-
- the art of drinking & starbucks mystery solved!
Idiocracy :)
Idiots can make
a time machine, monster trucks,
and electrolytes!
Evolution
of Dance
Time Travel Reviews
"I've lost track of how many Aquarius decks we've worn
out over the years; I've also lost track of how many we've given
away! We've needed a new Aquarius deck for a while, and our Fluxx
deck is showing signs of wear. The Family Fluxx is a gift for
a friend: she has a little boy who's two and a pair of 7 month
old twins. I know she won't be using it soon, but she's making
plans for weekly family games nights when they get a little older."
-- Barbara D of Chicago, IL
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Stonehenge! |
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 There's
a cool new game system coming out soon, called Stonehenge.
The basic system will include 5 games by some of the industry's
biggest names, like Richard Garfield, Bruno Faidutti, Richard
Borg, and my arch-rival James Ernest. Last summer, Mike Selinker
invited me to design a game for the expansion set, which will
be released a few months after the core set and which will include
several more games for the system, and parts to make the set
work with 6 players.
Well, after months of doing nothing on the project (other
than moving the word Stonehenge from one to-do list to the next),
I got a last chance reminder from Mike, and I decided to see
if I could crank something out. And I did! On Saturday morning
I tackled the job, and by twilight I had ideas for a set of rules
that I'm really excited about! And I did it all with nothing
but a description of the parts that would be in the box (and,
for inspiration, a little model of Stonehenge I got when Kristin
& I visited in 1993). It's kind of like when
I designed IceTowers in one night, but couldn't playtest
it, because there were no such things as stackable Icehouse pieces,
even though we were just 3 months away from The
Day of First Pieces. Mike promised to send me a prototype
of the board and parts, and I can't wait for them to arrive.
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 It's amazing
how fast things can happen sometimes, because even though I invented
this game just a few days ago, and this is my first chance to
announce it here, I've already been scooped by the internet.
You see, as soon as I decided I had a ruleset I felt could be
made to work, I emailed Mike and told him I was onboard, and
to yes please send me those game pieces so I could try out my
ideas. Within hours of that, the folks in the Titanic Games booth
at Toy Fair were telling people that I was designing a game for
the expansion, and the next thing you know, one
of our own full-time people is asking about the project,
after having heard about it for the first time through a fan
posting resulting from a web report on the
first day of Toy Fair posted at BoardGameNews.com!
(The photo shown here was pulled from the BoardGameNews pages,
since as I said I don't have my own copy of the hardware yet.
Also, why weren't WE at Toy
Fair this week? Well, we decided to skip it this year...
we're economizing by taking a break from several of the expensive
trade shows this season, including GTS
and the new GamesExpo in Las Vegas. But don't worry, we'll be
there in full-form at Origins
and GenCon!)
As for the theme of the game, I haven't told anyone (except
a few of my closest insiders) what that actually is yet, but
I'm really excited about that, too.
If you think of game
design as being like computer
programming (a comparison I often make) I just did the equivalent
of writing a huge piece of software for a computer I know only
from the hardware specification manual, and I've promised a big
software publisher that it will work, and without any debugging
other than my own thought experiments, it's now being touted
as software that will be available for the next system release.
Plus, no one even knows what this software will do! I sure hope
it doesn't turn out to be vaporware...
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 By
the end of the week, I decided I couldn't wait anymore, and built
my own prototype, using (of course) Icehouse
pieces along with blank cards, Lego trilithons, and a hand-drawn
board. And as is to be expected, I quickly started discovering
little "bugs" in my "software"... but the
concept seems solid and I'm confident a cool game will shake
out of this!
Anyway, that's all I'm willing to say about the project right
now... but for more details on the Stonehenge
game system, go read Mike's
design journal entries on the subject. His diary is fascinating!
 Thanks
for Tuning In, and have a Great Week!
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