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Well, the results are in, and Gina
took Second Place in the Mane Attraction's Battle for Lady of
the Year. (If she were playing Monopoly, she'd get to collect
10 dollars.) But now the site is featuring Gina
and Lori as the Ladies
of the Month! (Be sure to check it out on a browser that's
running Java... they've got a pretty cool little slide show thing
going, using five pictures I took last year of Gina and Lori
together.)
We got a lot of mail about icehouse pieces this week, mostly
because of last week's announcement regarding our
search for a plastic manufacturer, and aside from jubilation
at the prospect of real icehouse
pieces after all these years, the prevailing question among
these messages was, "Why hollow?"
Five years ago, when we were Icehouse
Games, we spent a lot of time looking into the manufacture
of injection molded Icehouse pieces, and at the time, we were
dead set on solid pieces. Most places said they just couldn't
do it, and although we did find a few who said they could do
large solid pieces, the price for such pieces was more than triple
that of hollow pieces, due both to the extra plastic used and
the fact that they would need to run the press slowly in order
to achieve high-quality solid pieces. And money is obviously
a key constraint here.
However, we weren't convinced to go hollow until we discovered
a game called Clever Endeavor, originally published in 1989.
This game seems to have had a massive budget, because rather
than use an off-the-shelf set of colored pawns, this game included
a set of 8 custom-made plastic pyramids. (Their approach was
apparently the exact opposite of the CheapAss Games philosophy.)
 The
Clever Endeavor pawns are of an even more elongated shape than
Icehouse pieces, being slightly taller than a Drone but with
a footprint a little smaller than a Pawn. And yes, these pyramids
are hollow, with a wall thickness of just under an eighth of
an inch. And when I was actually able to hold a little plastic
pyramid, hollow but with thick walls, in my hand, I no longer
believed that a hollow Icehouse piece would be too insubstantial.
As long as the walls are thick enough, such a piece is plenty
sturdy, and as for weight, I don't think they'll be any lighter
than wood pieces (although since I don't own a fine grade scale,
I haven't been able to make an accurate comparison).
Moreover, hollow pieces add a whole new dimension to the game
set. Icehouse pyramids have already shown themselves to be wonderfully
versatile game pieces... imagine the additional possibilities
that present themselves if the pieces can also be nested as shown
in the diagram! Although no one as yet has created a game that
uses this new feature, I'm certain that one or more interesting
new games will appear once my fellow game designers and I have
sets we can use for playtesting. As Dan observed on the Icehouse
mailing list, "the idea of stackable Icehouse pieces sent
my mind racing for new game ideas."
The key trade-off then will be Wall Thickness vs. Backwards
Compatibility. There is no question that the pieces can be made
to nest as desired... the issue is simply how thin the walls
would have to be in order to keep the pieces in their traditional
sizes. It may be necessary to enlarge the Queen and Drone slightly
in order to achieve optimal wall thickness. Which begs the question:
which is more important?
Our opinion - which is reinforced by the concerns people have
raised about hollowness - is that size doesn't matter. Obviously,
the pieces need to be in the same basic size range as what we're
used to, but it won't change the games if the piece sizes change
a little. When people play Icehouse, they usually use a matched
set of pieces, which makes compatibility a moot point, and as
for sitting down at a mixed set table, there's already a tendency
to encounter pieces that don't quite match the published standards,
since there've been so many different types of sets manufactured
over the years. Of course, the hollow end will improve piece
handling slightly, allowing for a better grip when placing a
difficult attack... but again, as long as everyone's using the
same kind of pieces, this shouldn't really change anything.
Hollow pieces have other advantages. We can package them in
a box that's just large enough to hold 20 Queens, which will
improve the toss-in-your-backpack factor (as well as our inventory
warehousing problems). Plus, think about the stash pad setup
and information hiding options that hollowness will add!
But in the end, the most important issue is the cost. If given
the choice between a $25 hollow game set and a $40 solid game
set, we're going to go with the less expensive option. We can't
afford to sacrifice the sales we'd lose with so much higher a
price point, just for the added aesthetics of making the pieces
solid.
But no one knows what the future will bring... by selling
a lower cost plastic piece now, we're building the market for
a deluxe set of solid pieces later. And as a matter of fact,
that's just what we've been doing for the past year: selling
a cheaper version of the game in order to build demand for a
higher quality edition. With luck, the hollow icehouse piece
will ultimately be a stepping stone on the path to solid icehouse
pieces... but we can't make the luxury edition until after the
standard edition is a success.
Some concerns have also been raised about the rounding of
the tips. Our intention is to round the tips only enough to lower
the puncture potential below the lawsuit level. The rounding
will be akin to the edges and corners of dice, not safety scissors.
Those familiar with the details of the earliest chapters of
Icehouse lore will recall that the 100 original signed and numbered
game sets had dangerously sharp tips, but that the second run
of pieces, also made using Number
12's casting system, had rounded tips. Those pieces proved
to be adequately sharp for playing Icehouse with, and these will
be, too.
While I'm on the subject, this week we're taking over the
job of hosting the Icehouse
internet mailing list. We've been meaning to do this ever
since we first got our mailing list robot working, when Eeyore
wrote to us and said "Much as I enjoy the rustic charm of
fan-run mailing lists, being one of the fans in question is sometimes
a bit of a pain. Dale and I both agree that if you guys wanted
to take over the list, now that you have the resources to do
so, that would be fine." So, we are. Kristin has set up
the list and is working with Eeyore to move over the active list
of members.
And while we were making new
mailing lists, we decided to add a couple of others: one
for fans of Fluxx
(a place to discuss new goals, wacky ideas for rules, variations,
etc) and another that is to be a general discussion list relating
to wunderland.com as a whole. For want of a better name, we decided
to call this list "Something" (Got something to say
about the website? Post it here!)
So head on over to the mailing list page if any of these mailing
lists sound interesting. We're just gonna start 'em out as open,
unmoderated discussion lists and see how they go.
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Comments?
There
are times when what seems like a step backwards is actually a
step forwards.
An early
experience I vividly recall was the exhibit on cryogenic suspension
at Expo '67 in Montreal. The image of bodies wrapped in aluminum
foil is etched in one of the deepest lobes of my brain.
