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Thursday, April 30th, 2009

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"I'm addicted to all your games! I LOVE Fluxx (and have gotten many people addicted to it!) Next step: Treehouse...I bought my first set at the store today and can't wait to try them out with my fiance. (He's a Fluxx fan too!) Thanks for making such great, fun games! I'll never forget my first game of Fluxx...I laughed for a half an hour straight!" -- Katherine W of Boston MA, comments with an order




Assorted links & comments on topics including the Swirls and Waves of Antelope Canyon, the Ten Greatest Grilled-Cheese Sandwiches, Messing With Texas, the Imminent Death of the US Postal Service, the Dark Side of Dubai, and more


GTS was Great!

Last week we were all in Las Vegas for the GAMA Trade Show, and it was a great trip. (Well, mostly... I lost a bunch of money playing poker, but other than that it was a great trip!)

Here's a photo of our booth and the rest of the wonderful Looney Labs folks I was there with: Alison, Kristin, and Robin. As you can see, we had a new backdrop made to promote our new release, Are You The Traitor? and as you might expect, this was our #1 topic of conversation. I'm pleased to say people are REALLY excited about our newest game... we playtested it a lot at GTS, and the reactions we've been getting are extremely gratifying. Retailers are thrilled about how many copies they expect to be able to sell when it finally releases in July!

We got a lot of other good work done, mostly in the form of meetings with our partners, suppliers, customers, and even our publishing peers (i.e. the competition!) during the course of the event. Even though it was a relatively small show (being limited to hobby industry insiders), our booth was always busy! We had surveys for our retailers to fill out, and we had rewards for them when they did -- we were giving away deluxe World War 5 boards (in addition to the usual "Gone Looney" ribbons we've been adding to retailer's badges at GTS for many years now). We also had a very special prize for one lucky booth-visitor: we gave away the prototype copy of Traitor we we're playtesting with during the show!

Another thing we were giving out to retailers at the show was this promo postcard which promotes the new game with an awesome new Fluxx promo card called The Traitor!

We made a small run of the card to show retailers, since we will be making a large run later for stores to hand out in quantity in their stores. Since we have a bunch of this small run leftover, and the real card that we make later in quantity will have different art (we decided to change the look of the KeyHolder character) we have decided to use up this first run by including one in each consumer order we ship from our warehouse for the months of May and June. So if you want to get a copy of The Traitor Fluxx promo card before it is available in July - place an order that ships from our warehouse in the next two months!

Also at GTS, I gave a talk on Secrets of Good Game Design, and it was both well attended and well received -- which is great since it wasn't well planned. (I was asked to fill in at the last minute, when the original presenter's travel plans changed.) But even so, everyone seemed to get a lot out of my talk -- over and over again afterwards, I was told how helpful and enjoyable it had been by attendees. I guess I should offer to give a similar talk next year!

Anyway, as usual GTS was a very enjoyable and very worthwhile trade show. And now that we're back, planning moves into full swing for our next big industry event: Origins!

AndyThanks for reading and have a great whenever!


Thought Residue
I was pleased to hear that Monty Python Fluxx was nominated for an Origins Award this year, but I think it unlikely we'll win this time. It's up against Dominion, a powerhouse of a new game, and judging by how much my friends have gotten into this game, I expect it to win our category. But of course, it's an honor and a joy just to be nominated!

Our friends at Bucephalus Games made my day at GTS by presenting me with a packet of special cards they made for their new game Bill of Rights. In the game, various political factions are represented with generic stereotypical viewpoints, but as promo items they made a set of add-on cards featuring six noted game industry personalities: James Ernest (Totalitarian), Mike Selinker (War Monger), Matt Forbeck (Peacenik), John Zinser (Economic Liberal), Mike Stackpole (Revolutionary), and me -- the Social Liberal!
Jonah Ostroff pointed out to us that if you lose your Treehouse die but you have a Boggle set, you can use one of those dice as a replacement. The cube with the letters W-T-H-E-R-V works great! Those letters stand for, of course, Wild, Tip, Hop, Exchange, Reorient, and Down-arrow (i.e. Dig). Wow, that's cool! It's almost like I planned it that way!


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