What is Polcon?
Polcon is a festival happening each year in Poland dedicated to promoting fantasy and science-fiction in all of its aspects like literature, films, music, video games, board games and more. It is a pretty unique event organized each year in a different city in the country. It is also considered as one of the most prestigious ones. This year it was happening in Lublin – a medium sized academic city in south-eastern Poland.
The festival
Polcon traditionally was focused mostly on literature and also associated with one of the most important literary awards (fantasy & sci-fi) in Poland – Janusz A. Zajdel Award. However, in the recent years, together with the rise of popularity of other forms of culture, it started to open more on historical/fantasy re-enactments, music, and games. In fact, the two most visible parts of the festival were the open-air market with tabletop games and books, and the games room – a space for renting playing board games on one of the ~100 tables prepared by the organizers and a local culture foundation Trach. We thought it would be a great opportunity to see what was going on in the Polish board game market, play some prototype games, and talk to game creators. Luckily, one of our team members was spending his holidays in Poland.
All in all, we had a great time at Polcon. 4 days spent talking to local game makers from White Tree Minitures producers of Afterglow miniature game, Games Factory Publishing, Rebel, Dized – a very interesting application explaining board game rules, and many, many more. We can’t wait for another festival like this one. It would be great to bring a demo version of Mitropia!
Strategy Game Geeks 