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Argument
from Ignorance
Brian and John
"Fluxx with the 'Pandora's Box' rule
is the most fun card in the history of card games." --
Tweet
by WeirdUncleDave
Rash provides
another batch of links and commentary on topics including: the
latest updates to the New York subway map, a map of the islands
of San Francisco, a recent interview with Larry Fast, Unusual
and Creative Staircase Designs, Dutch cycling paradise, Mother
Nature as Abstract Artist, Fifty Extraordinary Churches, Franny
and Who-ey?, Origami Cubes, Making your own Laundry Detergent,
and the Woodruff Special.
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Origins Prep, Looney Techs,
Green Paint, and more |
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 Greetings
loyal readers! It's been another crazy-busy month here at the
Lab... and the next one is going to be even more intense, since
Origins
is now just two weeks away! Obviously this means preparations
for Origins are a big part of our focus right now, but there's
a ton of other stuff going on...
First there's our big fall release. We're in the final stages
of production and it's coming together REALLY well. I'm so excited!
Shown here is the finished
image of the 6-unit display box we've just been cleared to
release. Check out that splash image on the side panel! Derek
Ring is making some incredible artwork for this game!
But our big fall release isn't the only new game I'm working
on. Even as we rush to get ready for our big fall release, I'm
already looking ahead to our big release for next spring. And
the rumors are true: it's gonna be Pirate Fluxx! Yarrrr!
Pirate Fluxx is something I've been pondering for years, so
when I finally sat down to hammer out a prototype, I had enough
ideas already collected together that it only took me a couple
of days to work out the design. And it rocks! I've cooked up
a couple of new twists for the Pirate version that are going
to make Fluxx fans freak out. (Yes, I said "freak out".
No, I won't tell you more right now.)
For those of you who'll be attending Origins, yes, you'll
have an opportunity to playtest both BTTF and Pirate Fluxx, not
to mention several unpublished Icehouse games.
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 Speaking of the fans who'll soon be gathering
at Origins, I mentioned here last
time that we'd decided to rename our fan
club (previously known as the Mad Lab Rabbits). As you probably
either know or can imagine, we got quite an earful about this
decision. Many didn't like the idea of changing the name at all,
but most folks seemed to agree with or -- at least understand
-- our reasons for needing to make a change. However, very few
people liked our idea for what to change it to. Many emails later,
we combined various suggestions into something that seemed to
meet with a lot more support: Looney Game Technicians. Yes, it's
a bit of a mouthful, but it abbreviates nicely as Looney Techs,
which seems to be catchy enough that it might just work.
Of course, whatever the new name settles out to be, the old
name will undoubtedly stick around for a long time. Which is
fine. We understand that old names, like habits, die hard. But
I'm hoping we finally have a new name chosen.
Also last time, I mentioned
big changes that included new employees and new housemates. I'm
pleased to say the first month has gone very well in all of those
regards!
In other news, our Penny turned green, and we had a great
time at PDF! To explain the second statement first, we spent
our Memorial Day weekend camping with about a thousand other
hippies out in the middle of nowhere at an event called Playa
Del Fuego (PDF). As I've
written before, PDF is basically a small, local version of
the Burning Man festival, and it's a pretty wild time. And while
it's far from being a game convention, I did manage to attract
a few gamers to our game-lounge-in-a-tent to try a few of my
newest games (including the one I'd conceived of at PDF the year
before, which you see us playing here with a guy named Max).
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| As for Penny... for reasons that are not important
(yes, that means it was my fault), Alison's
Prius recently suffered some minor body damage. While getting
this repaired, we could have chosen just to repaint the left
side black, to match the car's original color... but we decided,
as long as we were getting paint applied, that it would be more
fun to change the color completely. So now Penny (that's the
name of Alison's Prius) is this fantastic-looking green! Yay!
(We did the same thing once before, long ago, when we got my
old Dodge Omni painted purple -- it too had started out black.) |
 Anyway,
thanks for reading, and here's hoping your June is going well.
(And for those of you planning to attend Origins,
I'm looking forward to seeing you and playing some games together!) |
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