Mysterium

It was at BGG.con when the whole convention just got crazy about this game. Everybody was talkin’ about the game. Everybody played the game. Everybody was trying to buy the game. It had buzz I have never seen in my life before. I was so proud and happy.

Among the people who was talking most about the game was Zev Shlasinger from ZMan Games, who had known about the game since few months, who finally got his very own copy here at BGG.con and just couldn’t stop playing it for this whole 5 days. I’d say 20% of the buzz was created by Zev himself. It was so crazy and cool.

At one point he approached me and began to report session he just finished.

“…and the guy talks about his dream and everybody shouts at him ‘Give us more details, more details’ and I am just rolling out laugh because there are buttons on the card and they are so important for this dream and he is not mentioning them at all and…” he is talking and laughing at the same time.

“What do you mean by talk about dream?” I ask.

“Investigator was given a dream and describes it to others.” he replies.

“You give this dreams face down to players”

“Yes! These are dreams! You don’t see dream of other people, right?”

“But in the rules…” I try to explain but I realize he is right. We don’t see dreams of other people.

“I give some dreams to players and they can talk about cards they received but they don’t show it. This is hard, but this is so cool, thematic and fun!”

“Zev, this is brilliant. Can I publish it on my website as your variant to the game?”

“Sure, man!”

So here is super cool variant for Tajemnicze Domostwo. Designed by Zev it is both thematic and fun. It makes game harder but makes it the game so much crazy funny. I wish you great time with the game and this variant!

 

Imperial Settlers

Everybody calls Imperial Settlers light civ game. It is not a civ game. It has no technology tree. It has no wonders. It has no leaders. Yes, some of this will come later in the expansions, but still – I don’t think about this game as a civ game. It is an engine building card game. Without technology and time progress I don’t think it might be called civ.

But!

We all played Sid’s Meier Civilisation in high school, right? We love this genre. New provinces. Developing our culture. Inventing new technology…

Here it is. Variant for Imperial Settlers I designed for you that will give you this civ feel. This is a new solo variant. This is variant that will let you conquer provinces and develop your civilization by buying achievements. I hope you’ll have a great time.

 

 

Treasure Island junior

To be honest this whole gift idea began with Robinson. And with Nick from Scotland. I met Nick in Essen 2007. He was one of these guys who found Portal Games at our first Essen, who bought Neuroshima Hex and who stayed with us. He visits our booth every year and buys everything we publish. Since 2013 he is also running demos at Portal Games booth. We became friends for this few years. He and his mates are super cool guys. And we have a history – I remember him being there, Essen 2007 and buying our Neuroshima Hex. This was beginning of this crazy adventure for Portal Games.

He contacted me in October 2013. He wrote on BGG forum and then wrote to me directly. It was all about this:

“I like Robinson a lot. This is thematic, adventure game. It would be great to play with kids. It tells story and kids would love it. But all scenarios are too complicated or long. I need kids scenario. I want scenario designed to be played with kids. Can you?”

“Me” and “can’t”? Never together! 🙂

In a fact I knew what he was talking about. I have 6 year old daughter who loves (loves, loves!) Robinson and I know that scenarios are too long. She wants to play every damn weekend, but after an hour she gets tired.

I knew that so many of you geeks have children and I knew that Robinson might be a  great idea to play with kids. You guys cover rules, kids just feel the story, atmosphere, adventure. This might be a great family day!

So I began to design. My daughter helped me. There are treasures. There are beasts. There is clear goal and not too much time to do it.

Have fun. This time with kids.

 

Merry Christmas. Have fun. Thank you for great 2014, thank you for your support for us and thank you for playing our games. Have great Holidays and great 2015.

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.