ToFo

Today I realized an amazing thing. Sometime at the beginning of this millennium, I said to myself that I regret that people today know practically nothing about our history. Pop culture is full of Asian martial arts, when a sword appears in a movie, it's a katana, and when Hollywood happens to try something from the Middle Ages, it's utter criminal abomination. And I decided to try to change that. To show that European history and medieval culture looked completely different from the muddy horror of Hollywood movies. That we have our own martial arts in Europe. That most of today's ideas about the Middle Ages are clichés and myths. That I would bring Czech history and culture back into the global consciousness, from which it had disappeared thanks to 40 years of the Iron Curtain. That I would make a game that would show as accurately as possible how it really was. Everybody at the time told me, that its not gonna work. Nobody would give us money to make it happen. It was a huge struggle. But today, more than 15 years later, I realize that I can say: ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED. I feel that not only did we succeed, but we succeeded so much that it exceeded all my expectations and hopes. People from all over the world visit the places where KCD takes place because of the game by thousands. Millions of people know who Jan Žižka or king Sigismund was. The game has sparked a huge wave of pride in our small nation. Teachers thank me for getting their students interested in history again. And more and more good games with medieval themes are appearing. I consider it almost a miracle. And I am very grateful for it!