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 This
has been one heck of a week, a week so intense and amazing that
phrases like "one heck of a week" and "intense
and amazing" just completely fail to convey what sort of
week it's been. We've just returned from one of our best gaming
events ever. Certainly it was our best in financial terms (our
sales volume at Origins
2000 was nearly 4 times that of our previous best) but it
was also just the most enjoyable and all-around successful thing
we've done in years, perhaps ever. It was just an absolute triumph
for us.
Just as we've done in the previous 3 years, we had a booth
in the exhibit hall where we sold our games and offered demos.
But this year, we also had an additional, much larger gaming
& demo space, in a separate location called the Union Room.
This was a breakthrough for us, a major improvement in our offerings,
our options, and our image. Here we were able to provide on-going
open demo gaming, interspersed with 15 tournament events, in
a large, lounge-style setting, something no in-booth demo space
can ever match. And since these events were considered "content"
by the convention, they gave us all the space we needed for free,
instead of charging us by the square foot like they do in the
Exhibit Hall. Our bigger-than-ever staff of volunteers kept this
space running all day for the entire show, officiating at frequent
(and sometimes crowded) tourneys and teaching hoards of people
how to play just some of the many cool games we sell, all the
while telling us they were having a great time doing it. (Thanks
everyone! We obviously couldn't have done it without you! Glad
you had such a great time!)
This year we returned (with a vengeance) to our tradition
of running a big tournament and handing out unique Olympics-style
medallions to the winners. But instead of a two-day Icehouse
tournament, it was a 4-day string of tourneys for 5 different
Icehouse games, along with the Fluxx World Championships and
other events too, with not 6 but 38 handsome prize medallions.
Check out the updated Medallion
Gallery for Dan Efran's fabulous original artwork and the
names of all the winners. Also, we finally decided to really
embrace our scientific background and the laboratory part of
our name by outfitting our team with white lab coats and calling
this series of events the Big Experiment. This too worked out
really, really well -- we quickly became recognized as the team
in the white lab coats, as our members were seen moving back
and forth between the booth in the Exhibit Hall and the events
in the Union room.
We also ran numerous other promotions and attention-getting
devices, including a beautiful full-color Icehouse ad on the
back cover of the on-site program book, freebies like a special
set of 5 new Fluxx Goals made just for this event and wooden
nickels with a picture of Tirade worth $5 off the cost of an
Icehouse set, and one of those "guess how many jelly beans
are in the jar" type contests except using a jar filled
with Icehouse pieces.
Origins also marked the official unveiling of Chrononauts,
and I'm just delighted to report that people LOVED it! We sold
about a third of our entire print run of Beta edition copies
at the show (although we didn't sell out, so if you haven't gotten
one yet, place
your order now! (and if you've already placed an order recently,
please be patient, we're still trying to get caught up on the
outgoing packages)) and of course, people were playing it constantly
throughout the weekend. The increased playtesting has already
revealed a few glitches (see the new Rules
Updates page and join the new discussion list if you've got
one of the Beta copies, so you can keep up with the current ruleset)
but on the whole it's testing exceedingly well. As you might
expect, time travel enthusiasts in particular were thrilled by
the new game, and I'm pleased to say that even a couple of history
teachers saw and it and thought it not just good, but A+ material;
but best of all, it's passing the all important fun-test, and
not just with fans of the subject matter, but with everyone...
people love this game! Several times I came upon people just
randomly playing it somewhere (I love it when that happens) and
they were all having an absolutely great time. I think this one's
gonna do really well for us!
Then of course there was Gargantuan Icehouse, Mike Sugarbaker's
mind-blowing surprise. Just go look at the pictures.
On the downside, nothing's ever perfect, and this week was
no exception. No sooner did we start distributing Chrononauts
than we started getting complaints about collation errors (if
you got one, make sure you have all 15 numbered sheets, and let
us know if you don't) and on Thursday night we had a crisis:
as Alison was driving out to the event, the transmission in her
mini-van went out again. This was the last straw for her in a
long struggle she's been having with her cranky old vehicle;
she's always said she'd junk the dang thing if the transmission
failed again, and as feared it went out big time, making the
car totally undriveable, leaving poor Alison stuck all alone
by the side of the road with a cargo bay full of product at the
West Virginia/Ohio border. Long story short, she found refuge
with a nice older couple nearby (thanks Georgetta & Bill!)
and in the morning our friend Scott drove off to rescue her and
help her deal with junking a dead car in the middle of nowhere.
(Thanks Scott!)
But of all the joys and enjoyments of Origins, perhaps the
greatest was the chance to meet and hang out with so many of
our internet-based fans, finally getting faces to go with the
names we've gotten used to seeing a lot of, on our mailing lists,
and in our outgoing mailbins. This sentiment was widely shared,
and has oft been echoed in the notes and emails we've been getting
from the friends and fans we met and made at the Big Experiment
this year.
Origins was such a huge event for us that catching up afterwards
has been an overwhelming task all it's own. (For example, sorry
to be late with this report, but I got it done just as fast as
I could!) On top of all that, we're finally launching the cool
new website that toK has been secretly building for us since
(gosh when did she start working on this?), featuring really
cool artwork that Alison's been working on ever since we got
back from Ohio. Check it out at MadLabRabbits.com!
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