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New this week:
I
Joined The Corps For The Glamor...
John Marketon and I are looking at the Laurel
hemisphere's power rack.
"You think that'll get enough air?" I ask. "Oh,
yeah," says John. "We're gonna need two or three extension
cords though."
gory dew (gor'-ee doo') n.
bloodlike, gelatinous patches found on damp stones, and consisting
of palmella cruenta, a red alga
- The Dish :)
Historically-based
films always make me wonder
what really happened.
The Dish
This hilarious Australian film is a funny and moving retelling
of my favorite adventure story which even manages to make telemetry
work seem sexy. Having once been in the business of moving data
betwixt spacecraft and scientist, I could really relate to this
story of the team of engineers tasked with being certain to capture
transmissions of the first moon landing on the Dish (this being
a giant dish antennae). The Dish also provides a great glimpse
into what it was like to have experienced the moon landing in
another country.
 
Michael
Swanwick's Periodic Table of Science Fiction
The
LOTD
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Origins of the Rebirth of
Hypothermia |
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Greetings from Origins! We are here and the stage is set
for a totally amazing weekend. Although some of our final preparations
were a bit more rushed than we'd have liked (and I haven't had
much sleep), everything has been going very smoothly so far.
We've arrived and moved in, as have most of our bigger-than-ever
staff of helpful friends. The Exhibit Hall opens at 1PM today,
so we still have the morning to finish setting up our booth,
and they've already started playing games down in the Lab, this
being the fabulous gaming space that Origins has provided us
for our 2nd Annual Big Experiment. We're running dozens of tournaments
and other gaming events, and the prize medallions we'll be giving
away this time are more beautiful than ever, thanks to a great
new manufacturing method Kristin devised. About the only thing
that went wrong is that I didn't manage to get a photo of the
booth in time to include on this page like I did last
year, so you'll just have to imagine it for now. (Frankly,
it'll look a lot like last year's booth...)
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 We have
many treats and surprises in store for those lucky enough to
join us this weekend at Origins, but I'm afraid the rest of you
will have to wait for the details until after we get back. However,
there is one new thing we're doing that is just so exciting that
I'm going to tell you about it right now.
Before we started Looney
Labs, we ran a practice version of a game company called
Icehouse Games,
and as such we published an occasional newsletter called, Hypothermia.
Between March of 1990 and November '96, we sent out 13 issues,
each with an intro article by John
(aka Dr Cool) and an assortment of articles (usually by me) on
Icehouse strategies, variations, answers to questions, and the
results of our annual tournaments.
(The text from a sample, #11,
is available online at the now-stale unofficial
Icehouse website). Then we decided to give up on Icehouse and
start a new company, around which time internet availability
exploded and John and I started publishing our game-related writings
on the web instead of the more expensive and pesky blue sheets
of paper.
So why have we decided to exhume and resume Hypothermia? Well,
times change, and as the Icehouse set has evolved, so too has
the need for this publication. No longer subtitled "a newsletter
for Icehouse players", Hypothermia will now be the Journal
of Icehouse Gaming and will be devoted not so much to that first
game but to all the others that have, and are, being developed.
It'll still come out on whatever random schedule we decide upon,
i.e. whenever we feel there's enough important new material to
release in this format. (I think it's safe to assume there'll
be at least one issue a year, for Origins, and we're already
considering a Gen-Con issue, too...)
Hypothermia #14 contains a new Meltdown by Dr Cool and an
official notice from me about the formal addition of the Timer Rule
to Icehouse, but more importantly, it contains rules for two
long-awaited new Icehouse games, Zendo
and Gnostica.
Of course, readers of this website already have these rules,
but demand for them is so strong that we really wanted to have
them available in some sort of printed format in time for Origins,
and thus was Hypothermia reborn.
If you can't make it to Origins,
don't worry... Hypothermia-14 will become available through our
online store after we return.
Have a great week!
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After finally reaching the shelves of GameKeeper/WotC
stores in malls around the country, Fluxx and Chrononauts are
now selling well! They've already re-ordered, requesting even
more Fluxx decks than in their initial order! Yay! |
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"When reviewing the game of Darts, I couldn't
see any reason not to put all the darts into the bull's eye." -- Robert C Atwood, sarcastically replying to an
old review
of Icehouse by Peter Sarrett ("We also couldn't see any
reason not to play attackers so that their tips touch the pieces
they're attacking"), posted to the Icehouse Mailing List
along with "other possible reviews by that reviewer"
of Bowling, Chess, and Snooker |
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- You really notice the lack of insects in California when
you return to hot muggy Washington DC after a week
in San Francisco. I asked Kory how he could stand the mosquitoes,
since he move here from San Jose two years ago. "I still
just love the fireflies," he replied. "It's like having
fireworks every night."
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- "Fluxx is one of the best party games I've played in
many years. The rules are incredibly easy to learn, the action
is fast, and every game is different. It plays equally well with
two players as it does with 6, though the more people you have,
the more often the rules change. :-) All in all, I'd give Fluxx
an A+. Highly recommended." -- review of
Fluxx posted at conacopia.com
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