I got my black coaster about two days before my order of Martian Coasters arrived. YAY! Now I gotta find someone to play it (we have a bunch of Martian Chess, Zendo, and Martian Mud Wrestling fans in my weekly group). --- Regarding What Timothy Hunt said about making Xeno-colored Martian Coasters: great minds think alike--I JUST posted that on the Icehouse list. :) Regarding the regrests of having clear but not orange: you could order three single pyramids for $3 or a whole orange stash for $9 from Looney Labs. You wouldn't have to buy a Xeno stash (or stashes). --- Regarding explaining rules: Steven Black is correct, in my opinion, and I have been doing a LOT of demoing to non-gamers in the local bars (see the Icehouse list archives for a story of success with a single-stash Zendo variation). Just tell folks to "relax and play--you will be fifteen times better after three games, and they only take a few minutes, if you don't try to figure it all out on the first move" and laugh a bit. I leave out the bit about "figure it all out on the first move" if the person isn't trying to do so, obviously; but a lot of friends to whom I introduce Icehouse are already very fast analytic thinkers (i.e. gamers), and so they DO try to out-strategize in Game One, which makes them take much longer to really learn it than if they'd just let themselves take a few fast whoopings. M- "Now you learn Lesson One--SMACK!" S- "Ow! I wasn't ready for that, Master!" M- "SMACK! SMACK!" S- "Ohhh, OK..." M- "Lesson One is concluded...." :-) David Artman