansion back then in 2014. I will discuss this element today as an opening

BLOG: Feel at home

It was October 7th, 2018, when I played Imperial Settlers for the last time. Since then, I released Empires of the North, Imperial Settlers R&W, and Roman Banners and Japanese Islands expansions. Things happened, I’d say. This weekend I put my old box of Imperial Settlers on the table again,

BLOG: Signature Series

‘I hate you.’ said Rob Daviau when he approached me at Gen con 2018. ‘I played Detective. You know I was thinking about designing a story-driven game like that for a long time, and you did it. It is everything I wanted my game to be. I hate you.’ I

BLOG: THE LIBRARY

There are two teams at Portal Games HQ. There is team #RobIsAwesome, and there is team #IHateRob. I must admit that #RobIsAwesome team is much bigger. Frankly speaking, it consists of most of my employees. The opposition, the #IHateRob team consists of only Portal Games Digital, and after all those

BLOG: INTERVIEW

I am with Rob Daviau at Grandcon, and he goes like ‘I have this idea for a new Antares feature, but I am not sure if this is possible…’ ‘It’s possible.’ I promptly say. He didn’t even manage to finish the sentence, but let me tell you this – when

BLOG: Play it again!

  Last year, in November, almost one and a half years after I finished writing all of the Detective cards, I invited my old friends to the Portal Games headquarters. I used to play RPGs with them many years earlier. We sat in the conference room. I launched the Antares

BLOG: I lost compass

I lost it. I am done. I qualify for retirement. My compass is dead, and I feel like for the first time in years, I am surrounded by a thick fog. It feels terrible. Let me explain. I was pretty prophetic when in 2011 I created Board games That Tell

We have finally arrived

We’re finally here. After a long journey through the Ocean filled with anxiety for each member, I’m glad that we can finally stretch our legs on the land. At some point, I couldn’t stand the constant suspense, even though I was continually assuring everyone not to worry about our campaign.

Increasing Fears

If this continues like that, we might be in danger even before we get to the jungle, and we’re only halfway through the Ocean. Romero keeps on bickering with La’Blanc. Father Clemens continue with his stories, what he found out about our destination, and what should we prepare ourselves to,

S&T: Monolith Arena – Unfolding the Guardians

Last time we’ve talked about the Dragon Empire and our propositions as to what to prepare inside the Monolith and the reasons behind those choices. This time it’s time to take a closer look on Ignacy’s favorite dwarfs and thee different setups for their Monolith. Guardians of the Realm are

The danger ahead

I must admit, I’m not as thrilled about the jungle after today’s evening, as I was when I’ve decided to join the expedition. From what Father Clemens was telling us, there’s much we need to prepare ourselves for if we want to have any chances in finding Fawcett. Apparently, deep

Welcome to PORTAL GAMES

We are bookworms. Movie maniacs. Story addicts. We grew up reading Tolkien, Howard, Herbert, Dick, Lem… We were watching Willow, Blade Runner, Never Ending Story, Robin Hood…

And yet, we don’t write books… we don’t make movies. We don’t make those things, because we make games. We make games that tell stories.