Game from Polish designer was created 15 years before U.S. President Donald Trump started talking about annexing Canada
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Fifteen years ago, when Ignacy Trzewiczek created a board game set in a post-apocalyptic world and dubbed it “51st State,” he never imagined he would one day hear a world leader publicly using the term.
And while U.S. President Donald Trump’s vision of Canada becoming the 51st state was bandied about in a “very different context” from the setting presented in the Polish game designer’s science fiction world, talk of annexation struck a chord with him.
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“If anyone, any politician, in any part of the world is talking about annexing another country, we’ve been there and we don’t like it,” Trzewiczek told the National Post, referring to the centuries-long history of conflict between Poland and Russia.
“So for us, it’s terrifying, and it is pretty difficult to understand that it’s really happening in the modern world.”
But “51st State” as Trzewiczek envisioned it in 2010, 11 years after he founded Portal Games, is set in a much bleaker and perilous modern world known as Neuroshima, which was born of a war between mankind and AI.
“I had a pretty fun conversation with my co-writers last year when the whole ChatGPT thing exploded. We said, ‘Oh, we saw that coming,’” he recounted, noting the rise in the OpenAI tool.
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In the table-building style card game, the ultimate goal is to amass power to form a new nation and fight back against the robots and machines that control most of the continent.
“The world you know no longer exists. There is no government. No army. No civilization. The United States have collapsed,” reads the description on Portal Games’ website.
“And now, thirty years after the war started, new powers finally try to take control over the ruined country, try to establish a new order, try to control others and create a new country, a new State: the 51st State.”
In the original release, one to four players choose from four power groups to build and rule their new society.
There’s the Mutants Union, consisting of those altered by radioactive sludge that accumulated in the Mississippi River basin; the Merchants Guild, a ruthless global operation managing inter-city trade routes; the New Yorkers, the “last bastion of man” hoping to rebuild the pre-war world; and the Appalachian Federation, representing feudal industrial revolutionists from the eastern U.S. mountain chain region.
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Cards represent the various locations in the world — a mine, a pub, a ruined school — and during the four phases in each round, players choose one of three ways to play that card based on their preferred strategy to gain power. The first to 25 victory points, awarded for each card in your State and other factors, wins.
It’s more nuanced than that and by no means among the hardest board games to learn, but it’s still not Monopoly, Risk or even CATAN. The official rules and multiple YouTube “How to play” videos depict it as a “moderately complex game.”

“I’m known in the game industry as a designer who designs gamers’ games,” Trzewiczek said, noting the game was well received by fans and has won many awards over the years, with various expansions and releases.
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“It really allowed space to have so many different strategies and different ways to rebuild the state, to build the biggest faction and to be the best leader at the table.”
Portal is releasing a small expansion this year to celebrate the game’s 15th anniversary. However, the big news is its arrival on Board Game Arena — the platform that lets subscribers play a game online before deciding if they want to order a physical copy.
“We continue to release new board games and new card games, hopefully not prophetic like the one that we are mentioning here,” Trzewiczek said of Portal.
In fact, he hopes to promote one of them this summer in Indianapolis, IN, home of Gen Con, the largest annual tabletop gaming convention in North America. It’s been a crucial event where Portal has maintained a presence to promote and sell its games since 2014.
This year, however, Trzewiczek admits he’s worried about himself or industry peers being held up and possibly turned away upon arrival in the U.S. because of social media statements critical of the Trump administration.
Two weeks ago, the French government said a scientist headed to Houston for a conference was denied entry and deported after being found with anti-Trump text messages on his mobile device. A U.S. Homeland Security official later said the device contained concealed “confidential information.”
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Trzewiczek lives three hours from Ukraine’s northwest border, has been active in charity work to support the people of the neighbouring nation during its more than three-year war with Russia, and is a vocal opponent of the war. His criticism of Trump, he said, is based on fears of Europe losing an important ally to impede further Russian aggression.
“It’s very difficult. It’s very troubling. In the end, it’s very difficult to understand what’s happening,” Trzewiczek conceded.
Adding to his ire are potential bilateral trade tariffs between the U.S. and the European Union, which he fears will impact not only his business but his industry as a whole. This year’s list of available products advises vendors of a potential price hike due to the new levies, a first in his 26 years of business.
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