Daily Illuminator Archive for February 2011

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February 1, 2011:
Over the past few months, I haven't shown up on this blog as much as I should have. There are two reasons for that, and both are actually good things, but that still doesn't make them excuses . . . read article

February 2, 2011:
I am excited that the New York Toy Fair is almost here. This is the one time each year that I get to sit down and talk with our book trade partners to show off our new games . . . read article

February 3, 2011:
Phil has a tradition of bringing back treats from Hong Kong. This time there were four options . . . read article

February 4, 2011:
You know who we are, but who is this "Plutopia"? Plutopia has grown out of a group of event designers who organized several SXSW after-parties . . . read article

February 5, 2011:
Since we got early samples of Munchkin Zombies, we decided to put a copy into the Vasel family auction, along with some extra braaaaaaainy goodness . . . read article

February 6, 2011:
(In order to get maximum effect from the title of today's Daily Illuminator, please use the echo effect from The Muppet Show. You know: "Piiiiigs iiinnnn SPAAAAAAAACE!") Space Gamer has a long history in the games industry . . . read article

February 7, 2011:
I learned something this week. Specifically, Aaron Allston introduced me to the term "throwing the sops," from his "In This Issue" box in Space Gamer #57 (just uploaded this week) . . . read article

February 8, 2011:
I managed to get in and out of Chicago's O'Hare airport last week right before the snow started, which meant that I made it home from Hong Kong just a few hours late and didn't have to face the snowpocalypse that canceled far, far too many flights. The trip was fantastic -- a lot more fun than last year's visit to the city, but that's because this time I was there for vacation and not meetings -- and I'll no doubt be posting photos to Flickr for several more days . . . read article

February 9, 2011:
That is: it was different. I finished the Stakeholders' Report for 2011 except for the discussion of priorities, because we are still bickeri . . . ahh, energetically discussing that . . . read article

February 10, 2011:
It should come as no surprise (given how we've raved about our experiences at both last year's Boston event and all the years we've attended the Seattle show), but just to make it official: Steve Jackson Games will attend PAX East in Boston, March 11-13. We'll be doing demos of Zombie Dice and Cthulhu Dice, as well as Revolution!, Awful Green Things, Give Me The Brain, Munchkin, Munchkin Quest (whew! we're going to be busy!), and Munchkin Zombies . . . read article

February 11, 2011:
Some Christians believe dinosaurs and Man lived side by side for some time about 4,000 years ago, and we felt it was appropriate to give some time to another side of the discussion:   Some Jewish folks also believe dinosaurs and Man lived side by side for some time about 4,000 years ago.   Hope of Israel Ministries has a lot to say about the timeline, and their website rejects mainstream science's understanding of the flow of prehistory. Carbon dating takes a back seat to cave drawings, and broken pottery trumps the fossil record . . . read article

February 12, 2011:
Last December we added a couple new faces to the office. Angie Kreuser has hired on to help Andrew with the Munchkin heavy lifting -- keeping reprint schedules straight, building prototype decks, and occasionally slaying the gazebo . . . read article

February 13, 2011:
Ten years ago, if I missed a big show, it was probably because I was deathly ill. These days, if I'm not at a big show, it just means I'm doing something else . . . read article

February 14, 2011:
You may recall that last week I pointed out the trickiness of writing copy for a trio of very unrelated e23 releases. In conclusion, I wished for a couple of releases with a nice easy topic, like guns . . . read article

February 15, 2011:
I've made no secret of the fact that I played way too much Car Wars back in high school, but that isn't the sort of thing that I want to keep a secret. As a child of the eighties I was right there as Car Wars rolled out . . . read article

February 16, 2011:
SJGStake. I hope you find it interesting . . . read article

February 17, 2011:
We have updated the Zombie Dice app in the App Store. This was a massive update, but it's free for both paid and Lite versions . . . read article

February 18, 2011:
January's ship date -- the official day we start shipping product from our warehouse to distributors -- was the 31st. Is that really fair to February? . . . read article

February 19, 2011:
Anyone reading this knows that I play games and spend too much time with toys. But what you may not know, unless you've met me or follow along as I rattle online, is that I also read comics . . . read article

February 20, 2011:
I've always hated the term "dead games." No one -- not even the Men in Black -- are going to come to your house and keep you from playing that old copy of Rivets just because it happens to be out of print, or running a Marvel Super Heroes campaign just because TSR lost the license. On the other hand, I can see that a $500 "buy it now" price on eBay is going to make finding new people to play them with a bit more difficult . . . read article

February 21, 2011:
The best part of RPGs for me is the flexibility -- the ability to go anywhere, do anything. It's one of the reasons I keep returning to magic users (or whatever they're called in the setting we're playing in) . . . read article

February 22, 2011:
In Give Me The Brain, the zombies keep dropping the brain. Repeatedly dropped items is a great theme, but when playing, any normal sized token is going to eventually get lost under the sofa . . . read article

February 23, 2011:
As you may have heard, Borders has filed for bankruptcy and is closing around 200 stores (including all three here in Austin). The natural question -- especially considering the Game Nights we participated in last month -- is, "What does this mean for Steve Jackson Games?" In the short term, the bankruptcy won't affect us . . . read article

February 24, 2011:
Some of you may have noticed that several items which were listed as "Printing -- available for Pre-Order" have shuffled back into "In Production." This is not a change in the schedule, but instead a change in the way Warehouse 23 (whose database drives most of the status fields on the product pages) handles incoming games. W23 is no longer accepting pre-orders . . . read article

February 25, 2011:
Are you visiting London on vacation (or "holiday" as our friends across the pond call it)? Stop by Leisure Games, conveniently located near Finchley Central station, on the Northern Line . . . read article

February 26, 2011:
Our Polish translator Black Monk gathered a couple of the smaller Munchkin expansions, and released them as Munchkin 3,5 Pietno Smierci. The title roughly translates to Marked for Death, and unsurprisingly contains the cards from that set, plus the cards from Waiting for Santa and Santa's Revenge . . . read article

February 27, 2011:
If you shopped at major book store chain in the past couple of months, you may have noticed copies of Munchkin on the shelves. This is a huge win for us -- thousands of potential gamers walk those aisles every day, and they wouldn't be exposed to Munchkin any other way . . . read article

February 28, 2011:
For some e23 releases, we're pretty certain of the sales impact even before we post the Daily Illuminator. For instance, Transhuman Space Classic: Personnel Files will have a nice sales spike on Thursday when it's first released, and another today when everyone reads this post . . . read article

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