Daily Illuminator Archive for March 2011

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March 1, 2011:
The New World Order is rich, but the resistance isn't! That's why the ConspiracyCards.com "Awakening center" accepts donations and charges $7.95 for a pack of eight "factual Conspiracy Cards." If ever you find yourself unable to recall crucial elements of the Secret Masters' plans for domination, you can flip to the appropriate card in your reference library to see what They are up to . . . read article

March 2, 2011:
If you're attending PAX East next week, you may be wondering what the Steve Jackson Games crew will be up to. Here's the rundown: Every day between 10am and midnight we'll be running demos in the TableTop area on Level 0 . . . read article

March 3, 2011:
Gamers wear t-shirts. So why do we have these shirts sitting around our warehouse, instead of covering your nakedness? Chez Guevara's "Obey The Glorious Leader" is obviously the best possible slogan to be wearing, given the current state of world politics . . . read article

March 4, 2011:
A gamemaster's life is a rough one. You spend hours crafting villains only to have them cut down in minutes by a player's lucky critical hit . . . read article

March 5, 2011:
The last couple of times Phil has made a comment about Ogre 6e on his personal Twitter account (@philipjreed -- he's definitely worth following if you like toys, games, and lots of walking), he's gotten responses that boil down to "are you working on Car Wars?" He's not bothered by this -- there are very few gamers with more love for autoduelling than Phil. But what CW fans need to realize is that doing a modern game of cars driving fast and shooting the heck out of each other is a massive, massive job . . . about the size of Ogre 6e, as a matter of fact . . . read article

March 6, 2011:
While I was in New York for Toy Fair, an anniversary popped up that had me sit back and think about Steve Jackson Games, my role with the company, and how to improve on what has come before. I have now held the position of Chief Operating Officer for over three years . . . read article

March 7, 2011:
It is entirely possible that we are living in one of the best times to be a gamer. Some games have certainly had higher sales in the past, but today we get to enjoy decades of gaming goodness, available on demand via PDF . . . read article

March 8, 2011:
Ken Hite's Suppressed Transmission refuses to stay dead . . . which is as it should be, since Ken's work on the column is one of the highlights of Pyramid's past. Recently, in a thread at RPG.net, longtime fan Jurgen Hubert has started writing about all 300 columns in the series . . . read article

March 9, 2011:
We're officially launching Munchkin Zombies at PAX East this weekend, and I couldn't be happier. This is the first new full Munchkin game SJ Games has done since I became the Munchkin Czar, and I definitely went up a couple of levels in project management as a result of shepherding this through the design, playtest, and production process . . . read article

March 10, 2011:
I've got a really full year of convention travel to look forward to! Come see me . . . read article

March 11, 2011:
AXE COP exploded onto the net in 2010 with art by Ethan Nicolle and stories by his five-year-old brother Malachai. Axe Cop, Dinosaur Soldier, and the rest of their team fight crime . . . with Super Secret Soda Attacks, "Faint" bullets and bombs, and of course, chopping off bad guy heads! . . . read article

March 12, 2011:
Later this year, we’ll release Ogre 6th Edition. It will be a very, very deluxe boardgame, with all the rules and units from Ogre, G.E.V., and Shockwave, as well as things that have only appeared in magazines and miniature releases . . . read article

March 13, 2011:
If you remember our post about last year's Alliance Open House, then you recall that Jester's Playhouse of New Jersey (Hi, Rich!) won an appearance on a Munchkin bookmark, customized just for them. And since they donated $1,000 to ProLiteracy in the charity auction, we created two: one for Munchkin, and one for Munchkin Quest . . . read article

March 14, 2011:
This week, e23 provides three glimpses of the future: one flashy, one frantic, and one just plain fun! First, we have Transhuman Space: Cities on the Edge . . . read article

March 15, 2011:
Pundits talk about how the internet has changed the world, but rarely is the ridiculous level of interconnectivity put on display more clearly than with crowdsourcing. Crowdsourcing can be defined as "delegating a task to a large diffuse group." It can be as simple as asking your Twitter followers for restaurant recommendations, as I did last week in preparation for our trip to PAX East (follow us at @sjgames!), or as complex as a Kickstarter project to finance a film . . . read article

March 16, 2011:
Yesterday I had the pleasure of giving two game design lectures at Northeastern University. It makes me very happy to have made it to a century in which game design is actually taught in schools . . . read article

March 17, 2011:
Late last year, the Journal of the Travellers' Aid Society was interrupted by editor Loren Wiseman's heart attack. In total, five issues were missed . . . read article

March 18, 2011:
Everybody's favorite game channel shot a segment about the tabletop gaming at PAX, featuring Christian "Father Fletch" Kelly, aka Mister Our Game Room Seats 3,000. Toward the end you'll see me in my Amazing Chartreuse Shirt, running Blair Herter and some unflappable Enforcers through a bit of Munchkin . . . read article

March 19, 2011:
Over on BoardGameGeek and here on our forum, I asked a simple question: What do you want to see in a Designer's Notes article? Now I'm asking you, the Daily Illuminator reader: Do you want to read more fluffy marketing text? . . . read article

March 20, 2011:
What will be new on the shelves this June? Read on . . . Munchkin Deluxe Go down in the dungeon . . . read article

March 21, 2011:
You say you crave adventure? You say you enjoy an active nightlife? . . . read article

March 22, 2011:
If you haven't been connecting to SJ Games via social media, you're missing out! We have pages on Facebook for Munchkin and SJ Games itself . . . read article

March 23, 2011:
PAX East deserves a large post, or perhaps a series of posts, with in-depth analysis, lots of photos, and much more. However, I'm just back in the office -- I flew direct from Boston to Las Vegas for the GAMA Trade Show! -- so I wanted to get the most important thing out of the way first: the list of people we need to thank . . . read article

March 24, 2011:
Dreams of hanging out on the moon have been around as long as science fiction; what was possibly the first SF story (published in 1634!) focused on just such a trip. Building a permanent installation is the next step, of course, and once we're out of Earth's gravity well, that's relatively easy And with a recent discovery by India's Chandrayaan-1 probe, that moon base looks easier than we thought . . . read article

March 25, 2011:
Since posting Steve's Ogre announcement on March 12th, Paul and I have done our best to answer questions about the game at a number of different websites. And beyond just answering questions, we've been taking the comments in various discussions and trying to find ways to improve the upcoming Ogre game while still giving Steve the massive edition of the game that he has been dreaming of for about three years now . . . read article

March 26, 2011:
Going over the after-action feedback from PAX East, one comment jumped out repeatedly. Day after day, our tables of Munchkin Zombies were filled with gamers who had never played Munchkin of any variety . . . read article

March 27, 2011:
This week e23 looks a bit like an old-time newsstand. Two magazines grace the digital shelves, so let's leaf through them until the clerk asks us "You gonna buy that, or what?" Alphabetically, we come to Pyramid first . . . read article

March 28, 2011:
The long-awaited Munchkin Level Counter for Android devices is now available in the Android Marketplace. In addition to counting levels (duh) for Munchkin (regular and Epic) and Munchkin Quest, it has a Slack counter for Chez Geek, a Loot counter for SPANC, and a build-your-own counter for whatever nefarious purposes you can envision . . . read article

March 29, 2011:
When PAX East ended I took a few days in the Boston area to visit my friends at Onell Design. One of the two days was spent in Matt's house going over ideas, looking at some of his upcoming projects, and digging into really rare and obscure toys that should be in a museum . . . read article

March 30, 2011:
These two have left our warehouse, and should be on the shelves of your friendly local game store any day now! Munchkin Zombies Kill the Living! Eat their Brains! . . . read article

March 31, 2011:
This may come as a shock to most of you reading the Daily Illuminator, but lots of people have never been to a game store. Many of them still manage to find our games, thanks to dedicated friends and family members, but there are lots of unlucky, deprived people who don't even know Steve Jackson Games exists . . . read article

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