We've announced Cthulhu Dice and Zombie Dice, two fast-paced dice games that have chewed on my brain for about a solid month now. Lots of planning, production, and print buying thought has gone into these -- my side of the development and playtest process was mostly to make encouraging sounds and participate in brainstorming -- and I think we've got two hits on our hands.

Zombie Dice was originally planned with a dice bag, but as we worked on it we slowly reached the point that we could pack a dice cup with the game.

I expect to see factory dice samples next month, but for now we're using laser-engraved prototypes that Will colored by hand. They look great, but I fully expect that the professionally-produced dice will blow our prototypes away.

I know, that was over a year ago.

How did Admiral Ackbar "It's a TRAP!" get a page at BGG?

Okay, I'm home and pretty well rested. Who in Austin wants to try Revolution this weekend? Maybe a Saturday afternoon game.

Well, something's going on. The number of companies -- and game industry pros -- who are skipping this year seems to be higher than ever.

Well, I guess it's not only me since Will helps (though I'm more likely to fall into a rant than Will is). One of the new projects at the office has involved creating a few short videos to post online and we posted the first video -- unboxing Frag Gold Edition -- yesterday as I was headed out the door.

What a great way to say so long to the office for a few weeks. We opened cases of Revolution this morning and drooled. I snapped a blurry picture of one of the boxes.



It's a good thing I own a camera. This phone sucks for photos.

I sat in a meeting yesterday in which we planned our demo events for GenCon. Frag, Munchkin Quest, Revolution, and The Stars Are Right will all get in-booth demos. And we should have all four games for sale at the booth.

Details need to be ironed out, and new promotional material created, but the planning meeting yesterday went better than I had hoped.

I'll be in the booth quite a bit this year -- running Frag and Revolution demos -- so I should be a little easier to find. Except for when I'm off for meetings.

I wanna steal some time today to go outside and look at Vegas. I want to visit a designer (or vintage) toy store, but I'm not having a lot of luck with online searches. I'd also like to hit up a good game store.

And, to make matters worse, I wanna walk there from Bally's. So anything within 3-miles of Bally's is fair game for a short hike.

Help!

From OgreCave:

"As part of the 25th year celebration, Catalyst Game Labs is publishing BattleTech: 25 Years of Art and Fiction. An over-sized, full-color deluxe book, filled with a huge retrospective of 25 years worth of art. Additionally, we’ve got something extra special planned. We’ve selected over a dozen “premier” illustrations that cover the gamut of style, subject matter, time period and artists. Authors are then generating in the neighborhood of a hundred thousand words of new, original fiction to mesh with those illustrations. All the seminal BattleTech novelists are involved: Thurston, Charrette, Milan, Gressman, Coleman, Keith, Long, Pardoe, and Stackpole, as well as some new authors. A comprehensive universe timeline as well as detailed bibliography of all published material for BattleTech by FASA/FanPro/WizKids/Catalyst rounds out this fantastic product."

This sounds fantastic and is on my "must buy" list. It's probably gonna be pretty thick.

While Steve and I were at Essen last year, we sat down and played a new game from Pegasus. Well, we're now getting close to shipping our version of The Stars Are Right to print.

I like to call this 25% game and 75% puzzle. Play involves collecting servitors and ancient ones and using the collected creatures to move the stars. It plays within about an hour and can be a real brain burner. Fun for those who love puzzles.

It feels good to know that Revolution is finally at print. This is a fun game, and I expect it to do very well for us during summer convention season.

But there's no time for that. No, it's time to get another new game off to the printer. And a lot of work left to do between now at the GAMA show. I'll be wearing the suit at the show, so I should be easy to locate.

Gormiti, a toy/game line that's been in stores here in the US for a few months now, sure look inspired by Battle Beasts. I'm willing to bet it's a horrible game, but the figures really capture the look and feel of the old Battle Beasts series.

We took Revolution to Toy Fair last week and the prototype went over very well. So well, in fact, that we're going to increase our order on the initial printing.

One thing that didn't go over well, though, was the cover. So we're working on it.

The game's almost ready for print.

The two new Dominion cards -- Black Market and Envoy -- are now available for pre-order. I've ordered mine; Black Market looks especially awesome.

Dominion fans should order these now.

At the Privateer Press booth here at NYTF I had a chance to chat with some of the guys and they gave me a copy of their S.M.A.S.H. - Strategic Monster Attack Safety Handbook -- flyer. It's funny, with diagrams showing what to do if you encounter giant monsters.

It also includes a teaser for their summer release, All Your Base. I'm sure that Monsterpocalypse fans everywhere are exited about the upcoming series.

They also gave me more promo figures, which I'll have to take back to the office in case Will or Ben don't happen to own these.

This is the last week before the Toy Fair trip so, as always happens before a show, I'm trying to finalize the last pieces before taking off. Even though I'll spend time in the booth and attend several meetings -- all of which is necessary -- I'm really looking forward to this trip. With luck, and planning, I'll get to spend some time wandering the show and getting a look at what new toys and games are scheduled for release this year.

In my mail:

Dear Scrye Contributor:

We at F+W Media continuously analyze our publishing strategy to determine if we are meeting our readers' needs and company goals. We take into consideration the marketplace we serve and the opportunities available for each of our magazine titles.

After much analysis and deliberation, we have determined to cease publication of Scrye magazine; the final issue will be the April 2009 edition, issue #131.

You may have specific questions about what has happened, and we have attempted to answer some general concerns below. If you have additional questions or concerns, feel free to e-mail me at joyce.greenholdt@fwmedia.com.

You have helped provide our readers with a consistent supply of information, instruction, and entertainment. On behalf of everyone at Scrye Magazine, I would like to thank you for your contributions to the magazine.

Best Regards,


Joyce Greenholdt, Editor
joyce.greenholdt@fwmedia.com


Very, very sad. I didn't write many articles for Scrye, but working with the editors was always pleasant and they were open to some fun projects. I'll miss the magazine.

Our industry is fast running out of professional rags.

Mattel's online site for collectors, www.mattycollector.com, is just about out of their special Skeletor figures. The site has been launching several online exclusives, and they're upsetting fans by creating an artificial shortage with different toys.

Have there been any game publishers taking a shot at creating online-exclusive books or game components? I know that BoardGameGeek will be distributing an exclusive Dominion card later this year, but are there any other examples? This strikes me as a great way to bring in more business and make more on a shorter run. It won't work for everything, but the occasional special release would probably do quite well.