For many years my Easter ritual was to visit Fastaval, a game convention in Denmark. Meeting up with old friends, making new friends while playing games, and being part of an incredible inclusive community of gamers. Once you sit around the same table, it doesn’t matter what clothes you wear, how you look, speak, if you are rich or poor, and if you come from a small town or big city. Your opinion and your contribution to the game is just as valuable as anyone else’s.
Having kids and moving to Stockholm made that tradition harder to keep. It’s been to a couple of visits since 2017, but not this year. I still follow Fastaval but from a distance.
Fastaval and the Otto awards
Fastaval ends with an award ceremony where golden penguins (the Ottos) are handed out. The roleplaying games played at the convention are created by volunteers, all works of love. They evolved from D&D dungeons or scenarios into complete, stand alone game with elaborate characters, stories, and mechanisms for engaging players into creating and experiencing a shared story. Often addressing heavy themes like incest, pedophilia or dementia. One game this year has players examine a situation where you find out that your ancestors committed genocide.
The tradition dates back to the 1990s. What started as a fun gimmick, a spoof on the Hollywood Oscars, turned into a long lasting and highly valued thing of its own. A group of volunteers reads all the 30 or so games submitted each year, talks with players who played the games at Fastaval, and then spends an entire day discussing and agreeing which games to recognise and award the Otto in five or six different categories.
While there is a downside to the Ottos as well — most games don’t win an Otto — there is no doubt that the culture and community of game designers that grew around the award ceremony has contributed immensely to evolve the Fastaval field of roleplaying games into a highly advanced art and craft and creative outlet for many a playful soul (like me).
The boardgame Ottos
10-15 years ago, people started bringing their own boardgame prototypes to Fastaval. They were branded designer boardgames and got their own Ottos complete with volunteers to select the field of games and another group of volunteer to award the prices.
I remember the discussions, it wasn’t a given. There was some concern that handing out new Ottos would diminish the roleplaying game Ottos. But it happened, and I am glad to see that not only did they survive, it has also helped build a great community for boardgame designers. Fastaval is now a major event also for boardgame designers and enthusiasts.
I have joined a community of boardgame designers here in Sweden and Fastaval is a yearly milestone. People share and feedback each other’s pitches and cheer on those who make it to Fastaval. This year Swedish boardgame designers took home four boardgame design Ottos.
Congratulations to all the Otto winners and nominees of 2025. But most importantly, congratulations to everyone who gets to be part of an inclusive community where ideas and inspiration flourish.
Easter in Malmö
I didn’t make it to Fastaval this year. Instead, few drove down to Malmö to visit friends and places we remember from when we lived there. This summer it’s 8 years ago since we moved to Stockholm.
It’s funny how the brain works when you drive on roads you once frequented daily. Not only to do remember where to turn, it is also a time machine that takes you back to who you were and what you did. Going to that Avenger show in Malmö Arena. Visiting that science fiction convention where friends came over from Copenhagen. My three year old son duelling with a light sabre.
We stayed at First Camp Sibbarp right next to the bridge to Copenhagen. Great with a playground for the kids, a cabin with a kitchen, and scenic paths for walking the dog and taking in the spring. Over the three days we did sightseeing in Malmö and Lund and got in a swim and sauna at Ribersborg Kallbadhus.
Saturday we made our own Easter game convention. Friends from Copenhagen and Malmö joined and both Gotlandia and Holmgang hit the table.
Gotlandia
Gotlandia worked well. The more casual player asked for catch up mechanism while my more hardcore gamer friend carved out a narrow two point victory over my son in his first game (my game has played Gotlandia many times now). I enjoy to see players pick up how the game works and decide and execute on a strategy. As this game clearly shows, there is a lot of skill to playing Gotlandia. It feels pretty finished now. The game came in at 3 hours for a four player game including teaching the rules. The Black Plagues cut the game short.
Holmgang
Holmgang was a hit! It’s fast to teach and fast to play.
At first you play to explore and make many mistakes. You feel that any reveal of cards can end the game, but somehow the fighter in trouble escapes and the table turns. While Uffe is underdog (one against two), he won more than half the games we played.
The games at first played fast. But then one game suddenly dragged out. Both players realised that they had a lot of information to base their decisions on. Each time a fighter was in a pinch, the fighter escaped and survived another exchange. Cool to see the learning curve and how players responded.
Nous reviendrons vers vous rapidement
So upon returning home from Malmö, I decided to pitch Holmgang to a publisher.
I usually don’t pitch my games to publishers. Either I self publish (Montsegur 1244, Mars to Stay, Death of Rapacus) or I upload as print-and-play. Designing games is my hobby. Creating games is fun. Selling games is not fun. But Holmgang feels so fully baked that I decided to give it a go.
With the help of an experienced game designer from our Swedish community, I found two publishers who could be likely to pick up a game like this. Pitches went away. Automatic replies came back. We shall see what comes of it. In any case I will bring also Holmgang to LinCon, a game convention in Linköping, Sweden in one month. See you there for more fun and games?