As much in board games as in video games - the most important thing is respect for the Player's time. Unless a specific project assumes otherwise, the game must be easy to understand each step of the way - limited only to what is necessary to build a given gameplay. By respect for the Player's time I also mean always providing them with a fresh experience in a game as short as possible to deliver the intended feeling.

Tiny Mini Golf is a fully original project - a mini golf experience in the form of a "drawing" roll 'n' write game. Players draw courses for their opponents based on obstacles thrown on specially designed dice, and in the second phase of the game they take risky shots trying to finish the holes created by their friends.

The game is based on easy-to-understand golf rules, but also introduces freedom to create obstacles for other players at a level unseen before in other board games. The game has won awards in a BoardGameGeek Game Design Contest. But it's also a successful crowdfunding campaign that ended at 3842% of the initial funding goal. In addition to the design of the game itself, I took care of the key publishing tasks - from visuals, marketing, translations, to the accompanying web application and, most importantly, organizing the collaborations that made it possible.

Press D to Die in Space is a video game created in 48 hours during the PolyJam, which is part of Global Game Jam 2023. We play as an alien who makes a life-or-death escape from a merciless fog of oblivion.

It is the Player who decides when our hero will sacrifice themself - they may want to do it on purpose, because when the alien dies it is reborn as a baby, that from this point we control. The older the hero gets, the slower they become, but also the faster they gain victory points. This mechanic encourages the player to try their luck at surviving despite the difficulties of the alien's passing age. As it often happens in game jams - I participated in the whole development process - but I was directly responsible for the overall game design, music and sound design.

For years I have been creating and prototyping various games and even fan expansions to existing games. Thanks to this, I can easily present ideas in physical space, which facilitates communication and opens up the possibility of a non-standard approach to design. This also gave me a lot of ease in writing game rulebooks, but above all in initial formulation of game's rules - which is the basis of every existing game, regardless of its medium.

Paweł Malinowski, who joined the project quite early, was mainly supposed to help creating the website, but I also knew that he had some of the skills needed to help me with filming. I wanted for the show hosts to get into occasional, spontaneous discussions, playful tensions and to create moments of funny, but biting banter, similar to the one for which are known the famous automotive programs: Top Gear and The Grand Tour. It required a second person beside me on the screen. She had to have natural energy, the right charisma and to be substantively prepared to tell about games. Fortunately, after some trial and error, we came across Madzia Małachowska, who seemed perfect for this job. We partnered with her.

From the start, I wanted a light, but deeply narrative quality to all content in our show, similar to the one I knew from the British board game channels: Shut Up & Sit Down and No Pun Included. It was even more important to treat games as a fully-fledged medium of culture and to stick to a philosophy of board games as a social experience: games as objects-events that can only emerge thanks to the components as an entry point, but also with the players' imaginations as the necessary fuel. Hence the name “Wyjdzie w Graniu” more or less meaning “it will come out in play” – in reference to a Polish saying about seeing how things really are only as they actually happen. The show was supposed to undermine the opposite view: treating games primarily as
a fetishized, collectible product – a niche, but at the same time commercialized totem of the gaming subculture. This meant demonstrating experiences, not products; avoiding any narratives that substantiate the value of these games ; as well as taking on older titles, not always in line with current trends.

The most important part of Wyjdzie w Graniu are the video reviews. While creating them, above all, I learned to reconcile conflicting narrative goals. The basic idea was to create in every video a coherent narrative, humorously telling about the experience of playing the given game – avoiding the "dry" presentation typical of commercial product reviews. The challenge when writing the scripts was in marrying the classic cinematic structure with an appropriate presentation of the knowledge necessary to understand the game itself and its rules, while mixing in our opinions and proper reviewing. Creating these shows was also a constant exercise in writing in an accessible and concise style – and explaining in simple terms the intricate concepts that can be often found in games.

As part of the initiative, we have been also creating other segments. In “The Nonsense Box” (Polish: “Pudełko Nonsensu”) we tried through our work to answer the question: what else out of ordinary can you do with a board game? In articles we often resorted to a conversational structure to make them more dynamic and to maintain a consistent style with our audiovisual materials. Podcasts, and even more video gameplays, were an opportunity to test our skills in
a spontaneous, not fully scripted formula. They were also a lesson in blending the truly spontaneous parts with previously prepared elements for a smoother final effect.

However, our entire activity was, above all, a major lesson in humility in terms of time constraints, in maintaining high motivation, long-term regularity and overall a very strenuous organizational effort. Many people helping with the channel worked part-time and even people who were crucially involved, such as Madzia Małachowska, often had to marry creating WWG with other work and duties. Due to the cyclical character of the program, we also did not have the comfort of free, unrestricted pre-production and conceptual work – we were constantly learning to balance between the ambitions and the limitations of harsh reality, as well as assess our options on an ongoing basis and remain open to revising them.

Against all difficulties, the niche of the topic and while using very modest means, we literally created a versatile pop-culture platform about board games out of nothing. The fast fleeting time forced compromises, sometimes resulted in errors, but despite this, almost twenty film reviews have been already created which have always aspired to bring out "something more" in every topic. There was a regular podcast, additional segments and a website full of love for the medium. While doing it, I also had the opportunity to regularly photograph games, where – as in other aspects of this project – I was always looking for ways to convey as much emotion in them as possible using available lighting gear and props.

During my master's studies, I was particularly interested in a tension between the author's narrative and the interactivity. So I researched this subject in one of the final annual papers.
I looked at what forms can narration and interactivity take in various media of artistic communication – video games, role-playing games, board games, theater, stage improvisation, but also how it can manifest in traditional literature, film, painting, and, finally, stage illusion. The latter turns out to be of particular importance, as it represents a historical prototype for manipulating the viewer's attention and slipping in carefully planned content under the cover of “free”, individual reception.

Excerpt from this paper:

It seems obvious to us that we are interacting with the physical world. We are not surprised when a ball pushed by us starts to roll and a wall resists our bodies.
On the other hand, the sensual experience of this world is usually something that is laid on us, something external to us, something that does not depend on us. There is a reason that once upon a time magic was something that must have come from some outer, supernatural world and something that is in conflict with experience. Nowadays, magic has become illusion and it has the power to provide tangible evidence for the existence of a bridge between what we have so far called the real world and the subjective, interactive imaginary space.