I’ve found myself in another really busy period—so much so that I haven’t even had time to blog. Somehow, March and April filled up with board game pedagogy trainings and workshops, and I haven’t even made it through all of them yet. I’ve had both easier and more challenging groups, but what truly surprised me was that 280 people showed up to one of my online presentations.

When I was first invited, I imagined a very interactive session with 20–30 participants at most. As the registration numbers started rolling in, I slowly began to panic. It wasn’t easy talking to a faceless crowd for 60 minutes while staring at my own slides and video, but we still managed to find ways to be active through the chat. We even played Pig and Word Bits together, and the Q&A session also worked quite well. I just wish I could have seen their faces. Still, I’ve never spoken to that many people at once before.

Meanwhile, one of my commissioned rulebooks finally got approved. It wasn’t an easy birth, but now I’m satisfied with it, and all that’s left is to find an illustrator and get started with the development work, which is a lot less stressful. On top of that, I received three more invitations—two of which are already confirmed—so I definitely can’t complain about a lack of work.

Only one of my authored games will be published this year, but I just got word that it’s gone into production and the box art is gorgeous. I can’t wait to show you! It’s a rhythm and music game for preschool and early elementary ages—pretty simple, pretty fun, and (I think) very lovable. I’ll share more soon!

Yesterday I had the chance to serve as a jury member again: students from primary and secondary schools presented board games they had developed as the result of semester-long projects. I got to see the twelve finalist teams in the national competition, and it turned out to be quite a positive experience. Many of them managed to move beyond the classic roll-and-move mechanic, and I even encountered some surprisingly modern ideas. At the same time, several teams did a great job handling the thematic background — topics like exploration, car racing, or finance — all while keeping sustainability in mind.

This week I also managed to upload a few articles—this time, I’m talking about some of my favorite publishers, so go check it out if you're curious!

And perhaps the most important event of the past few weeks: our concert-theatre board game was back on stage — still one of my all-time favorite projects. There’s one more performance scheduled this season, but I truly hope there’s more to come. Even if independent theatre has next to no chance of survival in our little country... we’re not giving up!