Thursday, September 2, 1999

by the Wunderland Toast Society

Icehouse production work continues to dominate our lives this week, with the main focus of our attention being the rulebooks that we'll be including with the set. There's still a huge amount of page layout work to do, and our beta release deadline is now less than 2 weeks away. But at least I've got the cover art for the 3 little books finished up. And speaking of artwork, a couple of weeks ago I posted a small image of the new Martian landscape that Dawn had painted for us; well, after listening to the feedback we'd been getting (and the quiet voices in our own minds), everyone agreed that the couple playing Icehouse in the foreground had ended up being too deeply obscured by the encroaching twilight. So, this weekend Dawn came down to see us and reworked that corner of the painting. Her changes really did the trick!

But although we still have a lot of work to do before Icehouse will be ready to ship, we are this week beginning to accept pre-orders for the new game sets. So, if you've been waiting for years to place an order for Icehouse, the day has arrived! Get your order in by Sept 20 for maximum savings.

As regards Fluxx, there is good news, bad news, and other news. The good news is that Fluxx will soon be available in more than a hundred Barnes and Noble stores around the country. The bad news is that blank Fluxx cards have once again been delayed. And in other news, Iron Crown Enterprises has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection!

The Barnes and Noble deal is really exciting. They'll be featuring Fluxx along with the other 4 winners of this year's Mensa Select award, in a special endcap display at many of their larger stores. It's something of an experiment for them, but if it goes well, they'll probably expand their retailing of mainstream parlor games. (They're also considering selling Aquarius, as part of an unrelated pilot program, in half a dozen of their other stores.)

Of course, with so many outlets to stock, this order was the biggest we've ever seen - so big that an entire print run was necessary to fill the order. The new decks were printed this week, and should be showing up on B&N shelves sometime soon.

Another print run meant another chance to get new blank Fluxx cards printed, but unfortunately, Carta Mundi has once again screwed up this simple task. Each time Fluxx has been printed, we've requested that they run some extras with nothing on the fronts, so that we can offer blanks in bulk like we did with the First Edition decks. Well, during the first printing, they forgot; during the second printing, they supposedly made the blanks but then somehow lost them; and now, during this most recent printing, they say they printed the blanks but then neglected to get them cut into cards before the machine that does this was reconfigured for another job. So now the blank Fluxx sheets are being stored, until such time as they're doing another print job that uses the same size cards, which reportedly will be in about two weeks, when they do an UNO run. (Of course, with our luck, the sheets will probably be mistakenly put in the garbage during the interim.)

And then there's that other news. Pete Fenlon, the president of ICE, seems to be in excellent spirits, considering this very difficult step in the life of his company. He assures us that this is a temporary setback only, and reminds us that ICE has bounced back from far more difficult challenges in the past. Chapter 11 protection is a court-sanctioned plan for reorganizing and revitalizing a company in deep financial trouble, and it should not be viewed as a step towards dissolution. In fact, the entire adventure gaming industry is going through upheavals and re-organizations right now; in other industry news, three of the biggest game distributors are being bought out/consolidated, one of which is itself an infant company formed through the merger of two large firms last summer. So although ICE is currently in financial trouble, we're all still hoping for a great future... ICE is still very much in the game.

One consequence of ICE's Chapter 11 filing is that our Fluxx license agreement with them has unexpectedly terminated - and we've already been contacted by another game company interested in acquiring the rights. So things have gotten interesting. We haven't had a chance yet to talk over the options with Pete, but we expect that ICE will continue to keep Fluxx in print, on an "at leave" basis, at least for a while. We're not going to make any decisions hastily.... the situation is complex, and our own agendas have changed considerably in the two years since we signed that agreement. We need some time to think and talk and plot and scheme, to decide what is best for Fluxx. We'll let you know what's ahead once we figure it out ourselves.

See you next Thursday...