Thursday, December 4th, 2003

by the Writer's Guild of Wunderland

---

• New Products: IceTowers, Tiny Tirades, and Stickers
• The 2003 Medallion Gallery finally features the Winners' Names
• GinohnNews: Fire Writing and Figuring Newtons
• The Ember Update: Weekend Folly
• New Heroine of the Month
  

Yikes-o-rama! Suddenly it's December! Seems like Origins was only last week, and already it's time to start planning for the next one. (Be sure you talk to Russell, our Rabbit Coordinator, if you will be at Origins 2004 and want to get involved with the planning efforts!) Plus of course, National Play Week and the big holidays that surround it are all looming now (as I'm sure you are all well aware).

This year, we're trying to beat the crowds and traffic by doing as much of our holiday shopping online as we can. (So far, it's going pretty well...) And judging from the delightful spike in sales we've been observing this week at our webstore, a lot of people have the same idea.

But what about you? How's your shopping going? And have you considered giving a few games as gifts this month?

For some extra fresh gift ideas, check out this week's newest releases. Ready to ship early next week is IceTowers, the 2nd release in our series of boxed Icehouse games. IceTowers features another beautiful cover painting by Alex Bradley and includes a special edition pyramid color: cyan. The boxed set also includes a copy of The Empty City, the novel that inspired the game system, realizing at last (after well over a decade!) the vision Kristin and I had for an Icehouse game set that featured a copy of the original novel in the box with the rulebook and game pieces.

Collectors who just want the new cyan pieces will find them available soon in the Dangling Carrot. (Also coming soon, for those who are interested in getting just the parts, will be the new 12-page IceTowers rule booklet, and the packet of 16 rule cards we made for Zendo.)

Also new this week are these really cool little Tirade pendants and lapel pins. The design was created by a fan named Tim Gray (known among miniature-makers as Flak Magnet), who sculpted the original while hanging out in our Lab during the last Big Experiment. The pins and pendants were then made for us by a miniatures company called Monday Knight Productions, and finally hand-painted and finished by Chort, a friend I've been getting to paint miniatures for me since long before I even imagined games with pyramids. (And as long as I'm still on that subject, Chort is also famous in our community for having made the first 4 player Icehouse set, and the Scepter that is passed along from winner to winner each year at our Icehouse Tournaments.) Doing all that painting was a big job... here's a photo of him working on the 100 little sentient broccolis that were living in his basement for a while. Anyway, supplies on these are quite limited; later, we'll probably be offering these only in the unpainted plain light green resin they are molded in.

Anyway, I've got a new Geronimo Inquirer to write, more online shopping to do, and several Secret Projects to get done, so that's all for now.

Thanks for reading!