What's behind the labels with the year?

In our first game, Galileo Galilei, you may have noticed a label with the Roman numeral 1 and the year. The year marks the life of the astronomer Galileo, but what about the number? We received many questions: is this the first game in the series? Are you planning a sequel? Will there be a Galileo II? Board game players are generally the smarter part of the population, so we didn't have to explain much and just confirmed what was expected. Galileo Galilei is indeed the first game in the series. And it's a series of historical figures, which is now followed by game No. II, Carl Linnaeus. We will tell you more about who Carl Linnaeus was in our next posts, but now we would like to tell you more about the ongoing series of historical figures that Galileo started and Linnaeus continues. Here at Trubadúr, we have decided to take a somewhat more complicated path when it comes to board game themes. Although we like fantasy, sci-fi, and fairy tales, we feel that the world of board games lacks realistic themes. Today, for various reasons, you can play lots of games with animals, dwarves, fairy-tale creatures, or robots. There are few games based on real people. We can debate whether this is due to the neutrality of the themes and the desire to avoid at all costs any possible controversy that could arise in a theme involving real people (yes, we know about it), but that would be a different discussion. The result is that there simply aren't that many games where you can play as an existing historical figure or even real people. At Trubadúr, we simply love history and science. And our games reflect that. Our games also reflect our hobbies (yes, in that case, we should also have a game about cats and ukuleles, but maybe next time). In most cases, the theme of our games is not based on a fictional mechanic, but rather the mechanic and the game itself are based on the chosen theme. We are certainly not the only ones with this approach, but we know that in many games, the theme is only invented after the game has been created. Eurogames are generally prone to this approach, and even with many good games, you can swap themes between them without detracting much from the game itself. But we're getting off topic. Basically, what we want to say is that for us, the theme comes first. Tomáš likes astronomy, which is why we have Galileo. Michal is interested in botany and read a book on taxonomy, which is why we have Linnaeus. And lots of other ideas for sequels. We can't tell you yet how long this series will ultimately be, but two more games are already in the works, and many of our other favorites from the worlds of science and culture are eyeing us, wondering if we'll devote ourselves to them. And we're not saying no! Just please be patient with us. We don't want to overwhelm you with a flood of history and school lessons, so we'd like to stick to a two-year interval for this series. Making a game that is thematic, entertaining, and beautiful at the same time is a long-term project, and previous experience has taught us that many ideas need to mature properly before we can turn them into a prototype and say, "Yes, this is it, we'll continue with this." We want to make this series really perfect so that in 10 years, when we look at the shelf with the Roman numeral labels, we can be proud of what we've achieved. These games should not only serve as entertainment, but should also educate you a little, even if you don't know it yourself, and perhaps even spark your interest in how the first telescope was invented, who wrote Historia Naturalis, who was burned at the stake for heretical views, or who named the fennel moth and why. All of this is behind our idea for a series of board games about historical figures, and we hope that you will embrace it and enjoy our games as much as we enjoy your enjoyment of them.