Hi P.F.

Thanks for bringing this to our attention. Have you been in touch with Alison about this issue at customer-support@looneylabs.com?

I haven't. I wasn't previously aware of that address. Thanks!

You're very welcome! I can't do much at all about this but everyone at Looney Labs is committed to making sure your experience with the store is a positive one. Alison's amazing and she'll do everything she can to help.

I'm planning a party with a group of my friends who all enjoy playing Fluxx and each own different versions of the game.  We've played Fluxx at practically every party we've had together since I introduced them to the game a few years ago.  I actually playtested Fluxx the Board Game at Tabletop Day and have talked about it to them all so we're really looking forward to playing it as a group!  After we play it then, I plan on bringing the game to other parties I've been invited to throughout the summer because that's simply a good opportunity to play games.  I also will play the game with my family; they're the first people I ever played Fluxx with years and years ago (at least 7) so I of course need to share any new versions of Fluxx with them, too.

I wish it would not go away; there are a lot of threads here, and it seems a shame to simply delete them all. Can't it just be left as a historical archive?

(Is there no way with the ning framework to toggle it public, thus letting it continue as it is but publicly visible?) (Or mark it read-only to keep it as a non-writable archive?)

First, I agree...  this Starship Captain forum is the one private forum that has useful/interesting content that I really don't want to delete.

To answer Scott's question - there is no specific time table, I can leave it around for a while. 

There is no way to move it over into the structure of the public forums.

Also, there was an expectation of privacy when people posted in this forum. I don't actually think that is a concern, but there is inherently something wrong with taking something that was strongly stated as private when it first existed, and then just making it public.

What I need to do is remove easy access to this separate group - as I rework the site to simplify the things you need to do to join. I can take away all links to it, and add a link from within the public forums for a bunch of old content...  but is that really the best answer?  Unless I really do toggle the content to be public I don't think that makes sense.

Scott / Russ / and anyone else with time to poke around...   is there any content here that really shouldn't be made public?

Thumbing through some of the content, the only stuff that one might consider "sensitive" to a broader public is the pre-release information fFor icedice & lunar invaders, and a fFew possibly-secret pictures of the challenge coins and petri dish.  I think petri dish is the only thing that is completely unpublished and would still be considered truly Secret, but that petri dish thread doesn't really have anything other than a couple of cool pictures of the board in play.

There are a lot of discussions which would probably benefit fFrom a larger audience, seeking inqueries and suggestions on game rules.  But, if we simply made this all public, the location and distinction of which fForum to use would be deeply confusing, I'm sure.

"But, if we simply made this all public, the location and distinction of which fForum to use would be deeply confusing, I'm sure."

exactly, which is why I reluctantly say we should delete it - even though deleting content seems so very wrong

So I'd say the simplest solution may be to simply remove the obvious public links to it, but leave this private forum as an inactive archive for those "in the know". :)

Maybe so.  With the understanding that New Content and New Games and New Ideas should not be posted here.

Maybe we agree to delete it after a year, or six months, or something.  Because what's the point in keeping a thing around if we should not really ever use it.  Someone told me once, on the subject pf cleaning the house "if you have not used something fFor a year, throw it away."  That might be a tad extreme in practice, but the idea applies.

Well, except that "using" a forum includes not only posting to it but also reading it.

Lots of forum threads do not receive new posts for many years, yet remain clearly useful (e.g. answering rules questions).

Good point, sir.

Hi Kathryn,

We will be making demo copies available to game techs. We just haven't ironed out all the details yet. The game hits shelves at the end of July and we'll definitely give everyone notice well in advance of that.

Yay!! Thank you for the quick reply!!

Congrats!

Undercut had already entered my (way too long) list of pyramid games I want to try. This positive news makes the game even more interesting sounding. Good luck!

PS: I have played Synapse-Ice multiple times and I like it a lot! :)

Thanks for the kind words Russ.

It's always nice to hear the somebody has been enjoying something you've created.

Congratulations!  I had noted it on Kickstarter thinking it looked like a neat idea and refreshing change of theme from the usual game things you see, but I hadn't made the connection.  Excellent!

That fFirst trouble is usually me.  I'm playing a game, not thinking about pictures.  I need to not do that.  As the saying goes: pics or it didn't happen!

I probably wouldn't bother mentioning how the photo will be used.  I mean, it's a fFair question, but if you fFocus on the table, then it's less of a big deal.  Usually if people don't want their picture taken, they will tell you outright "Don't take my picture."  If people ask what you're going to do with the pic, tell them honestly.  I think that's enough fFor most cases.

Hey Genevieve,

Yes always take a moment to take pics! It is so nice to see everyone out there enjoying the games!

Do ask if folks mind you taking a picture. If you were taking the picture and putting it in a photo album, most might not care - but nowadays, pics go everywhere, instantly, so its a valid concern for some.

If someone does object, simply take photos of the table, the area, and the game without that person in it, ( aim the camera away from them , feature other folks ( and yourself) or just ask them to hop out of the picture for a sec..

Note - if you award prizes and promos, take a pic with them holding up their promos, most folks will want to do this just to show off a bit!)

Drew

Thanks for the help guys! I'll definitely use this advice for TableTop Day since there is a gaming convention that weekend as well so I am running a block of Looney Labs for a few hours and then manning their board game area the rest of the night :)

How did TableTop Day go Genevieve? :)

Went great! Sorry I was out of town on a family emergency the day after.....got some great pics on Tabletop Day thanks to the tips so I will hopefully get the report up in the next day or two :)

Has this spot been filled?

Howdy! I got into pyramids in 2009 when someone taught me Homeworlds at a convention. Now I'm quite into pyramid games, and I like playing them in real life and online at superdupergames.org. I usually take them along to game cons as well as to Esperanto events (e.g. teaching Blam to some people at a game con last weekend, and 2 of us from different countries brought pyramids along to an Esperanto New Year's gathering a month ago where many different pyramid games were played, as well as a some Looney Labs card games). I'm currently living in Poland but originally from the US.

Hiya!  I don't know if there is an introduction thread either.  And if there is, it's clearly quite buried.  So HI!!!

I'm in upstate new york, and have been playing with pyramids since 2001.  I've been to several of the Big Experiments, but they're not doing those anymore.  Maybe they'll do more conventions someday in the fFuture.  It's a lot of fFun.

I have fFlirted with designing my own game fFor pyramids, and this might be the year I actually put words on a page about how to play what I have come up with.  Mostly tho, I enjoy playing cool new things other people come up with.  It's a lot of fFun to see imaginative new things that people think of!

Howdy, Brianna!

I am Ryan, and I've been pushing pyramids around since 2005.  I also help run the fan wiki at IcehouseGames.ORG.  I've designed a few pyramid games, my two best being Dectana and Conquest of Mars (rules available on the wiki, where all rules should be).

ha! what a great thread.

we are actually working on a Fluxx of this very kind. :)

My wife and I actually were able to play the prototype of Monster Fluxx at the first Looney Lounge and it was a lot of fun. Looking forward to playing again this weekend.

I like the idea... Especially if it would somehow related to the world of darkness universe :-P

I give my "Thumbs up" to this idea! Hope to see it soon.

I could see something like this having a black and white monster movie theme to it; add in the creature from the black lagoon, etc. Great idea!

I take the lack of replies to this post means no one is attending Who'sYerCon? I will be there either in the Boardgame room or the open play area. I plan on bringing Pyramids and Fluxx with me. If I can get the table time, I will try to schedule Starship Cadet Training. Hope to see some of you there!

Chris

I now have 6 events approved with more pending table space. Fluxx, Pyramids, and Are You A Werewolf? all have time slots.

WooHoo!

Chris

Hi Bill!

Access to the secret store is handled by Drew (fan-club coordinator) and Alison (customer support). It's a two-step process that involves verifying that you do indeed meet the requirements for access. 

Unfortunately, with it being the weekend, it will likely not be granted in the next couple of days. I do hope that once you gain access there'll still be plenty of time to ship your stuff for your holiday parties! There are also some restrictions on combining demo and personal stuff, but this is only when something is offered with free shipping (if I am remembering correctly). Alison will be able to explain that to you more thoroughly as well. 

So glad you joined the demo team, though! Welcome to our neck of the woods. I hope you enjoy your stay. ;)

First, thanks for the reply and thanks for the welcome.

 

I figured I'd ask, that way, if there was something I was doing wrong (or incomplete) on my end, I could get it taken care of ASAP.  It shouldn't be too big of a deal, as long as it gets approved within the next week or so.  I figured bringing it to the board's attention might get the process expidied a bit quicker and if not, at least I hopefully made the right people aware...

 

Worst case, if it's not up by next week, I'll just place my "personal" order and use that to demo with.  I figured having some promos to hand out would be handy, but if I can't get to them, it's no biggie.  I'll figure out a workaround until I can get some demo stuff ordered.

 

Again, thanks for the reply and the welcome!

 

-Bill

Awesome! How long is the code lasting for, Bianca?

Thank you!

Just one more thing to be thankful for today!

:hugs all around:

Hi, Bianca!

Where's the announcement of the holiday gift? I'm excited to get the Pink Hijinks game (is that bag even smaller than Treehouse?), but most eager just to have the rules! I've been curious about this one for a while.

I'm not Bianca, but I have observed that if you go to the Pink Hijinks page on "Our Games" section of the Looney Labs web site and click on "Literature", it will take you to a page with a link to the rules.  http://www.looneylabs.com/lit/game/Pink%20Hijinks

As for the Holiday Gift announcement, I received an email.  Are you on the Looney Labs mailing list?

Hm. Maybe caught in my spam filter...

Hey Alan!

The code will last until Dec. 7th. :)

Have I mentioned lately that y'all are awesome? We are so thankful to every single one of you for being such awesome fans and going out and spreading the word about our games. Can't be said enough. All of you rule to infinity and beyond. 

Psst ... The "Order It!' link on http://www.looneylabs.com/games/pink-hijinks is broken and won't get surfers into the store.

Thanks Matthew. Fixing it now. :)

I didn't realize National Harbor was just south of the DC beltway on the Potomac!  So it's close to us. 

I'm somewhat interested, but I don't know if I'd be free enough to go more than 1 day.  

Oh this sounds so awesome. And thanks for wanting to run an event!!! If you get enough game techs together to do this, keep me posted, please!

It would also be great to get spare IceDice dice at the store.  The dice we got in the initial kit were painted, not engraved; plus it would be great to get extras anyway.

Hi Bryan,

For the time being, the only way to get those dice is by purchasing IceDice. There are no extra dice manufactured outside of what goes in the game packaging itself.  

The Treehouse bag and single copies of the Pyramid Primer #1 go on sale soon

         ...we will start taking pre-orders online in a few days.

The instructions are all available for download: Welcome, How-To, Guidelines, Tracking

         ...plus a PocketMod version of the Syllabus is available for download

And the 20 packs of Syllabus and super discounted 10-packs of the Pyramid Primer #1 are now available for pre-order in the game tech store along with the full Looney Pyramid Demo Kits.  Just click on the DemoKit tab inside the secret store...  (as pictured here)

If you don't have access to the secret store yet - follow these INSTRUCTIONS

The kits will be ready to ship soon - get one on order today! 

Thumbs up here.

Nay. (See my notes here.)

Hey folks! Regarding Pikemen - there is a new process that we all would like to try for the positing editing and finalizing new  Pyramid games.  Have a look at the reply to this  The IceSheet Initiative thread  As pr this process, Joshua will act as Project Manager for Pikemen.

Rather than voting on the games readiness now  - follow the Stages outlined in this process. Playtest  the game over and over , take notes, and then use this post to report them, (just as Russ has done) to share them with Joshua.  Joshua then will take these suggestions and decide what changes to implement. Only then will the Starship Captains decide that the rules are ready for Stages 2&3 where an Icesheet is created, a final edits ar run past Looney Labs employees - Kristin and Andy and finally  completion.

The process was set up to organize the IceSheet Initiative for any and every game that everyone would like to become and official part of the New Games and upcoming Pyramid Primers. Have a look,  then have at it.

Drew

"I Have Color" should be removed from this list, I think. It's really only fun, in my experience, with a few or several preschoolers, and would not add to the play through. In an IceAwards, it fails the first round, as it's preschool linguistic play while handling pyramids.

Thanks for getting going on this, Greg. 

Choice B) above is definitely the way to go, IMO, and we should find out who is willing to help in the different rounds.  I have been involved in the previous Ice Awards processes, and am willing to help vet and vote on the nominees. I am willing to play all the games on the list, in fact, if there is enough time.  How long shall we take to go through the first round? 

(By the way, as the designer of Treehouse Snakes and Ladders, I must point out that it is not just the original game with pyramids as pawns.  It adds genuine tactical choices to the game, and uses the stacking ability of pyramids as an important gameplay element! :)

How did you make the list?  I forget if there is some way to search the Icehouse wiki to tell which games were added during a particular time frame. 

I've played almost every game that was released last year, but I currently don't have anyone to game with. I can offer comments on two I thought were excessively flawed when I originally played them, though:

1. Carrots and Broccoli: The game has a serious problem with stagnation. Since players each roll one die each turn and move one pyramid of that size and color, the game quickly becomes about who rolls black (useless) most often, or it's just the players moving the same pyramids back and forth each turn. The fact that the designer recommends setting a timer and calling the game when it goes off is very telling on this point.

2. The Wilds of Mars: Pyramids are just used as pawns here (only color matters). It's a reasonable game otherwise, but it's not a pyramid game.

I simply took the list from here.

There are also several games that have been removed from consideration by their designer, including several of Robert Dudley's games (which I assume that he took out for strategic reasons.

That said, here is that list, since they can still be played through if we are only playing through the games and don't get past Round 1:

WITHDRAWN BY DESIGNER:

1. Colonization
2. Gleebs and Grues
3. Munch
4. Pyramid Punch
5. Robot Battle Arena
6. Shapeshifter Wars
7. Sphinx's Paw‎
8. Treasure Slide

What you said about C and B makes sense.  We just played through Wilds of Mars the other night and I think it's more of a pyramid game what you said... certainly as much a pyramid game as Zark City.  However, I recall that the game went through a major rewrite (perhaps because of your playtest). The size of the pyramids now matters to the game play.  That said, how good of a game it is is debatable, but I'd guess that it's Round 2 material.

That reminds me, we should be judging the games by their current form; I know that my games have evolved over time. That may mean that a few games might need to be revisited. And I'll have to reprint games that I may have put into my game binders a while back.

I've been meaning to look at the 2011 crop for months now, but lately I haven't had good opportunities to round up opponents and blindly learn new games together.

I've played through "Paint the Line," "Stawvs," and "Wilds of Mars" and vote that they each pass the basic test of the first round. "Stawvs" has much in common with "That's My Fish" but makes a significant change (probably) for the better (originality being something to weigh as we may as we move beyond the first round, I suppose). I have some questions as to the balance of "Wilds of Mars" as a game, but perhaps it's a game that will have a number of advocates.

That's cool. I don't check the recently updated page of wiki anymore due to the spam, so I missed the rules changes on Wilds of Mars. I'll have to give the game another try. I thought it had a lot of potential, so I'm interested in seeing where he went.

I think Gleebs and Grues, Shapeshifter Wars, and Colonization are all good games. I just cut down to one on the list since the IceAwards ask for one game from each submitter (I think). Paint the Line is definitely my favorite of the games I designed last year, though.

Yeah, it now uses the size, color, and orientation of pyramids. I thought that it had promise; I think Scott was less impressed. If it gets past the second round, I'm sure that we'll give it another try.

Actually, I don't think that there is a one game per person requirement. People do usually pull out some of their games by the final round, in favor of their favorite. I'll verify that with Scott. If you want to put any of those other games back into consideration, let us know.

I'll pass Evacuate, Freeze Tag, and Ice Colony. They're all at least functional games.

Chain Reaction seemed overcomplicated to the point of unplayability. There was just too much going on to keep track of the current turn, much less think ahead at all. This was exacerbated by the fact that you can't always tell exactly how many pyramids are in a stack, some of which get quite large. Others could definitely disagree with my opinion here.

I think Martian Canals worked okay, but I honestly can't remember for sure. It's been a while. If anyone else plays it, just use 6-sided dice in place of the fudge dice and treat results of 1-2 as -1, 3-4 as 0, and 5-6 as 1. I'm not sure why he suggests using D4s in the rules, since a fudge die is just a D6 with different numbers.

I wouldn't mind throwing Gleebs and Grues and Colonization back in. They're both very different from Paint the Line. I'd really like to hear something about Colonization from someone who isn't a gaming buddy of mine, and it being in the competition is probably the only way that'll happen.

In the rules I suggest rolling d4 minus d4 to give the same -3 to +3 range as 3dF. It's a triangle probability distribution rather than the more bell shaped 3dF, though, so it leads to more placement along the edges. The edges are stronger positions when using Fudge dice.

That said, the d6s for dFs substitution has a long history of use, too.

I found the bit about multiple games from one designer in the mailing list archive for the 2009 Ice Awards. There was a request late in the process to cull the entries down to one per designer. I was unaware that the awards were going on, so they cut one of my games for me. I'm not sure if it's a standard rule or if it was just that year, though.

I went ahead and added Gleebs and Grues and Colonization back into the list of games, at least for the early rounds. I know Matthew Rogers likes Gleebs and Grues (thanks for the feedback!), but I'd still like to hear more on them if I can. If anyone has any objections, go ahead and cross them off the list. 

The selection process is currently happening on the New in 2011 page on the wiki. Jump in if you get a chance, people! 

Also, should this discussion be moved to the regular forums? I'm not sure if any non-Captains would want to help, but it's always possible.

I was planning on moving this discussion into the main forum after the first round. Since, for now, all we're supposed to be doing is making sure the games function, I didn't think it made sense to discourage more casual players by having them play broken games. If things lag here, I'll post something shortly directing players to the wiki page discussion, with a warning that the games have not been vetted. Obviously, without Origins, we'll be doing a lot of extra work through the forums.

I hadn't heard back from others on whether we traditionally limit it to one game per player. Unless someone corrects us, I'll put those games back on the list. I'll probably remove one of my two games in another round or so too. Adding games may slow the process down initially, but things should speed up once we get to the third round.

I prefer letting multiple games from one author remain, until perhaps the finalists are chosen.  If someone has designed two or more good games in the same year, they deserve the recognition of the award evaluation process.  And the author's favorite may not be the same as the favorite among everyone else.  

I'm with Bryan on this one.  If someone requests their game be withdrawn, that's one thing.  But there is no reason we should limit ourselves to one entry per player until later in the process.

Thanks Scott,

Indeed, that’s what made sense to me too. I didn’t want to give him the wrong information. It’s good to get confirmation that it’s how it’s been handled in the past.

Matthew passed Gleebs and Grues... We have a "possible" pass on Martian Canals from Robert (so we'll leave that open for any potential objections).

I got in a game of Ziggurat Demolition Throwdown. We played with two players, without the extended deck rules. I'm interested to read the playtest comments on this one when we start judging closely. It easily passes out of the first round.

Bridge isn't a particularly strong game.  It's a game, and you could play it, but you probably wouldn't want to play it very much.  it is prone to stalemates, or else a fFlat race.  If there was a different goal, like "connect a variety of locations, to move commodities" or something, it would be interesting.  But right now it's just a mechanic, which isn't very compelling.

really enjoyed this.  I'm considering what it would take make my own Ziggurat card deck, with text more specific to the game (instead of a general purpose decktet).

I'll have some details later, but, we played IceCubed with three experienced pyramid gamers, and, in it's current form, it doesn't pass. There are some good ideas there, and some really nice diagrams, but the game is full with a lot of ambiguously, oddly worded rules. We kept asking each other if we could do this or that, but many things were simply implied or left unsaid. Some of the rules even seemed to contradict the actual things demonstrated in the diagrams. When we have time, we'll add some specific criticism on the page for the game's designer to improve it if he wishes. After all, I think that there is an interesting game in there somewhere. I don't mind guessing on a few things. However, as it is now, it's impossible to play it with the confidence one needs to know if it is playable in its current form.

Only three games left to evaluate: Colonization, Stacktrices, and Whack Chess. We're almost to the next round!

Congrats Shane on being the first recipient of the coveted GT Coin! ! You definitely earned it! And there is much more to come in the GT program:  kits, rewards, fun! Stay tuned...

Drew

I endeavor to be the second!

I didn't realize I had bie first that makes it cooler

Gratz! I can't wait to earn my GT coin...it's very snazzy! I get people all the time asking about where I got my Oz and Cthulu coins.

Hey that's neato!!

Now i just gotta fFigure out how to use hangouts.  Hmmm...

Well done!!!!!

Looks beautiful! Now I just need to figure out how they work...

Good looking game.  Nicely written.  Congrats.  =)

Hey thanks, Scott! Did you get a chance to play it yet? Also, I saw that you made some PDF rules for some of the existing games that didn't have the new rule format yet. Great job on that! Also, did that conference call ever happen about deciding how and when games with the new formatting will be put up on the "More Games" section of the Looney Labs website?

No, the call has not happend...  YET

Scott / Dallan:  Let's put together a committee - the three of us and up to 7 more people who want to plot and scheme together with us on how we can get the testing of new pyramid games going so we can start getting some more fan designed games up on the MORE GAMES page.  There are two main issues: formatting and testing...  but that's the topic for the call. 

Why no more than 10 people?  Because more would be too big, but also because we can then do it via a google hangout and chat with both video and voice!

I can't do this until the week of the 24th - but if one of you guys wants to help organize it and make it happen, I could join in on a call on the evening of September 24th, 25th, or 26th.  Go find that old thread, see who else was interested, start a new planning thread so we don't completely co-op this thread about Dallan's game...   if one of you guys wants to help drive this and make it happen, I will join in and help.  But this needs to be a fan run effort...  I just don't have the resources among myself and my employees to focus on pyramid game rules, even though it is near and dear to my heart and I so so want to help make it happen...    

Very cool.

I contacted a variety of people before, and the biggest trouble was getting together at a time that worked fFor everyone.  But it really should be done.  And, after seeing what the Looneys have planned, in the "werewolf hangout," I'd say we'd better get on that sooner rather than later!

I've never run a hangout.  I should probably do one casually with a fFriend or two, and see how it works.

I just started a new forum thread to continue this conversation. Here's the link: http://looneylabs.ning.com/forum/topics/pyramid-playtesters-brainstorming-stage

I just started a new forum thread to continue this conversation. Here's the link: http://looneylabs.ning.com/forum/topics/pyramid-playtesters-brainstorming-stage

I ran through it a few times.  The rules are clear and it's a reasonably entertaining diversion.

The rules look clear. I'll try it out.

Minor rule feedback: The following sentence seems odd to me:

"You cannot use both hands or be holding more than one pyramid at the same time."

That seems a strangely irrelevant physical / body restriction. E.g. maybe it's more natural or convenient for someone to move the a hopping pyramid with their right hand while removing the hopped-over pyramid with their left hand - what's the harm in that? It seems a weird thing to have to explain in the first place; it sounds like you're worried a player might treat it as a real time game or something? I'm having a hard time imagining how a player might play erroneously by lifting 2 pyramids at once. Even if a player hops 2 pyramids simultaneously, is there a situation where that's not equivalent to hopping one, and then hopping the other?

Maybe simply begin "How to play" with "Each turn, use the top pyramid on a grid square to hop over the top pyramid in an adjacent grid square..." Adding those 2 words "Each turn" would seem sufficient to clarify the (I would think already obvious) fact that you do independent turns one after the other.

(Also, saying "grid square" seems unnecessary; wouldn't simply "square" suffice?)

Russ,

Thank you so much for the feedback! I love getting others views and feedback to help me improve the the way I have written the rules. I have now removed the word "grid" and just left it as "square" as you suggested. I have also added the words, "Each turn" at the starting of the first sentence for the "How to Play" section of the rules.

Thank you for mentioning that the sentence: "You cannot use both hands or be holding more than one pyramid at the same time." is odd and confusing. The main purpose for adding this sentence was for multiplayer and timing situations so that there was a universal way of doing it. This really isn't important for single player. However, if you go too fast for forget to remove a pyramid that was hopped, it can make it so that the puzzle either isn't solvable down to one piece or that you could solve the puzzle after already making moves that would have prevented you from solving it down to one piece. I see your point in how the wording of that sentence seem weird and confusing. I have changed the sentence now to say: "For multiplayer and to avoid illegal actions, refrain from holding more than one pyramid at a time." Does that make more sense? Do you have any other suggestions on maybe how to word that better?

Thanks so much for your feedback! It really does help. I am attaching the newly updated PDF.

He includes rules for two players (see who's fastest), where the both-hands and multiple-pyramids rules would be relevant.  Maybe those rules should be moved to that section.

Hey Jeff,

Thanks for trying my game out! You are correct, that was the reason for that sentence. However, it was a bit confusing how I wrote it. So I reworded it and the new update is in the PDF posted above. I ran out of room in the multiplayer section so I would have to try to reword some stuff to fit it over there. However, it could be important to a single player to only ever be holding one pyramid at a time so that they don't make an illegal move/action (forgetting to remove hopped pyramid) which could cause the puzzle to then be unsolvable down to one piece. Or even make the puzzle solvable when it shouldn't be because they had already made too many bad moves.

Hi Dallan, I set it up 3x4 and played around with it for a while. Definitely reminds me of peg solitaire type puzzles. I was surprised how tough it was. I did it several times and kept thinking "Wait, why is it so hard? Let me try again." I got some enjoyable little aha-effects about some tactics.

FWIW the best score I got (after I'm not sure how much time, maybe 20 minutes? About a half dozen plays) was 8 points left on the board.

But then I reread the rules and noticed that I'd forgotten you don't have to hop onto a same-size pyramid; you can also hop onto an empty square, DOH! :) That's what I get for not trying it out right after reading the rules... Anyway, using that rule that let me knock my last score down to 3. :)

For me it's not a "game" per se but definitely more of a peg solitaire type puzzle, which is not something I'm not normally into, and I can't imagine myself seriously trying to practice and become reliably fast at it like puzzle fans do. But it does seem like a good puzzle of that type; not too easy to figure out, yet clearly do-able.

Russ,

Thanks so much for playing it and giving me some good constructive feedback. I am not a huge fan of solo puzzle games either. I'd rather be playing a multiplayer strategy game. However, I don't always have others to play pyramids with and so I decided to see if I could come up with a puzzle that was not so easy that once you had solved it once, there would be no reason to try and solve it again. I didn't intend for Egyptian Solitaire to be a multiplayer game and in fact, I doubt many people would choose to play the multiplayer versions of the game if they have multiple people to play pyramids. I know I wouldn't. I just kind of threw those multiplayer game modes in there as an option if there are people who want to try to get fast at solving it. I never have been able to solve a Rubik's Cube haha.

I think that the main reason I created it was for that player who wants to play around with their new pyramids, but doesn't have anyone to play with and wants to try and solve a puzzle. I think that some of the additional challenges are actually quite challenging. Especially ending the game with one large pyramid because you have to figure out a way to keep a large pyramid alive throughout the entire game without hopping it and finish the game with just it left of the board. So I think that for a puzzle type game, it has a decent amount of replayability for a player who likes puzzle challenges.

Could you tell us more about this con, e.g. what you like about it?

I plan on going to Intervention Con as it's not far from home for me.  If you need any help running any Fluxx or Chrononauts let me know. Will also be going with another Demo Team member so he'll probably help too!

I am planning on attending Intervention Con as well. If there are a few of us attending, I don't see any reason that we can't all link up and coordinate things with each other. If nothing else, we can work together to demo a variety of games or versions of Fluxx.

Sorry for the late response. Intervention is a con based on the internet. Who doesn't use the internet? It's got something for nearly everyone! Web comics are heavily featured at Intervention, but you also have bloggers, musicians, costuming, gaming, and my favorite... fantasy bellydancing! It is a small con (this is only the third year), but it is a lot of fun. 

Well, I've submitted a panel request for Fluxx Fest, and I'll post again when I hear back from programming. Lara and William, I'd love it if you could help run things in case we get a big crowd. I'm planning to bring a lot of promo cards to hand out, and I have almost all of the current versions of Fluxx on hand. The only one I don't have is the latest version of Family Fluxx, but I do have the previous version. I went with Fluxx Fest because I think the Fluxx versions are the only games I'm able to demo at this point. I'm busy with an infant and have gotten rusty on the other games. But if anyone decides to run something other than Fluxx, I can probably offer support.

Sounds like a plan :) I currently only have regular Fluxx but should have Cthulhu Fluxx by then, and may also have Monty Python Fluxx by then as well. So if nothing else we can do multiple demos of the ones we have doubles of. I do have a copy of Chrononauts but only the original not Early American. So if there is interest I'd be happy to run a demo of that also, but either way just let me know.

Since some of the programming has been posted on the Intervention website with no sign of Fluxx Fest, I sent an email asking if it was going to be included. Harknell (one of the convention founders) got back to me right away and said they'd love to include Fluxx Fest, and he asked what time/day/duration do we want. I'm leaning towards Saturday afternoon, for about 3 hours. Lara, William, (and anyone else), how does that sound to you?

Or rather I have no idea when to have it. Also tossing around the idea of doing it twice for just 2 hours each:

Friday 4pm - 6pm, and Saturday 1pm - 3pm

Friday sounds good. Unfortunately, Lara and I will not be getting to the con until later in the afternoon on Saturday, probably around 4 or so. We will be able to be there pretty much all day on Friday and Sunday, however.

We're in the Intervention program... Friday, September 21, from 4pm-7pm. I've added it to the events page here (in the fan club) too. Woo-hoo!

Cool. Lara and I will definately be there to help run things. If nothing else, we can each demo a different "flavor" of Fluxx. Heck, might even try to sneak in a Chrononaughts game too.

Now for my own responses to to my questions! Many of these we've at least worked out a temporary group ruling to continue play, so do not take these as official rulings unless further clarified.

1. We've been playing that moving the attached Creeper allows you to detach it. I could really see this going either way.
2. We've played so far without a limit, because it doesn't say "once per turn" anywhere on the card (unlike, say, The Captain from Star Fluxx).
3. We've been playing that Metamorphosis will immediately attach to the Elder Sign (and thus cannot be hidden) but that any other unattached but attachable Creepers (Nightmares or Madness) are both able to be hidden. 
4. Upon re-reading, the card does say "and/or" so my assumption is that yes, you definitely can use it once. Same as the Necronomicon, we've also been playing that discarding the Creeper detaches it first.
5. Because the card specifically says "Cards with Doom on it" we've been playing that even if your total Anti-Doom fully cancels out your Doom, as long as you still have at least one card with Doom on it, then you can still use it.
6. We've been playing that it does not.
7. We've been playing that it does not.
   1. Similarly, we've also been playing that the Projector does not project any extra abilities. Since we may merge and add both the Computer and Holographic Projector into Cthulhu Fluxx, I figured I'd ask here before I forgot.
8. We've been playing that you do get the +3 from playing Cosmic Instructions unless it's already in play, in which case it does not get re-played.
9. We haven't been playing that it does (ie we've been counting Ungoal plays as plays that count against your total) due to overall group consensus, but because of the "draw a card to replace it" I'm leaning towards treating them as full Creepers, essentially saying that you can't hold them in your hand and they don't count as plays. However, the rule doesn't specifically read as saying that, so I'm not sure.
10. We had no clue how to handle this, so we simply took a vote and said that the turn after the one that was about to occur would be skipped. However, because of the extra turn, we simply said that that extra turn was then the "next turn" and was skipped, allowing play to continue without any skipping. However, we had no clue whatsoever what the "correct" interpretation was.
11. We've been playing that partial words do not count (ie Ungoal != Goal) but that hypenated words count as two separate words (and thus Meta-Rule still hits "Rule"). We've played assuming the general rulings I've seen before of "you win the instant the goal is met" would mean that Hastur can't be stolen afterwards in order to change the balance for Cult Clash. We haven't yet had any tug-of-wars, but knowing my group, I wouldn't be surprised. My initial thought is that if the current player is any of the players that wants it, then they should get preference. If not, then flipping a coin and/or one turn of RPS determines the owner during the current turn. Thoughts?
    1. As a group meta-rule, we've instituted a "if you don't realize that you've won, then you don't win, given an appropriate waiting period, since we tend to play during lunch and "not paying full attention to the game" can be a recurring issue. So if someone else plays a goal that makes someone else win, they can't replace it immediately before the player who would have won notices, but if they sit there and wait for a full minute or two, and the other player doesn't notice, then changing the goal on them is fair game. (This very rarely happens, though.) This is primarily mentioned because the "you win the instant the goal is met" ruling could contradict our group meta-rule in this situation. As a whole, we decided that in our situation, Hastur should count similar to any other Goal, in requiring a reasonable amount of time to steal after someone else has won via Cult Clash.
12. We've been playing that Anti-Doom for Draw + Doom can merely cancel out existing Doom rather than actively going negative. I disagreed with the rest of my group and read "negate" as "counts as -1 Doom" and thus can have a draw of even 0 with that rule out.

Hello, I've been doing some "demo practice" sessions with a few friends before "officially" running a demo, just to make sure I got the mechanics and rules down so I can smoothly demonstrate.

I've done a 3 round set with a pair of other players that worked pretty well. Earlier this week I just ran 5 players (who have played prior versions) through a single round since nobody ever got a draw more card, they moved on to letter games :^p

A question came up, after reading through the tricky to find (maybe shortcut to an index via looneylabs.com/FAQ in future?) http://rabbits.continuation.org/wiki/Fluxx_FAQ still have a point needing clarification, please.

Keepers sometimes have the special ability of removing Creepers.

Ex: Federal Agents

Attachable Creepers that attach to Keepers sometimes block their special ability.

Ex1: Madness

Ex2: Metamorphosis

What happens when (1) of those cards is on the table first and the second one is played?

Ex1: Federal Agents on the table and incoming Madness

Ex2: Metamorphosis on the table and incoming Federal Agents

My thoughts on potential outcomes...

Ex1: The Attachable Creeper does not go into play unattached, blocking the Keeper ability.

Ex2: The Attachable Creeper is already on the table and ready to attach instantly, the Keeper needs to go into play before its ability can be used.

Wilmarth is fully intact on mine - perhasp a single card bungle - send him back after complete release date would be best action.

My copy is fine.

I think it's just your deck.

Pink Hijinks made for a fun little game (I'm not a big fan of dice games, but there's a fun little decision tree to PH). That game can be played with what you already have (some of those others can't). My feeling is that Andy likes to playtest them for some time (think about how long it takes to get a game to a point where you're 100% happy with it). I'd guess that we might see one of those games released as an year-end gift (which happens most years). Still, you're correct, they're a really big tease. :)

I'd be interested in people's impression of the other games.

Even a game that seems complete can sometimes be significantly revised for the better. I think Zark City 2.0 is a great improvement on the original, for example. I also know the pain of realizing that a game that I thought was complete had a major flaw requiring correction, because I recently experienced that with Abiegnus.

Still, I don't get the impression that Andy's embargoed games are still needing design development. By implication, those games are all "finished," because in the same list, Andy calls Build It First (2009) "unfinished." It seems more likely that it's a matter of wanting to publish each in the way that will have the greatest benefit for Looney Labs and provide the best presentation of the game. That's especially understandable for games that call for custom materials.

But with such a big backlog, I wonder whether things will fall off the map entirely. And I'm curious and impatient.

I've played Pink Hijinks, Sandships, and Petri Dish.  I didn't sign an NDA or anything, but it is certainly rude to divulge too much information about unpublished games.  But here's my thoughts on them.

I like Pink Hijinks.  It's a nice light game, played with 3 trees and an icedie.  It could be played with more trees, actually, but I think 3 trees is used as a good measure fFor keeping the game going too long.

Sandships, and Petri Dish both use some mysterious new dice!  They are really quite neato.  Think of them a little bit like Treehouse Dice without words.  I've only seen them once a year ago, and I'm not sure how likely we are to see them in production.  They're cool though.

Petri Dish has been kicking around fFor quite some time.  The biggest hold up on publication is the dish itself.  Imagine a fFancy volcano board, with triangle cut-out shapes instead of squares.  This is so you can lay pyramids on their side, rather than standing up.  Everyone is playing a type of germ in a petri dish.  The goal is to eliminate your opponents.  While the dice limit the actions you can take, there's plenty of options every turn.  This plays kinda similar to Zark City.

Sandships is pretty good, but fFeels a little incomplete somehow.  The spirit of the game is, you use pyramids as ships sailing across the martian desert, and dice let you take assorted actions.  It really captures the spirit of a cool martian game, but i fFind myself wishing there was some sort of power play I could do or something.  It fFeels a little too random.  I'm not one of those people who shies away fFrom randomosity, mind you, but this has the potential to be a little more engaging than it is.  Where Petri Dish is just fFine with constraints by random dice rolls, Sandships would benefit fFrom an ability to strategize a little more, I think.

Also, I have not played Petal Battle, but the loose summary given to me was "It's a kind of simpler Petri Dish."

And now this just makes me itch to play them even more... such a shame... darn the luck, darn!

Especially Petri Dish.  I'd love to coordinate getting some boards and dice made for that one.

Demo kit ordered, poll answered, team joined!

I'm really looking forward to this version of Fluxx.  I'd love to order a demo kit but am having a hard time getting into the Tech Store.

Processing my returns to the lab , looking forward to hidden corners and creepy nights of the cthulhu fast play for our friday 13th nites and those leading upto and thru this as public release. Awaiting ss access to order my kit in.

Can't wait for cthulhu fluxx to launch! Filled out the survey and pre-ordered the demo kit. Thanks!

Strictly speaking, shouldn't Cthulhu perhaps ARISE from the depths, rather than "launch"?

I'm looking forward to late June, when we cultists game technicians will start getting agitated in anticipation of August 17th "when the stars are right."

I am totally in.  Every time I think you guys can't make Fluxx any more fun, you prove me wrong.

order in , poll answered (at least should be) team CFLT  moving forward on plans to digest the sanity of our demo victums er.... slaves.... er  cultists...  oh truth seeker

I would like to join this team, just waiting on my game tech store access. Hope you are having a great day!

A little slow to it, but kit is ordered. Excited to see the announcement and a set date! Yay for the horror and doom!

Trying to order the Launch Kit.

Clicked the Get Access link, got sent to a log-in page. It kept coming back to itself even though I had the correct password.

Huh?

It's late June now. I wonder how close those Launch Kits are to rising from the deeps?

I just came here to ask the same question, Ive been hyping it at my FLGS for weeks and still nothing. :(

The demo copies are scheduled to arrive any day now, and everything else is in hand...  so we hope to start shipping the kits as early as next week!!! 

I would love to be part of this demo team.  I am a longtime HPL fan and a huge LL fan as well.

Can't wait can't wait can't wait.

I've already scheduled a Cthulhu Fluxx demo at my church for July 24. Sure hope I've got my kit by then.

Yes, that's right: Cthulhu Fluxx at my church. They don't have gills or tentacles, but they don't discriminate against those who do....

HAH!! Awesome!  =)

any update on when they are coming? Gotten a bunch of friends revved up to try it and a few FLGS who I want to demo with before I move :)

a big chunk of the fan kits have already shipped, some last Friday some today - all remaining orders for kits that are already in the system should ship by Wednesday the latest.  Check your email to see if your kit has shipped yet! 

Just got mine in the mail today. Thanks! Can't wait to play it.

Ordered my Kit. Assembled Altar. Watching the Stars. 

CTHULHU FLUXX has arrived peeled thru my mailbox and jumped into my secret madness - I take will take the evil treat with me for the Friday 13th game tonight , private game demo - Demo this public soon - impose the will of the cult on others  ... mooo hahahaha

I'm loving all the tweets and post from everyone talking about Cthulhu arriving on their doorsteps!  Have fun everyone - and please tweet / post / share anywhere you can in these early days while you have an advance copy in your hands - thanks for helping us build buzz for this new release! 

We received out Demo kits and had a game demonstration at our local Hobby and Game Shop today. 
What a blast!  Loved the horror of Lovecraft! The artwork was phenomenal and trying to keep up with all of the rules/goals/dooms was almost skull-cracking! We passed out a few give-a-ways and are planning a couple more demos in the near future.

However, we did find what seems to be a printing error--
The Goal card "No Books For You!" has the words "and the" printed twice.

As Game Techs, we feel it is one of our duties to point out things like this for future correction.

Things that are awesome: Running a Cthulhu Fluxx demo on fFriday the 13th!  Yeah!!!

Yes this was on mine as well.. but thanks to white out tape "The player who has the Librarian and the Cultist on the table wins." now appears

Yep. You found the first typo!  It's on the list of things to fix on the next print run...

A little thing I've seized on as such an elegant mechanic and excellent example of balancing a card

With Play 3, Play 4, or Play All on the board, the Secret Cultist card immediately becomes a liability, forcing a player to reveal themselves. In the two games I've taught so far, one of the players held onto it early in the game hoping to induce an Ungoal, only to find themselves revealed later by a Play X card.

Very classy. Loving this deck!

Cool that it's getting fixed, but I must say I like having a pre-corrected version just because it'll be even more special.

Just waiting to have access to the Game Tech Store so I can order mine. Can't wait to test this out during our weekly Fluxx gaming sessions...everyone is very excited to play this one!

Thanks got the invite. I am very excited to order and promote, if I could just find where to order. I've done all the steps, any advice?

Waiting for my access to the Game Tech Store

Thank the Lord someone else asked... I'm pumped more for this one than any other. I can't wait to have this in my pocket 24/7

Me, too.  I'd order a couple if I could.

I'm anxiously waiting.....

Hey - check it out - I have an answer to your question...  

       http://www.looneylabs.com/webforms/starship-captain-registration

Thanks for joining the Icehouse Academy of Starship Captains! 

Thanks! Order placed!

Mine arrived today! Looks great.

Mine arrived today. It's awesomely awesome. The pictures don't do it justice!

My life is complete now.  I love this coin so much.

The membership card is pretty darn cool too...  Bianca just handed me my card!  Yay! 

My card came in today's mail: it's pretty boss!

Card is here too!!  WOW!  I need to get a really sweet looking ID card holder, I think.

Hey I wonder if this will pass fFor "Photo ID" at the bank or somewhere.  =)

And what will be in the demo kits? Challenge coin? Promo cards? Bucket of ichor?

FunAgain.com is already offering pre-orders for Cthulhu Fluxx.

I found this I'm quite surprised the looneys have not announced anything to us http://www.gamesalute.com/?p=27008 and here http://sf.looneylabs.com/Resources/index.html an here http://www.looneylabs.com/lit/sign-sheet/cthulhu-fluxx-signup-sheet there is more spread through out looney labs website as well

Ah, here it is!

http://www.looneylabs.com/cthulhu-fluxx-launch-kit

Beautiful.

That challenge coin is really spiffy.

Awww, I wanted a bucket of ichor... But everything else looks awesome.:)

Having Haster, the King in Yellow, with the unspeakable word as a promo creeper is pretty clever. I agree, the challenge coin looks awesome.

While the imagery of the Hastur card might be a bit outre for your typical game of EcoFluxx, I notice that the mechanics should be suitable for any Fluxx deck. I'm sure that's a plus for promotional purposes. 

Also, that playmat really looks sharp. The best one I've seen for Looney Labs products, I think.

*Ahem*

It says ships in late June! Woohoo!

As you have been discovering...   yes, we have been working hard on all the launch materials for Cthulhu Fluxx.

Please let us know TODAY if we should mint you a coin!   http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/N3VNHS5

Survey in. Package for kit lookin good. Loving the challenge coin aspect

My fiancée and i would more than like be able to do 24 hours each just have to make sure that I'm able to get off during that time

Cool - let me know when you find out. If you could drop me an email at andrew@foambrain,com, it'd be super helpful so I can make sure you end up on the right list :)

Thanks!

Oooer!  Well, I'm already running werewolf a bunch, and I've already bought my badge.  But I do like looney games, so I will certainly spend some time at the booth.  Depending on how much space you have, I could make a point of teaching and playing some pyramid games, maybe?

Unless, like, you really need some people.  In which case, I can be easily encouraged to really commit to a scheduled slot of hours.

I know you're not sure yet, but what's your fiancee's name? It's easier for me to get you both a badge even if you end up not needing it, but I need to get my preliminary list in today :)

Where is Origins?

Disregard.

her name is kaileigh furr as of right now shes in the hospital from a PE so hopefully she will be out of the hospital soon where i can request work off for origins i appologize for being so late on reply but we have been in the hospital going on 8 days now so hopefully we will be out soon

Sorry to hear that - I hope she's ok.

Let me know, I guess!

Andrew

The new Treehouse has not been released yet.

Thanks, Jeff!  Is there an estimated release date?  I have seen hints that it was supposed to be March, possibly of 2011, but nothing since. 

Originally, IceDice was scheduled for June 2011 and new Treehouse for September 2011.  When IceDice was delayed until September, Treehouse was delayed indefinitely.  I have not seen any new dates for Treehouse.

Thanks Jeff!  I hope they plan to continue making Xeno Stashes available.  I'd also like to see an IceDice color die in the Xeno colors made available to us poor lowly pyramid addicts. Meanwhile, I continue to collect... Just got outbid on EBay for a 1999 Martian Chess set!  I had bid as high as $24, which would have cost me $30 with the shipping, but there is a better-financed Looney-tic out there bidding against me!  Ends in 2 or 3 days, but I'm afraid it's too rich for my blood!  Have a good one!

http://store.looneylabs.com/Looney-Pyramids-Xeno?sc=2&category=1676

Thanks again, Jeff!  I knew they were available here, and have been buying them to the point of irritating my wife <Grin> but the Die in Xeno colors is the elusive element. 

I'd like a dodecahedral die with all five Rainbow colors, five Xeno, Pink, and Looney Atom! I suppose that's something to make for myself.

Does anyone have an idea about how to represent the color "Clear" as distinct from "White" on a die? (Or a non-photographic diagram on white paper, for that matter?)

Maybe I should use the colors to paint the initials of:

C lear (as opposed to W hite) -- in outline on white surface

V iolet (as opposed to P ink or B lue)

B lue and C yan as clearly different

etc.

One could paint one side of the die with clear gloss nail polish to represent clear, leaving "White" as flat.

Lost out entirely!  It got sniped at the last minute for $31 +$6 S+H.  Someone got a piece of Looney History, there! 

Umm, use a die of a different color?  I don't know how available they are where you're at, but in Taiwanese stationary stores, round dot stickers in a variety of sizes and colors are relatively easy to find.  I'm planning on making my own Xeno color die if I can find the Orange 12 mm stickers as well as a nice black die.  Then, for clear I can leave the die face empty, for the atom, I'll try to invert the colors of the current atom, maybe paint it on with a whiteout pen, and put round dot stickers on the other four sides.  A couple of coats of clear nail polish to hold everything in place securely and I'm hoping it will turn out ok.  The biggest problem I'm having at the moment is finding a blank black die.  I think the language barrier is what's holding me back in that respect.  I may have to break down and use one of my black treehouse dice for it.  While I've got four whites, I've only got two blacks, one of which was a special order die.  :)

Another option might be to try and find either a clear die to use as a base or a wooden die that you can paint the faces on.  Not sure where you'll find a wooden  dodecaheadron, but good luck with it.  You could probably use paint markers in that case to paint each face and then finish it with your choice of protectant.

Although wood cubes are easy to come by for making custom dice, a wooden dodecahedron is a tall order! A little snooping around online shows that clear quartz dodecahedra are available for prices below $20. I don't think it would take paint well, but stickers would work. That would solve the clear v. white color problem, too! (Leave the clear blank, put a white sticker on the the white face.)

One more choice, that I hadn't thought of before, are the pop-up dodecahedron calendars.  If you can find one, you can make a heck of a die out of it.  Not only can you end up with your color dot on each side, you can do the background in different colors as well to help set off some of the "odd" colors.  You can do a black background with a white circle for the white side and you could even cut a circle in the transparent side and back it, or cover it, with some type of clear material.  You could always add a layer of self-adheasive, clear laminate to cover that side, heck, you could use it to cover each side, although it may take a bit of cutting.

 

There's a printable version of the Dodec calendar that can be found here: http://www.ss42.com/pt/calendar/dodecahedron.html

I think.  I didn't get their file to open, but my connection is a little slow now.

Dodecahedral calendars: Ah, now that's just the thing! Cool.

Have a suggestion for the dice idea for a xeno icedice why not use the new Lego dice? You can purchase the dice individually on eBay seeing Lego does not seem to sell them loose on there website then from there go to the lego website and purchase they flat tile 2x2 of the colors you need if the color doesn't exist just buy a white tile and paint it :-)

Check out this link:

http://looneylabs.ning.com/page/secret-demo-team-store

I found it by doing a search on "Oz Fluxx".  I don't know how to get there from the main menu. 

Thanks, Bryan!  I have tried this, and yet it loops me around to the Join the Game techs page, yet I am a game tech, and It's just a bit frustrating.  I appreciate your help. I will try the search.  Thanks!

I just followed the steps listed: I filled out the "About Me" and "History"; moved the "Profile Information" bar to the top of the page; and sent the email with the request to be added.  I got a response that they got the request, asking me to wait for the confirmation of my Secret Store access.  And now I'm waiting ...

You can wait with me! It won't be so lonely then. :)

I haven't heard back yet either, if that helps :)

I did get my kit the day before the launch date.  Hope you get yours, also.

So I guess these are all gone by now ?

I like the prototype screen. I was thinking of trying to make one with a generic space theme, and maybe adding some pyramid style ships (new designs, of course) to go along with the starship captain idea. If all else fails, I could just take the Liar's Ice screen I made, change the colors a bit, and replace the pirate ship with a starship/pyramid, and maybe toss a planet or two in the scene.

That leaves the inside of the screen. It was pretty easy to throw rules on the inside for a specialized game-specific screen, but what would be useful on the inside? More art? A space to write out your starship captain list? Common slang and terminology? Something else? Nothing at all? It will be interesting to see what people can come up with.

One thing I liked about your Liar's Ice screen was the right-hand inside panel: "How to use this screen" and how to find out more about Looney Pyramids. It seemed like the sort of thing that you might use while playing in a public venue (formal demo or not), and then give to someone who was interested.

Space to write out a Starship Captain list is a good idea too!

Hm, same here. Adds a little character I suppose. Well, we know we can tell fFirst printing copies, eh. :) no worries.

Really, I'm just to happy with the whole thing to worry about it, me.

I don't know if I could get people dressed up, but I know I'll be running plenty of demo games at my gaming club as well as hanging out in my local games stores (who should be stocking it from launch day)

Good question!

Remind me.  Do I have to simply Play 30 different games -- ever, even once playing a game of fFire-Ice-Slime will count?

Or must be reasonably fFamiliar with, and able to demonstrate basic knowledge of, 30 different rulesets?

I think my Captain's List is a bit thinner than the actual games I know, because a lot of games I just don't especially want to play, like IceGolf. It's probably a perfectly fFun game, in truth.  And I think I could play an entire game with very little reference to the rules, since it's a basically simple looking thing.  But I don't really want to.

My list is up to 41 games.  See http://boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/40810.

To address Scott's question: I count the game as soon as I play it.  Otherwise, it would be much too difficult to figure out which ones would qualify and which ones wouldn't.  And I don't think you need to rank any more than the basic 10 to go from Captain to Admiral.  As long as you have a ranked list of at least 10 and a total list of at least 30, I'd say you qualify.

Then i have reached Admiral!!!

I've played sixty different games as of last night, although the list on my ning profile lags behind the annotated one I keep on my wiki user page.

I too have reached the vaunted rank of Starship Admiral. It is an honor and a privilege that i do not undertake lightly. 

I think I've at least attempted to play every released game released before 2008 at least once. Eventually my girlfriend put a limit of 2 new games per week, so I had to slow down a bit. That at least qualifies as Admiral I think. Of course there were a lot of half-finished games or vague rules that made me not want to play some of those games more than once, but that's to be expected.

I'll be more excited when I've designed 30 pyramid games!

In the earlier thread related to this topic I proposed "Starship Engineer" and "Starship Architect" as titles for designers of pyramid games. At the time, I thought Engineer would be good for anyone who had designed a single game, and Architect for perhaps more than five. Now I'm inclined to think that Engineer would be for five or more, and Architect for fifteen or more. Someone who had just designed one or two games could be a "Starship Mechanic"!

My former roommate (ex-USAF) used to say, "I wasn't a pilot; I wrenched on jets."

Oh, and at the most modest end of the game design sequence, pyramaniacs who have simply developed rules variants and/or contributed to playtesting efforts could be "Starship Plumbers."

I do love "pyramaniac" as a description of most of us here!

Plumber doesn't quite mesh with the rest of the theme - I'd suggest maybe Starship Builder as an alternative, with Starship Master Builder, Starship Architect or Starship Artisan for increasing levels. That would leave Starship Engineer for tweakers and playtesters

2 quick random thoughts...

1. I love the term "pyramaniac", and encourage its use.

2. After glancing over icehousegames.org and BGG, I think I've forgotten more than 30 pyramid games. :D

Does anyone know who coined "pyramaniac"? The only use I've seen on the IcehouseOrg wiki was in Ryan Hackel's user page, so maybe it was him.

It would appear so: http://rabbits.continuation.org/wiki/User:Cerulean

From the bio "When I became a pyramaniac (my coined term for Icehouse fan)"

I actually have a Looney Pyramid RPG in the works entitled Martians & Monsters. I'm actually planning an "official" announcement of M&M as soon as I get some issues with the PDF sorted out, and a bit more "artwork" done for it. Hopefully as early as next week, actually, which is why I absolutely HAD to check this topic when I saw it!

I'd be happy to provide feedback or suggestions, or even help with designing in some way if I can. Can't have too many pyramid games!

after view all of the games that were RPG based in icehousegames.org i realize they were entirely too complex and did take in the what i call the dream of how the looney pyramid games are or should be.... even some of the most complex games designed by andy are very simple to learn

That's exactly the problem I've encountered. Finding a good balance between the expected simplicity of a good pyramid game, and the expected complexity of a good RPG. I've had several complete rewrites trying to come up with something that fits that criteria. I've elected to just keep it REALLY simple, with 4 major stats represented by the 4 transparent colors, and an armor stat represented by black (or white for Xeno compatibility).

The other issue I have had is making it an actual pyramid game, and not just a regular RPG with pyramids on the table for no reason. My first idea was to toss a handful of volcano caps and count the ones that landed upright, which didn't work out at all (this was clearly a desperate attempt to make sure my game used pyramids). With M&M, I'm going with a d6 based system, but pyramid games are always breaking convention, so going with a diceless system or a karma-based system might work out pretty well.

Were you looking to make an RPG with a specific genre or setting of some kind, or were you going for more of a generic RPG system that could be used for any type of game?

we were going generic where people could use the imagination 

I tried Armada a few times and it honestly seemed broken and clearly insufficiently playtested to me as it stands. A swarm of small ships easily defeats a few big ships of equal value. (Similar to the all-GEV strategy in the original edition of Ogre, as discussed in the classic old article Ogre and the Fuzzy Wuzzy Fallacy.)

My fellow player and I discussed possible ideas and brainstormed but never got around to playtesting any of them, alas.

Anyway, as the game stands, it seems not worth playing (or icesheeting) to me; the system needs tweaking and playtesting / balancing IMHO. Too bad, because the basic concept of it - basically an abstract continuous space miniatures wargame - is interesting and appealing!

Perhaps letting 3Ps ram 1Ps without damage, then? Means that the 1-pips have to get right around the larger ships before being really effective...

If you fancy sharing any of your balancing ideas I'll try and get a few test games in :) The system itself is really elegant and feels fun to play, but the scenario needs balancing somehow (either with new rules or mixed fleets)

It didn't take me too long to IceSheet so I'd rather fix the game than abandon it!

FWIW here are my old notes (from a logged play and my personal comment on the game at BGG):

***

Logged play:

2 games (our first). First I have the 4 bigs vs MisterC's 4 medium and 4 small. It soon becomes clear this has the same problem as Anteel; swarm of small ships beats a few big slow ships. He kills my fleet with 3 of his mediums surviving. We switch sides, and I kill his fleet with 2 of my mediums and 2 of my smalls surviving... so I guess a more or less even result for the match. We think it may be fixable by making smalls move only 3 steps (as you'd expect) instead of 4 and making the firing range equal to the firer's size instead of all ships firing as far as a big ship. Amusingly strong sense of Anteel deja vu... but this may be more easily fixed.

Personal comment:

As written, it seems to have the all-too-common "fuzzy wuzzy fallacy" of lots of small fast ships being able to destroy a few big slow ships.

We want to try again with a couple rule tweaks to try to tone down the small/medium power vs larges:
1. Small ships move 3 steps (as you'd expect, instead of 4).
2. Range for ships is their ship size, instead of all ships firing long like big ships do.

Or play with equal forces on both sides.

***

If you try these ideas, I'd be interested to hear how they work for you! (Obviously "play with equal forces on both sides" solves the balance issue, but in a blunt unsatisfying way... :)

The wiki, being a wiki, is accessible to all sorts of additions of variants and house rules. If you're ambivalent about the rules you're proposing, it would be best to put them on the discussion page for the game. (Just click the Discussion tab and edit there.) Otherwise, you can wade right in and add your house rules to the game's proper page, but be sure to describe them as an innovation and take credit, rather than making them look like an integral part of the designer's rules.

Unfortunately this is not likely to ever happen...  we have a huge number of extras, and sell single dice online (http://store.looneylabs.com/Black-Treehouse-Die) - if anyone has an idea for a way to use up a big bunch of them (an art project?) let me know and I'll sell you a big bunch of them in bulk really cheap. 

While many designers have been workin to use the Treehouse dice in Looney Pyramid games, has anyone tried to use them for variants in other games?  I wonder if they could be used in some of the other Looney Games.

What if we removed the action cards from Aquarius and threw in a dice roll instead?  What about Chrononauts? Ooohh, with the resurgence of a desire for Q-turn, what if we added a special action from a treehouse die to the movement?  What about some games that are based on the Icehouse Dice?

Actually, I've been thnking about trying to come up with something that I can do with my students where they can use the Treehouse Dice to tell them what to do next.  i.e. each face has a particular action or task associated with it.  They roll the dice to see what they do next.  However, the only one that quickly lends itself to this is hop at the moment.:)

Perhaps this discussion should go out to the open forums though.

The other thing to do with Treehouse dice might be to add them into the IceDice bags along with instructions for TreeHouse or use them as purchase prizes for people who buy IceDice at conventions from the Looney store or an authorized dealer at the event.  One more game that you can play immediately helps make IceDice even more attractive.:)

 

I'd like to ask the Educators forum about it, but I haven't been authorized there yet.:)

In reference to your metion of Q-turn with a treehouse die, I've done that already. 

http://icehousegames.org/wiki/index.php?title=Ice-Turn

the treehouse die lends itself well to this, it has basically the same actions as with martian coasters. 

What about some games that are based on the Icehouse Dice?

I use the IceDice color die in Abiegnus, and the Pyramid die in Freimaurerei as well as the solitaire version of Builders of R'lyeh. I think the Pyramid die has a lot of potential in designing games.

Just looked at your rules, nice.:)  I was actually proposing something without the pyramids though, just adding in extra actions with the die as an option for more uses for the die.

However, an IceSheet for your game may help promote the use as well.  You might ask if someone can write one up for you if you don't have the software to do it yourself.  Unfortunatelly, I don't have the right software myself.

I haven't looked at Abiegnus much yet, nor Freimaurerei (sorry) and I've only skimmed through Builders of R'lyeh so far (but it does look very interesting).  However, I was meaning using the IceDice as the main component of the game, or even as the game itself.  However, dice roll games do tend to be more random and less strategy but they can be fun, quick games.

You are a registered Game Technician and you jabber enthusiastically about our games whenever the subject comes up...  of course you can be a member of our Demo Team! It does not matter where you buy your launch kit... 

Thank you for selling and promoting our games, Dave! 

Nuts, I missed this by five months!

Me too.

Well, I missed it by six months!

With the exception of translucent brown, you could make these yourself with some paint and some electroplating. (You might be able to get the brown by dying translucent red or yellow pyramids, but perhaps not.)

Ah, I can see the path to the piecenik palace from here!

This does sound like an awesome, attractive set.  =)

I just looked up the process for electroplating plastics - it might be significantly easier to buy some sheets of gold and silver leaf (or gold/silver effect metal leaf) and coat the pyramids that way...

I would absolutely love this color set but grey has already been released you could switch that out with a brass or copper allowing it to more easily transcend to a steampunk vibe.  So I ask what do we have to do to get this one rolling?!?!?

I included gray because it had been produced in the past, but was no longer available, and never included in either post-Revolutionary 5-color set (compare the rarer-still root beer). Of course, that wasn't sufficient to qualify it: pink obviously doesn't belong in this particular mix!

Even if lots of us promised to buy five stashes of these -- and I certainly would! -- I'm dubious that we could get LL to prioritize it over other pending pyramid products. Nor can I imagine undertaking myself the sort of pieceniking required to make them for my own satisfaction, let alone any larger market. That's why I titled it a fantasy.

Ah, and wouldn't these be a visually elegant set of pyramids for playing games on natural wood chessboards?

They would look great on a wood chess board and yeah I realized it said fantasy but maybe people commenting on it will bring it to their attention and see what a great idea it would be.  I have 5 full nests of every color available, (13) and would get 5 sets of these as well for the collection if they offered it. 

Obviously the economics of the whole thing are up to the Looneys, but if there was a limited edition colourway marketed at a higher price (Say $15/stash, or $70 for five) I reckon I'd go for that :)

Notwithstanding Root Beer, when I imagine brown pyramids, they're always opaque.

I like the symmetry of one translucent color in an otherwise opaque stash. And bottle-brown is an important translucent hue!

I've been thinking about this from both a practical and mechanical perspective. I can see a real advantage for having more opaque sets. There are already games that use one opaque per player (white and black), and many of those games could be expanded to three or four players with more stashes. Also, new types of games could easily take advantage of the opaques.

That said, I doubt that we'd see enough players buy another 75 pyramids to compliment the 150 they already may have. Thus, I'm not sure if a five-color model would work well enough to make it a successful addition (where enough people would buy them to make a success both economically and to bring about a new batch of games). Thinking small, and with this in mind, perhaps it makes sense to release two single-stash opaque products (bringing the total to four opaque pyramid stashes). Or, if LL wants to try something different, they could be sold as single color trees (maybe at $2.50 to $3 a tree or something).

Personally, I'd go with opaque grey, gold, silver, or brown (although brown may not look as good with the colors we already have). They might even sell a few more stashes with a color other than gray (so those pyramanics have an bigger excuse to buy them).

It's true, I could certainly work up three- and four-handed versions of Freimaurerei if there were more opaque colors available.

The single tree idea is interesting. What if there were rules for a game that called for 2HOUSE plus one trio of gold and/or silver? Then the product could be a Looney Pyramid expansion that consisted of just one or two trios plus the rules. Of course, people like us could still play a one-trio game by adding a white trio from a Xeno set to a Rainbow 2HOUSE complement, but then people like us might buy it five times over anyhow to get those complete stashes...

Agreed, if they had a game for a tree expansion, it could work really well. I think there is some real potential in that idea. Just add one or two trees of these opaque colors to your existing 2HOUSE/IceDice set and play this here game. Sell them for $3 to $4 and it would make an nice cheap expansion for players getting into the pyramids, while providing a new stash to play with for us pyramaniacs.

I would also be interested in buying opaque stashes, but the opaque trees might be an attractive alternative for LL. That said, I'd buy probably by your Crypto Stash too, if they thought it feasible. The way I look at it, I was perfectly happy with my 10HOUSE (except for the lack of a few more opaque stashes), but I finally gave in and grabbed a pink stash for good measure. I'd look longingly at a new set of colors... but a stash or a couple trees of one or two opaques, I'd buy those in heartbeat. ;-)

I like the notion of a two-trio supplement in silver and gold chrome, or a single trio of that glow-in-the-dark greenish-white stuff!

Of course, the game's the thing; there has to be something worth playing with them. There aren't enough pure pyramid fetishists to constitute a market.

I'm in Rochester, NY.  I probably won't trek out to your location like on a Saturday afternoon -- Troy really is a long ways away -- but I do really enjoy doing cons and stuff!  Keep us posted on who and where and when!  If you are able to get badges to events, that's awesome.  If you are able to help with fFood and lodging, that's way better!

Hi Andrew,

 I would like to join you in running demos for Looney Labs, and am available do so at Arisa 2012 and Pax East, for I am attending those.
 As it stands now, those are the only two I know I am attending. Total Con and Temple Con were possibilities, but it looks like they might not happen this year.
 I live in Arlington, MA. and am in the greater Boston area.
 You can reach me here, on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/rasnickm ,or at my e-mail: rasnickm@yahoo.com 

Thank you for your time,
Michael Rasnick 

Sounds great! Take a look at the posted upcoming conventions, and I'll try to keep posting updated lists.

We can always help with badges and food, lodging is more dependent on the particular event.

Andrew

Sounds great! We're not going to be demoing at Arisia due to space limitations, but we will be there - stop by our booth in the vendor room :)

I'll drop you a line about PAX in the next week or so, as it starts to come together.

Andrew

I'd be happy to help demo games at PAX East as well on Friday and Saturday ( I can't be there on Sunday ).

I can be reached at tim.seiger@gmail.com.

Bump - today is the last day to sign up to demo at PAX and Anime Boston.

We still have room at other shows, too, so be sure to drop me a line!

The short answer: http://www.looneylabs.com/more-games

The procedural answer:

• At top, click on "Our Games"
• At right, click on "Looney Pyramids"
• At right, click on "MORE GAMES"

It's just a little non-obvious, sorry about that.

Thank you, Scott.

Now I'm wondering why the search engines don't see that. (This doesn't come up on the first page for various searches, including "pyramid rules" without the quotes.)

Hi Greg!   We don't have any extras of the really awesome etched dice that come in the IceDice product we are selling.  We do have extras of the original prototype sets of dice that rub off really easily.  The plan is to figure out a way to spray an adhesive onto these so we can use them...  if that works, we will sell them.  Stay tuned for an update...

Thanks Kristin. I did see what happened to some of those prototypes. I'm sure that you're interested in finding a way to put those dice to use, and some sort of adhesive may be the answer. I look forward to that.

Concerning other options and ideas, I may comment further in the Demo forum, as there is a reason for the separation between them.

Adhesive?  Wouldn't they be hard to roll?  They'd stick to the table...

Sorry... couldn't resist.  I know what you meant.  :)

i sprayed adhesive on a set of the prototype dice that i had and the ink/dye that were on the dice actually ran...

Wow - now that's a bummer.  We actually just decided a week or so ago that we were not even going to try spraying them.  Josh started looking at ordering the spray, and looked at the chemical ingredients, and started thinking...  from a safety testing standpoint we can't spray chemicals on them and then sell them. So I took the project off his to-do list.  Now I'm extra glad we did, since the ink actually runs?  Crazy...

Yea the dice that have the colors on them sprayed fine but when spraying s clear coat on the dice that give you the option of what size you choose those are the ones that decided to fail....

I wonder if it depends on what clear coat you use? What brand was it?  I had also been considering clear nail polish.

Alison painted a set with clear nail polish - and it worked great. This is a good option for a single set, but not for hundreds of them, since it was very time consuming. 

D'oh! It's the Pyramid IceDie that I think has the most potential for other uses outside of the IceDice game. I've already included it in Freimaurerei, and I can imagine games that might e.g. call for a roll of 3dP...

No worries, this is only fFor the prototype dice that some people were sold during the pre-iceDice launch program. The dice you get on store shelves and stuff shouldn't have any problems (that I know of).

Oh, understood (and I have two pair of IceDice that way)! But I think that the Pyramid IceDie has a potential future outside of the IceDice game that compares favorably to the developments of the Treehouse die.

in that case, couldn't they be sold as a diy? with a note saying these dice are prototypes and rub off, we reccomend painting them with clear nail polish.

First read through looks good to me. I'm going to print it out to read it over a bit more carefully though.

Now I have to find my coasters so I can start playing!

Here are some initial suggestions for changes, which should be self-explanatory:

- Under Grow: "Grow: Replace any small ship with a medium, or replace any medium ship with a large. You can’t grow if you have no piece of the next size out of play.

- Under Combat, last sentence: "That piece is pushed into another connected space (loser's choice) and if no such space is vacant, the piece is removed from the board."

- Under Elimination: "When a player has only 1 piece left on their home board, they are out of the game. If two people are playing, the game ends, otherwise the eliminated player removes all his pieces from all moons, and the game continues without them. (In a game with more than 2, you win by teleporting home from ANY other board, or by being the last surviving player.)"

- On the second page: "These Print & Play gameboards feature images of the moon (near side & far side)." [See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Far_side_of_the_Moon#Definition]

 

The rules imply but never state that each player chooses a color.

It says, "Turn Options: On your turn, you will choose one of these actions: Teleport, Build, Grow, or Move."  But the individual paragraphs are labeled Teleporting, Building, Grow, and Movement.  That engaged my OCD--the labels should match!  Teleport, Build, Grow, Move.

I this a correct interpretation of Teleport?:
- I occupy 2 Control Points, Player-B occupies 1 Control Point, 4th Control Point is empty -> I can teleport.
- I occupy 2 Control Points, Player-B occupies 1 Control Point, Player-C occupies 1 Control Point -> I can teleport
- I occupy 2 Control Points, Player-B occupies 2 Control Points -> I cannot teleport
It would be nicer if it was clearer, but I'm not sure how to do that.

Most of what's under "Combat" should be under "Movement" (or "Move").  If you merge those paragraphs, then the "Match-Sized Battles" paragraph can be relabeled "Combat".

Here is my attempt at a rewrite, merging Movement and Combat:
"Move: You can move a ship into any space it is connected to.  A smaller piece cannot move into a space occupied by a larger piece.  When a larger piece moves into a space occupied by a smaller piece, the smaller piece is pushed into an adjacent space (loser's choice) and if no such space is vacant, the piece is removed from the board.  When a piece moves into a space occupied by a piece of the same size, combat begins."

Is it true that a larger piece displaces a smaller piece when it moves (the smaller piece moves out of the way), but a same-sized piece that wins a combat destroys the other piece?

I excluded notes I had that matched Bryan's notes.

As always, I'm impressed with how you manage to squeeze so many rules into one page.  I hope you can incorporate our suggestions into the available space.

>Is it true that a larger piece displaces a smaller piece when it moves (the smaller piece moves out of the way), but a same-sized piece that wins a combat destroys the other piece?<

I'm confused on that too, as "removed" doesn't necessarily mean removed from the board but from the space. What happens to a piece if it loses by actual rps combat and not simply because of its size?

I look forward to trying this out.

Cool. A while back I was pondering trying to use pyramids and to reduce the randomness in Cosmic Coasters. (I still wish there was a way to eliminate the randomness*, but hey, at least Lunar Invaders is a big step in that direction... :)

I agree with all the editing comments/suggestions so far.

*I doubt you want to eliminate all randomness, but for the record, some ideas that occur to me for breaking ties when equal sized pyramids have combat:

consider the total number of friendly pyramids adjacent to the combat space

consider the total number of friendly pips adjacent to the combat space

consider the total number of friendly pyramids on that moon

consider the total number of friendly pips on that moon

...perhaps if there's still a tie after considering tiebreakers, then the move is illegal (local stalemate, neither pyramid can win the combat).

Space for editorial changes can easily be found by eliminating the RPS Protocol paragraph, which is simple common sense not related to the actual game rules. If done, RPS in the Battle paragraph would need to be spelled out, of course.

I like Jeff's restructuring of the movement rules. If that or something like it is used, the next paragraph could read something like this:

Combat: This is resolved by a single round of Rock-Paper-Scissors, as follows:
• Win: Defender removed, you enter its space.
• Lose: Your attack fails. No one moves.
• Draw: Defender removed, but you don’t move in.

I do recommend, though, that it say "the smaller piece is pushed into a connected space (loser's choice)" both because "connected" is the term used earlier, and because someone might think that Control Points are adjacent to the Teleport Pad even though they're not connected.

The confusion over "remove" can be solved in a couple of ways:

 

1.Put the first use of the word (in the Teleport paragraph) in bold, to let the reader know that this is where the term is defined.

2. Revert to the word "destroy" used in the Cosmic Coasters rules. Changes could look like this:

- From Teleport: (If it's an enemy's ship, you may also beam it into deep space, destroying it.) Any ship occupying the space you arrive in is destroyed, regardless of size dierences.

- From Build: You can’t build if you have no destroyed pieces.

- From the revised Grow: You can’t grow if you have no destroyed piece of the next size.

- From the revised Move: ... if no such space is vacant, the piece is destroyed.

- From Combat:

• Win: Defender destroyed, you enter its space.
• Lose: Your attack fails. No one moves.
• Draw: Defender destroyed, but you don’t move.

- From the revised Elimination: When a player has only 1 piece left on their home board, they are out of the game. If two people are playing, the game ends, otherwise the eliminated player destroys all his pieces on all moons ...

Oh, and I think it would be better to make this change: "the smaller piece is pushed into a connected space (defender's choice)", reserving implications of combat only for the RPS between equal pieces.

Interesting Implementation.  I started using pyramid pieces as the pawns in play on Cosmic Coasters some while ago.  But I didn't ascribe any rules to the pyramids, based on size or the like.  I simply started the game with the appropriate allotment of bits.

I like these rule modifications which make it useful to play with pyramids as a device, rather than simply pawns.  I like it!  Also I don't think Martian Coasters had the rule option of teleporting an enemy ship into the void of space.  Nice touch =)

I notice an unclear thing: The sheet says "Draw: Loser removed, but you don't move in."  I think that should read "Defender removed, but you don't move in."  Because it's a tie, there is no loser, see?

I should tell you, we usually play where combat is determined by rolling dice, not via rock-paper-scissor.  The odds of winning and ties and stuff are different obviously, but it plays a little more straight-forward.  1d6 to attack, 1d6 to defend.  Simply the highest value wins.

Also, I noticed the Goal of the game isn't really stated.  Elimination of all opponents is given and, parenthetically, It is mentioned that you can also win in larger games by getting back home.  I fFeel like the "Elimination" section would be improved by calling it the "Goal" or "Winning" section, and describe the 2 ways to win the game.  Bryan addresses related ideas, before me.  Maybe a combination of these things is good?

I think Andy and I are on opposite ends of the RPS-loving scale, so I'm with you on the dice. I'd just have the attacker roll a D6 if I wanted combat handled as it currently is, though. The RPS combat certainly works, but it will be a big turnoff for folks like me, people with limited hand mobility, etc.

5-6: Win

3-4: Draw

1-2: Lose

The main thing I don't like is the use of 'pieces' instead of 'pyramids.' I'd always go with the specific instead of the general, especially if I was the head honcho of pyramids.

After further thought, I think that the rules would be greatly improved with illustrative examples. No matter how clear we think the rules might be, it's easy for people to misunderstand them, and pictures go a long way to help.

Here's something I whipped up as an example for Teleporting:

Hm, I should have also included a picture of Red not teleporting because he didn't occupy 2 Control Points. Well, you get the idea.  Similar illustrations of allowed and forbidden actions can appear for Build, Grow, Move and Combat.

Good illustrations will make the rules take an extra page in all likelihood, but that's OK. The Treehouse rules take 2-3 pages, too. 

My 2 cents on that:

For me, having 1-page (or 1-sheet) rules is a Very Good Thing. I carry pyramid rules in a folder, with each rule sheet in a separate thin clear plastic pocket/envelope thingie (I'm not actually sure what they're called, but hopefully you know what I mean :) and so it's much nicer having each game on a single sheet instead of having to pull multiple sheets out the clear plastic pocket.

These rules as text seem very clear to me. I agree that pictures can often help one grok it more quickly the first time, but if it's a question of a few seconds' worth of grokking versus extra sheets of paper, I'd rather have a single sheet. In practice, most of the time I'd just be using the rules as a quick reference if I'd not played the game in a while anyway.

Wow, so many comments to reply to! A few first thoughts...

* I realize RPS can be a turn off for some, so I like the idea of including the dice option. Indeed, I'm thinking to rewrite the sheet so that the players choose between using RPS or dice.

* That said, I'll be recommending Robert's "1-2 fail, 3-4 tie, 5-6 win" model. It mirrors the way it works with RPS exactly, whereas I don't like the way the gameplay is changed with the dice comparison approach Scott suggested.

* Thank you Bryan for your diagram suggestions, but I agree with Russ -- I don't think this game is so complex as to require such detailed diagrams, and I'm loathe to add so much material as to push this to two pages.

* Re the word Remove, I was using it with an intentionally vague meaning, i.e. when a piece is Removed, it is either removed from the board (Destroyed) or removed from that space (Pushed into an empty space nearby). Changing it to Destroyed everywhere would totally change gameplay.

Anyway, I have my work cut out for me in making revisions. Thanks!

-- Andy

I only this year managed to get Cosmic Coasters to the table, but to convince the other person to play I had to replace RPS with the die roll you mention.  I think we even had exactly the same result matrix as you list.

I put page 2 back-to-back with page 1 in my plastic sheets, so going to 2 pages is not such a big deal for me.  It's still only one sheet.  Still, fewer pages is better, if possible.  Especially here, where I would want to put include the Coaster sheet, just in case.  This gives me a reason to put Cosmic Coasters in my Pyramid box, so presumably I won't need the printed coasters, but you never know.

Interesting. Given that the die roll and RPS are basically equivalent (unless someone wants to seriously argue that they are able to psychologically predict whether the other player will pick rock, scissors or paper) I'm surprised so many people would refuse to use RPS instead of a die roll. :)

It's not that I refuse to use RPS.  I think dice are a bit more conventional, and speed up game play a bit.  I do maintain RPS is a game of mind control and simple psychological exploration (dice are random, people aren't), so using dice does remove that component of the game, it's true.  But it's just a bit easier to roll one or two dice.

I do like the 1/2:Lose, 3/4:Draw, 5/6:Win method.  That's got a very high degree of simplicity to it.

 

* Re the word Remove, I was using it with an intentionally vague meaning, i.e. when a piece is Removed, it is either removed from the board (Destroyed) or removed from that space (Pushed into an empty space nearby). Changing it to Destroyed everywhere would totally change gameplay.

Aha!  I had misunderstood this, and perhaps Jeff did as well.  The sentence "combat only occurs if the pieces are the same size" led to my misinterpretation. I thought that what happened when a larger piece shoves a smaller one out of the way was not combat.  And, "remove" was always used as part of the phrase "removed from the board" except in the RPS section, so I thought it meant the same thing there as well. Also, "remove" was not used in the description of a larger unit shoving a smaller one out of the way, so I didn't realize it applied there as well.

 

Now that I have been enlightened, I have a whole new set of suggestions :-):

- Teleport: If you are the only player occupying two or more Control Points anywhere around a
Teleport Pad, you may transport the ship on that pad to ANY spot on another gameboard. (If it's an enemy's ship you may also just beam it into deep space, which destroys it, removing it from play.) Any ship occupying the space you arrive in is destroyed, regardless of size differences.

- from Build: You can’t build if you have no destroyed pieces.

- Move: You can move a ship into any space it is connected to. If the space is already occupied, combat begins, unless the moving piece is smaller than the occupying piece, which is a forbidden move.

- Combat: If the moving piece is larger than the piece it's moving into, it automatically wins. If they are the same size, combat is resolved by either a round of Rock-Paper-Scissors, or by a die roll (1-2 lose, 3-4 draw, 5-6 win), as you prefer. 

• Win: Defender removed, you move to the space.
• Lose: Your attack fails. No one moves.
• Draw: Defender removed, but you don’t move in.

To remove his piece, the defender pushes it into a connected empty space of his choice. If no connected space is vacant, the piece is destroyed.

-------

I used "remove" when either meaning could happen, and "destroy" when just the one is meant. I also consolidated all the blocked movement results under the definition of combat, to simplify the understanding of it. I think it's better to regard large-on-small movement as a combat automatically won, rather than as non-combat. I moved the explanation of removal to after the results chart, so it obviously applies to all combat results, not just the automatic wins.

At first I started the Combat section with "If the moving piece is smaller than the piece it's moving into, it automatically loses; if it is larger, it automatically wins."  But this lets a player take an empty turn by trying to move a small piece into a larger one and failing, and that would require a rule about both players passing several times in a row.  So I changed it to what is above.

The lack of illustrations wouldn't bother me.  I think they would help, but it's not like Treehouse where they are nearly essential.

 

Plus, when playing in a common area with lots of other gamers, RPS draws unwanted attention.

"Draw: Loser removed, but you don’t move in."

Should read "Defender removed".

[OK... Missed that this had already been noted, up thread.]

Greetings Captains!

Here is my revised rulesheet for Lunar Invaders. Thanks SO much for all your excellent input! I think this version is a lot tigther and more complete, and I couldn't have done it without y'alls suggestions.Also, I changed it so that using a D6 is the default, with "Roshambo-Style" just being a variation. Personally, I'm still going to play it using RPS, since I think that's more fun, but I recognize that the mere mention of RPS can make some players reject a game, and with that in mind I think it's better for RPS to be something people opt-in on, rather than forcing them to opt-out of it if they don't like it.

Excellent!  I happened to show up 1 minute after you posted this, according to Ning.  It looks great.

I only have one note.  A small grammar issue:

"Each player choose a color and puts all 9 of their pieces on their moon as shown"

It should be "chooses" and "puts".

Very nice!  At first reading, I noticed only a few minor things:

- Equipment: 3 Rainbow (or 3 Xeno) stashes and
one round gameboard (”moon”)
for each player, a standard D6.

[added period at the end]

- Setup: Each player chooses a
color and puts all 9 of their
pieces on their moon as shown:

[added 's' on "chooses"]

Edit: Oops! Jeff noticed that already.  Well, so did I. :)

- Elimination: When a player has only 1 piece of their color left
on their home gameboard, they are out of the game.
If more than two people are playing, the eliminated
player's nal home piece is destroyed, along with
all pieces they have on other moons, and the
game continues without them. (In a game with
more than 2 players, you win by teleporting
home from ANY other gameboard.)

[Added "of their color" for clarity.  Some might think all colors apply to the "1 piece left" trigger.]

[Changed "coaster" to "gameboard" to match the rest of the rules, since we don't actually have coasters in this version.]

I actually like the RPS option. It's not something that I'd normally use, but I think it makes this game feel unique and adds to its enjoyment value (and, psychologically, there is a difference for the players' experience). I think that, as a designer, thinking "how can this be done differently" is very much part of the spirit of the pyramids.

Very awesome.  Also, possibly my fFirst actual call-out on wunderland.com  =)

By the way, Andy, do you any particular power fFor players who want to use The Earth's Moon when playing Cosmic Coasters?  A suggested Variant House Rule of some kind?

I have another interesting variant so we have RPS, Rolling a dice, now my suggestion how about using the Nothing Beats A Large Concept :-p.... I think this has potential as an option

Are you a imagining a separate pool of pyramids used to signal your move in combat? If so, how do players gain or lose combat-choice pyramids? (If you always have all three available, then 1-pip would always be a mistake. It's strictly worse than 2-pip.)

Lunar Invaders uses a die or roshambo to determine the winner in combat...... now in the game of Nothing Beats a Large in my eyes is very similar to roshambo now if you take the above chart as a reference for what beats what you infact have another variation of how to battle in combat with just using left over pyramids you have on hand each player would only need a 1, 2, and 3 pip pyramid to play just put them in your coat pocket you both choose at the same time pull your hand out of your pocket and simply show what you have in your hand....

I hope that clears up what i meant earlier

Here is an idea that has occurred to me for additional special powers that could be used:

- Luna near side: During combat, the attacking piece is considered to be one size larger for combat resolution.

- Luna far side: During combat, the defending piece is considered to be one size larger for combat resolution.

This deals with the fact that multi-size pyramids are being used, an aspect that did not appear in the original Cosmic Coasters. Or perhaps the two powers above could be combined into one, and a different power would allow the Grow action to take the largest available pyramid, not the smallest -- but I don't know how much more helpful that would be. 

I haven't tried any of these powers yet, but thought I'd throw them out there in case for others to test, or to spur their own thoughts.

Looking good!

So awesome!! I can't wait to see the whole deck!

any news on the release kit :-D

yes - but I have not had time to post anything about i yet.

soon... 

It's funny, I didn't notice the title "OZ Fluxx", saw the "Art Preview" instead, took one look at the waking trees, and thought: "Hey! Those are the evil trees in the Wizard of OZ"... lol. 
I guess in my mind, Art comes before everything else. Nice work. Who is the artist? 

According to Wunderland Whenever News, the Oz Fluxx artist is Michael Hays.

See this link:http://wunderland.com/WhatsOld/2011/WN.11.18.11.html

Can't wait for Fluxx Oz.....I was the cowardly lion in my junior high play :)

Looking good!!!

Sorry, Tim, no news yet. I can only say that the old packaging will never be back, and that the new packaging is still pending.

One solution seems obvious: account creation and edits from unrequired accounts should require a captcha that would be easy for a pyramid fan to pass, (e.g. some questions like "what is a player's set of pyramids called?" "stash" or some such).

 

Also IP logging and block edits from IP addresses that are spammers, if the same IP addresses keep showing up.

 

If Brian Campbell is the only one who can implement such policies, the obvious question is: who knows him (I don't) and is in touch with him? :)

 

PS: Thanks for undoing the spam attacks.

I want to second that THANK YOU for dealing with the spam attacks!  

IP Address can be spoofed very easily i would also suggest to block all Proxies? or another suggestion would be to how about create a new ice wiki here in the fan-club i understand that this a very extreme solution but it would be nice to see icehousegames.org implemented into the ning web site

another good options is to block by MAC Address which i believe is possible with the right scripts by blocking mac address you will have perm banned the person or person doing this harm.... but again mac address can also be spoofed/faked.....

but id start at the IP address level first then move to, MAC address blocking..... but again MACs can be spoofed as well 

sorry that my thoughts are so scrambled but i will say what my final thoughts are now :-p

all posts/changes must have an account new accounts must are restricted till verified by and admin/admins, also as much as i hate saying this you could implement CAPTCHA :-/

How can we get an anti-spam bot running on our wiki?

YOU ASKING ME? Or everone else? But here use this http://www.captcha.net also I would suggest using the recaptcha project from that site it cuts down on spam as well as it uses words from books that are being digitalized and well it's free!

The download link now has an updated version of the rules - thanks for the rules lawyering you guys!  

 

DOWNLOAD HERE - DO NOT share this link - we announce this next week just before Thanksgiving.

I have actually played Pikemen before, so I will give Starship Captain recommendation #1 for posting to looneypyramids.com.

 

I noticed two minor things that might be worth changing, but I don't think they should stand in the way of the sheet getting posted.

- Perhaps not everybody understands that "square" means "upright pyramid."  It would be better if the Setup section explicitly stated that pyramids start upright.

- The last paragraph on the second page appears to be of a larger size than the other text.

It does seem long; there was already a 1-page version uploaded at BGG by Mike Peterson (Muhlakai):

 

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/filepage/64807/2-page-pdf-rules-summary-for-pikemen

 

But your version does give more info about alternate setups and strategy. So it's a tradeoff. I think there's a very nice advantage of having rules on one physical piece of paper. But it's also nice having additional info. I would personally probably carry the 1-sheet version with me.

The question here becomes: what is an IceSheet good fFor?  What is it's purpose?  Stating the rules?  Or Detailing the concepts?  Maybe Both?

I observed as I was working on the rules, the entire sheet could be made on 1 page.  The core rules of the game make up one column of text; the infobox, a basic starting layout and some description would be another column.  An Addendum can contain all that other stuff.  If you'd like, I could make something like that.  But it would be very terse, you understand, but maybe it would be worthwhile.

Thank you fFor the suggestion about stating explicitly "pieces begin standing up on their base." (or some wording to that effect. I'll sort it out)

The slightly enlarged paragraph was a typographical decision on my part.  I made the text a point or two larger, so it would stand out just a bit more, in the sea of text on that page.

 

I've been reading through this several times with a fellow Starship Cap'n here, and with exception obviously of the issues already raised, I will put my stamp of approval on this. I like how many diagrams are in the sheet. It makes things direct and obvious. My only suggestion would be to possibly include the setup for 5 person, and also to increase the player number from 2-4 to 2-6 or 2-4,6 if the five player setup was not to be included.

Sorry, but I'm going to be harsh again.  I will say that I haven't played Pikemen before but, after reading through your Icesheet, I do want to.  However, I try to look at the Icesheets with non-players and novices in mind, not just experienced Icehouse players or gamers. (I want to try playing pretty much everything, at least once, except Russian Roulette.)

I think you could move most of the gameplay information onto the first two pages, making one sheet of game information.  All of the alternate starting setups (using Eeyore's boards) can be set up as alternate setup section at the end as well as the strategies section.

Personally, I like more flavor text in the first sheet.  It's the portion to hook new players and the flavor of a game does a lot to enhance the gameplay (Imagine Zombie Fluxx without the Zombies.)

I was also wondering if you might move the mini Pikemen variant to it's own IceSheet.  See about calling it Pikemen: Skirmish or something and note that it is a 3house game.  That way someone who does not have the full 5 stashes won't just skip over it.

I agree that all the alternate setup and variant and strategy stuff seems like it should not dominate, and I'd say it should all be on a 2nd optional physical sheet as it's inessential for those who simply want a physical sheet with the essentials to play Pikemen.

But I would not want more flavor text, which would use up more of the valuable space which is evidently already at a premium here. Pikemen is an abstract strategy game not a light theme/experience-oriented card game, and the audience for abstract strategy games is not the same as the audience for Zombie Fluxx. No one's going to play Pikemen for the funny art or flavor text. :)

You are correct, I think, on things here.

I wanted to lay out the rules in order, with setup, then actions, then endgame, then tips and strategies.  But It's entirely possible that the sheet suffers a bit fFor it.  I like having the setup configurations up fFront, but it turns out, that's not always the fFirst thing people want to read.  People really seem to want to read how the game is played, and then see how to set the game up.

What I need to do is put most of Page 3 and part of Page 2, on Page 1.  Then mention Setups are on Page 2 onward.

Interesting suggestion, making Pikemen: Skirmish as it's own sheet.  Very interesting and elegant solution.  I'm not sure breaking up the game is an altogether good idea, but it does make the game more likely to be played.  And that's only a good thing.  Page 1 has the rules, Page 2 has the setup and possibly a 6x6 board to play on.  That keeps it very tight.  Interesting suggestion.  And we can probably add some fFlavor to make it a little more colorful.  No need to get into strategy and tactics, just maybe some nice art and words about clashing with your enemy.  Nice!

If I take the "Skirmish" section out, that will leave quite a hole on the page.  I might wind up reducing the page count by 1, possibly.  But then again, there is surprising demand fFor the 5-player setup as well, so that may just fFill that hole back up anyway.  Maybe I'll just keep the "Skirmish" board, it in the interest of completion, but shrink it down some or something, and announce it as being on a different sheet as it's own game.  I'll have to see how it lays out.

To be fFair, I've only played the 6x6 version once.  It probably needs more play testing before anyone commits to it as being a solid game in it's own right.

I think the issue here resides in what people are expecting from an IceSheet. It seems that most people want just the basics and to leave all the other extraneous stuff to other formats, while when i'm looking at an icesheet for my own personal use, I see it as a one stop shopping experience for that particular game. I guess in some regards, yes, it's nice to be able to have just the basic rules to avoid people getting lost, but in the end, where would one go without the variants? The rules of Pikemen are very easy to understand and play, which isn't very spatially demanding, but when you want to play the game with a particular amount of people, one must look up how things get set up, and if there was a condensed icesheet, you'd have to download all kinds of extra files or print out all kinds of extra files kept in different places. One sheet with everything you need is far more efficient. I keep my icesheets on my tablet PC, so when we're out and about i can teach games with ease. But if i had to keep all these different games in different files because we condensed it all, it would just ruin the purpose of having them.

In the end, this comes down to aesthetics, and I think it's something that should be figured out across the board, because  I can see this becoming a problem down the line for other games that require different setups for different amounts of people.

Indeed, different people have different desires in these icesheets... For me it's very valuable to have one physical paper sheet since I carry a notebook of them, with each sheet in its own thin clear plastic envelope/protector thing (I'm not sure what those things are called...). And if I take the pyramids and notebook along to an event, then it's easy for someone to find the rules for a game and learn it even if I'm not immediately available to explain it. And for me they're simply a quick refresher if it's been a while since I've played. I'm not interested in strategy and tactics discussions, for example, nor flavor text - just the required rules to play the game.

On this point, we agree completely.

I fFavor your notion of including all fFacts in one document.  If I have to look something up, then the rules are not living up to expectations.

But, there are staple games (like Pikemen and Volcano) which are classics, and might be served by a rebranding.  Volcano was reissued as Caldera.  I think it makes sense to reissue Pikemen as Skirmish.  I'm okay with that (as long as Skirmish is a good game...)

Well, we should ask Andy and Alison just WHAT we should be trying to do with the IceSheets then so we all have a clear idea of what they should be.

Having said that, I would like to put forward my vision of IceSheets.

The first sheet (1 to 2 pages, you can print on both sides if you use nice paper) should be the grabber.  It should contain all the information in the Infobox along with information about extra pieces if needed. It should contain game setup, including initial board layout (if needed) and the rules to play the basic format of the game including ending conditions, scoring and winning conditions.  It should also contain enough flavor and pizzaz to help draw in new players so they will at least finish reading the rules.

Tactics, alternate board layouts, advanced rules, various house rules and any other information that can add to playing the game should be included in following pages, either in the order that you believe that they would be used (are players more likely to start using alternate board layouts first or more advanced rules first?)

You might be wondering why I think the flavor text is important.  I see the IceSheets as also being a Demo tool.  If someone is demoing IceDice, TreeHouse or any other Looney Pyramids game, people waiting to join the game or who are not interested in that particular game can look through the IceSheets to see else might interest them.

Also, by keeping the basic rules on the first two pages (one sheet), players who only want a basic rules sheet only have to print off the first sheet.  For players who want everything, they can print off the entire IceSheet.

One more, we might also look into a reference card format as well in a way similar to the ICE-7 cards.  For those familiar with the game, a quick reference card may be handier than even the IceSheets when playing.  It can include turn order and actions as well as "battle" information (i.e. Lunar Invaders combat rolls).

 

On to this IceSheet.  I was suggesting that the 2 player, 6x6 board variant be redone as Pikemen: Skirmish but keep the other options available as Pikemen.:)

Boy, this game really is endangered, isn't it!

a fFair number of views, but no comments.  =)

ah, no worries.

I would like to play the game before I give a thumbs up, but I am currently suffering from a lack of pyramid opponents.  Alas.

This looks good. I recently played this game with some chap from Rochester. ;-) It's a good... functioning strategy game that should get more play than it does.

 

The English teacher in me spotted some comma splices (as in the second sentence), but that was in the original. :-)

Greg, if you'd like to correct the grammar, I'm totally okay with that.  I have probably either read it too many times now to notice errors -- or my grammar is simply not as good as yours.  If you spot any specific things I should fFix, cool cool!  This would be the time (generally speaking).  Like if you wanted to print it and mark it up and I'll get it next time I see you, that might be easiest, maybe?  Any way you like.

That sounds good. I don't feel everything has to be perfect, but I'm happy to clean things up.

Played it this weekend.  Not my type of game, but that shouldn't stop us from putting it out there.  :Thumbsup:

Hey, Scott! I was inspired to clean up the wiki article on Extinction by your Icesheet here. (The wiki version had previously put me off with its missing info and crunky format.) Would it be okay with you to add your very helpful "Historical Notes" paragraph to the wiki page?

I think this game does have a good chance of recovery from its own near-extinction, due in no small part to your intervention.

Hi again.:)  I like the sheet for Extinction, another one that I need to find someone to play with.  Be that as it may, I will make the suggestion of suggesting being able to play it as Xeno vs Rainbow instead of requiring 5 Rainbow stashes.  You might also suggest monochrome stashes (Looney Labs may be out of Pink Treehouse, but some stores still have it) or say two distinct stashes.

Other than that, I think it looks great.  I can't give a thumbs up on the game yet (haven't played it) but I can on the sheet itself.

I couldn't be more proud of the conservation effort.  =)

Thank you fFor the kind words, and thank you fFor cleaning up the wiki!

Yes, it is definitely okay to use the "Historical" notes.

In fFact, not only can you use any of the text, if you'd like, you could even use the somewhat prettier board layout I made.  I have attached that as a JPG.  As an added bonus, I have shifted the colors of the pyramids, lighter and darker, so the different sizes stand out a bit more.  WHEEE!

=)

Good idea, about using Rainbow vs Xeno.  It does require knowing which is which, of course.  Perhaps it would also work as "cool colors vs warm colors."

Thank you!!

This is as good a time as any to mention that I'll probably be putting together some new improved versions of these sheets in the near fFuture, so little stuff like this will be included.

Cheers!

Done!

Played the game this evening. I liked it; it was perhaps the most conventionally chesslike Pyramid game I've ever played. The rhythm of it was more like standard chess than even avowedly chesslike games such as my Whack Chess. To its credit, though, Extinction is simpler and more accessible than standard chess. I wouldn't hesitate to introduce it to someone who didn't know chess.

I haven't played the game yet, but I have some comments after reading the rules.

- I really don't like "3ish" as the rainbow stash requirement in the box at the top. You should pick a number and go with it. The designer of the game says 5 stashes, so use that.

You could put something in the text that says "fewer is possible, blah blah blah" (however you want to word it). That's consistent with the way Looney Labs has done it with the number of players for IceDice. The box at the top for IceDice says 2 players, but the text of the Icesheet says you can play with more if you have more pyramids.

The Looney Labs Icesheets all seem to have an "Equipment" section in them. That would be perfect for the Logger sheet.

- The equipment list in the box at the top doesn't include the pieces you need for Loggers.

- In the Growth paragraph of the Gameplay section, it says (in part), "Mature trees produce sapling in any space adjacent to them if able." It seems like that should be "seedling", not "sapling". I seem to remember on my first read-through seeing another use of an potentially incorrect term, but I can't find it now.

You really owe it to yourself to try this game out, it's one of the best pyramid games IMO, up there with Homeworlds, Subdivision, Pikemen, and the other greats.

 

5 stashes is the maximum number of pieces you can fit on the board, but I'm not sure it's possible to achieve that game state and certainly it wouldn't come up in normal play. It would be nice to be able to state a true "practical" maximum, as it seems disingenuous to suggest to new players that they must have 5 stashes to play when you really do not. Perhaps your idea of a disclaimer is best, "5 stashes, but 3+ should be sufficient for most normal play"

 

I believe Scott is suggesting that you can use pyramids for the lumberjacks themselves, which is certainly true, but I prefer it with pawns or coins for enhanced clarity. Under "Logger" in the glossary he states as much, which is likely adequate.

 

 

The InfoBox should tell you what you need to play the game.  Currently it does not.

- If I have 3 stashes and want to play Logger, consulting the InfoBox to answer the question, "Can I play this game?" gives me the answer "maybe."  That's unacceptable.  Either you can play the game with that number or you can't.  If adding more pyramids makes for a better gaming experience, say that in the rules, but the InfoBox should be definitive.

- The rules say of the Logger: "A piece representing the player. Denoted by a medium pyramid of a color not used for trees."  The rules on icehousegames.org solve that by requiring you to have a Xeno stash in addition to the Rainbow stashes.  The Icesheet makes no allowance at all for the Logger pieces (using rainbow pyramids in a four player game would leave you with only one stash for the trees, which presumably wouldn't work.)  Again, the InfoBox should be definitive.  If it said, "A token for each player," that would be sufficient.

I understand your complaint, but is it better to require people to buy more things they probably won't use and limit the audience, or tell people they can play when they might not be able to in certain fringe cases?

 

There is never a solitary medium or small on the board as part of a tree, so using mediums is perfectly clear even if they share the color of the trees.

 

If you tell people the game can be played with 3 stashes and they break the game trying, then that's a problem.  As far as I'm concerned, the game is not suitable for looneypyramids.com as long as that problem exists.

 

The best solution is neither of the things you suggest.  The best solution is to tighten up the rules so that the game can be played with 3 stashes.  Some might argue that the "must place if able" rule already implicitly covers the case of running out of pyramids, but I think it should be explicit.  You should probably get sign-off from the designer, but It's really a simple change when you get down to it.

 

As to the pieces representing the Loggers, the rules explicitly state that you must use a color not already in use.  If that's wrong, then the rules should be changed.  But that's really immaterial to the point I'm trying to make.

 

Let's assume for a moment that Logger is playable with 3 stashes (or we fix the rules so it is).  Suppose I go on a camping trip and I pack 3 stashes, volcano caps, and a 5x5 board, as indicated by the InfoBox.  When I get to my destination, I find that I don't have sufficient bits to play the game, because I have no pieces for the Loggers.  I'm on a camping trip in the middle of nowhere, so I have no way to get more bits.  I'm screwed because I believed the InfoBox.  That is not cool.

 

The InfoBox needs to indicate that you need Loggers.  Currently it does not.

 

Thank you gentlemen fFor this discourse.  I agree with what is being arrived at, and the entire conversation has influenced my perspective on other IceSheets.

I initially wrote the "3ish" thinking it would be a clue that the number of trees might be variable, and the player should read on.  But no.  I see the light.  The whole point of the IceSheet is to remove all ambiguity, and remove the need to "read on."  The notes can add variations if they exists, but the core of the infoBox should state the explicit requirements.

Because of how the game works, requiring exactly 3 treehouse sets is good, and one token per player is good.  The game text can mention "unused pyramids may be used as player tokens," but that's up to the players.  The point is: Player Tokens are necessary.

fFor comparrison here, I do state volcano caps are needed.  Well, actually, they aren't completely required, because you could use any unused pyramid to represent a protestor piece.  It turns out that you can simply assume that you may only chop down a tree with 3 pyramids, and your opponent may place a 4th pyramid to prevent you fFrom doing so.  Size, in actuality, is irrelevant, technically speaking.  But that's okay, the rules say build trees, and place caps.  If we specify this, then we must also specify the need fFor a player token.

I notice, if you were that hypothetical player out camping, you could easily grab some rocks to use fFor player tokens.  There's no shortage of player tokens in the woods, eh.  But you might not realize that, which is a problem.

As I said, this conversation has been influencing my whole outlook on IceSheets.

Also, I am amused by the idea of playing logger while out camping in the woods.  Irony!

I will put together a revision as soon as possible.

Ahoy!
With appreciation, I am pleased to present a modification to the IceSheet.  I have not altered any particulars of the rules.  Nor have I stated anything about having more or less treehouse sets.

On the overall subject of treehouse sets, I will say this much:  I have not played a game yet where we needed more than 15 trees, so I would never say you must have more than that.  You can probably play most games of Logger with only 2 treehouse sets, in reality.  I think we seem to usually use about 8 trees at most.  The tendency is towards chopping trees down, so having a lot of trees doesn't seem to happen that much.  But it could happen, so I would say 3 is a good stated requirement.

As before, let me know what you think, and I will edit and revise as needed.

Ok, first suggestion, change the infobox, Rainbow Stashes x 3 can be changed to 3HOUSE set.

Second, Add Xeno set to requriements.  Two reasons, first, volcano pyramids are no longer available, at least I didn't see them in the online store. Second, this also gives the players the player tokens they will need.  Admittedly, it looks nicer with the meeples, but not everyone has them.  And, while anything could be used for the loggers, we can say the same thing about the trees and protesters. (Any stackable CAN be used for the trees, but it looks nicer with pyramids.)

Third, I think images next to the tree definitions would look nice and be a bit easier to understand.  Personally, I like the line drawing images for such things with the pip markings on them.  Something similar to the images on the IceDice.

Fourth, I think the text could be polished and even have some flavor text added in to make it more interesting to read.  However, this I would not do without the original author's permission as well as allowing the original author to first proofread it.

Fifth, and this is just for asthetics, change the title font to logger.  Yes, there actually is a Logger font (and it's free.)

Sixth, add another page at the end with a printable 5x5 board.  I'm surprised one wasn't added with Caldera.    You could actually forest theme it, but it might be best to simply make a black bordered board that will look similar to the Volcano boards.  You might even include some "elbs" of your own to put on the corners for Pharaoh.

One more, sorry, but the Background section looks a bit...off.  I wonder if we can get some type of image to replace that.  Set up an Award: IGDC Summer '08, 2nd place with a red ribbon or something.  We might even look into making some specific images just for IGDC winners and/or other awards for particular games.    Maybe something like a ribbon with IDGC on the "tails" of the ribbon and the year in the center of it.  Then you just need the colors for the places.  Blue for first, red for second, white for third and be able to adjust the season/year.

Now, after all that.  It looks like a very fun game.  I can usually get my students into some game playing so this might be the next one we learn.

I also like the images you've added in the chopping examples and the photo in the Infobox is great, although a cartoonish Lumberjack picture may also be fun.  (The pyramid pic is great to me, but for new players or those unfamiliar to Looney Pyramids, a lumberjack may be more interesting)

It is now far too late for me.  I'll try and proofread some of your other IceSheets and rate them soon.

 

By the way, thank you for all of the hard work that you have put into them so far.

Ahh, sorry, after looking back at the other IceSheets, I need to retract my statement about the Infobox photo as those are intended to show a game setup or in progress, but a lumberjack image could be added to the top of the sheet by the game name.  Or a protester sitting in a treetop.

Thank you fFor all the useful commentary!

These are all good points.  I will see what I can do to implement some of these things.

Regarding the point you make is about Volcano caps.  It's true, they aren't around.  We'll just have to deal with that.  I don't want to require Xeno, specifically, since really, any cap color will work.  Black is good, or white, or red (or gray) ... it doesn't matter, as long as it's consistent and easy to understand.

I'm really not worried about needing Meeples, either, because any old pawn will work.  Rocks, or coins, or balls of lint, it doesn't matter, as long as they are distinct.  I really think having too many pyramids with too many specific fFunctions starts to be too confusing.  "Green is a tree, except this yellow tree, and black are caps, except this black cap on the board which is a player pawn." or worse, "green and cyan and blue are trees, yellow and orange and white and pink are players, and black and purple are protesters..."  Egah!  No, I think it's much easier to simply require some sort of player pawns.  Meeples look nice, but you can use nearly anything!

I like your suggestion of adding some small images beside each of the tree types.  Good idea!

Is a 5x5 printable board really all that needed, actually?  It would be groovy to make a pretty fForest background.  I'll see what I can do!

If you have any cartoony lumberjacks, or maybe some cartoony protesters, let me know.  I'd be happy to use them.  I'm not especially good at drawing people.

Thank you again fFor your thoughts!

I dont' have a lumberjack yet, if I can find a bit of time, I think we could do a pyramid lumberjack (like the Iceland characters) with a "lumberjack" hat and an axe.

Personally, I'm set for the parts and pieces, but I like the xeno set for the spare pieces as that keeps it all Looney Pyramids.  As I stated before, it gives NEW players a clearly defined set of items that they will need and how they will be used.  Xeno colors are used only for players and protesters which leaves all of the rainbow stashes for trees.  However, no matter which way you go on this, one should be recomended and the other suggested.

The 5x5 printable board is not needed.  Just suggested.  As I stated on the Pikemen discussion, I see IceSheets as being valuable for demoing and introducing new players to a game.  Having the board there makes the game more "complete" and most people won't object to printing of an extra sheet.  Also, since it's on a seperate sheet, if they don't want it, they don't have to print it.  It becomes another one of those flavor elements that helps to draw in newcomers (Demo aids).

 

Ok, now on to actual appraisal of the sheet.  Something I had noticed but forgot that I noticed before.  I think you need to add another term into the rules, especially in the section that mentions tree growth.  There needs to be a distinction between turn and round.

 

All trees in the same row and column your logger occupies grow 1stage. All seedlings become saplings and all saplings become mature trees. Mature trees produce 1sapling in any space adjacent to them if able. Please note growth of all trees is considered simultaneous, so no tree should experience two stages of growth in one turn, nor should any seedlings newly spawned from a mature tree this turn. All trees in your logger’s row and column must grow or create a new seedling if able.

If I am correct in my assumption, the trees grow after a player's movement but a tree can only grow or spawn once a round (players take a turn, if all players have taken a turn, that's a round, by my definition)  Either that, or you need to distinguish between player turns and game turns.  Or am I mistaken?  I'll keep looking for anything else that might cause confusion.

a coworker calls it "that ... uhm ... that game with the triangles."  =)

On the sticker page it says to not use them in stores. :-)

Sigh.  Yes, the answer is not to use the stickers in stores.  We have long resisted offering discount codes like this, for exactly this reason, and decided to run a test with this launch to see what happened.

HOWEVER - I do have an answer of sorts.  The discount is only $2 (or $3 on IceDice) and the shipping charge from our online store is at least $5 maybe $6 - so the customer is MUCH better off buying the game from the local store rather than buying it from us online.  So if you have a local store you can promote our games in, please let people know it is a better deal to buy locally than to buy online.

 

THAT SAID - it's best to just not use the stickers if you are promoting in a store.

Well, now I feel stupid... and it's definaely my own fault.

 

I'm the kind of person who hits the details... the "get stickers on before hand, ok demo materials in one box with the game, be there 45 minutes early to be set up and not rushed, turbines to speed!"

 

That label (to me) got lost in the 'sea' of stickers - and I just rushed to get them on the cards. I can try to remove them or mark them out with a permanent marker and explain my mistake to the stores.  And yes it is my mistake.

 

Thanks for pointing out the instructions. I'm just glad Fluxx has so few instructions *grin*

Please don't feel bad!   We did a lousy job of communicating with you guys about the stickers... there was going to be a letter that went with the kit, but we ran out of time and just sent the kits without the letter.  I doubt we will do stickers like this again...  they also have an expiration date, which is also very annoying if you have already put the stickers on the cards!  Other ideas with a QR code are in the works...  hop in your time machine if you can't wait to find out what we ultimately manage to do about coupons!  

And THANK YOU for promoting our games in your local game store!

I haven't tried to understand the rules themselves, but the layout looks nice. It's cool to see another author using the format we devised!

 

That said, 2 technical quibbles. First, those 2 blue boxes are only meant as working guides. Delete them (by deleting the entire layer that they are on) when finalizing your PDF!

Secondly, the image in the square at the top should be a photo of what the game looks like in progress, not a thematic image. That goes above the info box.

Thanks for the quibbles!

I made the blue boxes invisible but didn't delete them, so that I could keep them as a guide. The invisibility thing works in the PDF readers that I tried, but clearly it's not enough - so I'll delete the boxes in the next version.

I don't have a photo of a game in progress. When I get a chance to take one, I'll replace the illo in the info box.

A revised version, correcting for the technical quibbles.

Wow you just sent me googling for Morton's... Looks interesting :-)

I'd call the libido-themed Fluxx "Sexxy Fluxx", myself.

This is great. I see that the type-o on the third page of the icehouse rules got missed.  I have a question about NEW games. I am playtesting a new game that uses the new ice dice color die.  Where should we submit new games? 

do you have those templates in a MS Word 2010 format? I don't have a PDF writer, only a reader....

Are there any limitations on which pyramid games are eligible? I'm thinking specifically about other components that are required.

I have a game that requires a copy of the Decktet. There's a free print&play version of the Decktet, but it's not connected to Looney Labs in any way.

This is so completely awesome.  I love everything about this.

 

I think we need to assemble a list of games that require rules re-writing.  New games aside, I think any game should be put into the new fFormat.  If it's a pyramid game, and it is in what may be recognized as a "Complete" state, then it is eligible fFor the new layout, I should think.  In fFact, Mr. Magnus, if you created the game, you might be the best person to write the rules!

 

I would suggest new games not be put into the new layout right away.  I think there's stuff you don't know about how a game works until it is well played and established, which might mean revising the rules anyway.  So, of course you can use whatever layout you like, but I wouldn't worry too much about making new games in the new layout; not right away.  Maybe just put together the rules on the icewiki, then after they seem stable and well played, then you might put them into an attractive fFormat to have greater usage.

 

Kristin, obviously, may disagree completely with everything I just said.

I am pretty fFamiliar with these games below, and will aim to construct the rules fFor them.  If anyone does them before me, that's cool too, because I don't know when exactly I'll get to them.  Soon, one hopes.  Hopefully I can start something over the weekend maybe.  Mainly, I thought, since I basically have already converted most of these once before in the past fFor assorted reasons, I probably can do again now.  I am, of course, open to suggestions, but here's what I've got planned, in no order:

 

• Pikemen
• Extinction
• Alien City
• Logger
• Infiltrate
• Nile
• Plutonian Poker

Cool.

 

Of course, I would like to see Zendo get the Icesheet treatment, it being the top game on my Starship Captain list.  Any chance that Looney Labs and/or Kory Heath will be making one?  If not, who would we see about permission for a Starship Captain to do it?

 

In general, what kind of permission would we need for someone who is not the designer to create an Icesheet for a game?  If I was a designer, I wouldn't want someone to Icesheet my game without permission.

 

Finally, a technical question: Where will looneypyramids.com be when it goes live?  Right now, it's redirecting to beta.looneylabs.com, which seems like something you'd want to change.  Will looneypyramids.com turn into a real site, or will it be pyramids.looneylabs.com, or what?

 

IANAL, but I have read up some on the IP laws surrounding boardgames. My understanding is that gameplay is essentially unprotectable. Provided you don't plagiarize or use the same name as the game, you should be able to legally re-write any game rules in Icesheet format.

 

That said, taking somebody's game that you enjoy and re-naming it and freely distributing its rules without the permission of the designer is not a cool move. I would think due diligence here is emailing/contacting the designer for permission. If you're completely unable to get in touch, I would go ahead and do it anyway, but that's probably not the 'responsible' action.

If you're completely unable to get in touch, I would go ahead and do it anyway, but that's probably not the 'responsible' action.

Looney Labs has been understandably unhappy when other game companies made games that used the same gameplay as Fluxx or Aquarius but without duplicating any of the precise words or images. So I think it would be bad to exploit that feature of IP law to make knock-off Icesheets.

Some games are offered under open licenses, and in those cases the authors have given explicit permission for some kinds of reuse. Where that's not the case, I think folks should not make Icesheets without author permission.

The IceDice Page is much more useful.

The Pharaoh page is swooped up.

I used a couple of images fFrom the beta.looneylabs.com page.  Let me know if you'd rather those didn't get used in this way.

 

There might be typos or something, sorry, I did proofread, but I was also eatin' some dinner at the time, so just correct 'em or let me know or something.

 

Any chance of getting this template in a word format? I have yet to find a PDF editor that will let me edit your template. so far it only allows me to add notes.

I personally do not use Word very often...  so I am not the best person to create a Word template for this.  Do we have a Starship Captain who can make such a template out of the templates we have already posted?

Hey - I'm looking for that thread that had an analysis of Starship Captain Lists - was it Ryan that did that? or someone else?  I would love to know the list of fan designed games that are showing up on Starship Captain Lists...  since it seems this is a great list to start converting to the new format...    can someone find that list?

I do believe it was Ryan Hackel. I have been unsucessfull in finding the message though.

I'll keep looking.

The InfoBox on icehousegames.org has been broken for years.  I'm getting ready to Be Bold and fix the ** thing.  Now would be the time to object or contribute.

Thank you Jeff - please BE BOLD!

I'm reasonably good with word templates.  I'll see what I can do.

After looking at things, I now have a better understanding of the inner workings of icehousegames.org, MediaWiki, Semantic MediaWiki, and the Infobox_Game template.

 

I was able to fix BGG_Link, such that if you provide a valid BGG_Link in your call to Infobox_Game, it will link to BGG as expected.  See, for example, how it's done on the Zendo page.

 

I was unsuccessful in my efforts to make more substantial changes to the template.  Either the features I'm trying to use are disabled, I am using them incorrectly, or they are not yet implemented in the versions of Wiki software being used.  Icehousegames.org is using old versions of both MediaWiki and Semantic MediaWiki, so it would not surprise me if I was trying to use unsupported functions.  I was unable to figure out from the documentation when those features were first implemented.  Obviously, fixing those kinds of issues would require the involvement of an Admin.  If an icehousegames.org Admin sees this, it would be nice if he could chime in here, to save us the trouble of tracking him down.

 

I have not gone through the game pages for the games in the looneypyramids.com rollout to make sure they are as good as they can be, given the limitations of the current template, but that's something I could do, if nobody else wants to do it.

I have updated the Infobox instructions on icehousegames.org.  Hopefully they are now complete and easier to understand.  If you would like to add or update a game Infobox on icehousegames.org, see this page:

http://icehousegames.org/wiki/index.php?title=Template:Infobox_Game

I've been out updating Infoboxes, and I noticed that the Black ICE page on looneypyramids.com points to the old Icehouse expansion and not the game.  It should point to "Black ICE" not "Black Ice".

Fixed.  Thanks for all the updates, Jeff!

http://looneylabs.ning.com/forum/topics/sscl-june-2011-edition

The "Rules PDF" link in the upper left hand corner has a link to "This Game". That's great except on the Introduction page, which isn't a game. "This Intro" maybe? Or maybe "This Introduction" would work okay?

 

Also, there are several stray undisplayable characters on the Launchpad 23 page.  Here are the examples I found, with the little box-character replaced by an "*":
-Indroduction: fi*rst
-Setup: *st
-Who Starts: fi*rst
-How to Play: *first

 

Hiya!  Please fFind a word doc attached.  * shine *

 

There are a couple of little alterations I had to make.  The Chair Icon in the Players box was just not really gonna fFit very well.  I fFeel bad about it, but it just wasn't working right in Word.  Also, the Second Page header spans the entire page, not just the top of the column.  Word does that well, so that's what I'm doing with it.

I'm pleased with how the rest of it works out.  There is a paragraph style fFor the Green, Yellow, and Red box backgrounds.  So you can change the appropriate words and then select the style to "Back Green," "Back Yellow" or "Back Red."  The "Next Page" arrow might be a little clumsy to set in the right place maybe, it should look great in the end.

I put a picture of myself in the picture box because I am terribly vain sometimes.  But also because it's a good placeholder.  You should replace that with a picture of your game.  It should be 1.4" x 1.4" in size.

By the way, I would encourage anyone to use the official layout, in AI or PDF fForm, if you can.  It's probably a little better, eh.  This thing I made is okay, and might be more accessible if you don't happen to have adobe illustrator, but I'm pretty sure the Illustrator version is going to look better.

I'm an IceWiki admin, but I usually just cook the spam.  You will need Brian Campbell for the changes you are seeking.

OK, having had a chance to catch my breath, I'm getting back to work on IceSheets. Obviously there's a lot of interest in Zendo so I'm doing that one now... I've already finished page 1. I'll send it to Kory for approval first, and post it here after that. I also plan to do RAMbots and Pikemen and Volcano as soon as I can get to them. I expect to do others from PwP etc when I get time, as driven by demand.

Thanks, Andy.

 

Those are good choices for more than just my personal preference.  You mention Zendo, RAMbots, and Volcano by name in the new printed pyramid guide.

 

Thanks! if I could only afford all the software..... I searched long and hard for a free PDF editor, but only found those that would let me turn a print job into a PDF. Nothing that would let me edit the PDF form supplied here. if anyone knows of a free, or open source PDF editor that I could use, I'd be very happy to hear it.

Hiya!  I had intended to look into this more properly, but supposedly Inkscape can open and edit PDFs.  It may need the Poppler library?  Not sure, I had wanted to play with it more before now, but maybe you'll have more time than I.

http://inkscape.org/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inkscape

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poppler_%28software%29

 

Actually, what I'm really probably going to make is a template fFor InDesign.  Adobe  InDesign is a bit more of a desktop publishing program.  Kind of like Word, but with more complex design layout fFeatures.  I don't think there is any sort of fFree software equivalent, although I am given to understand it's like another piece of software called Quark.

I also see a program called Scribus which I'd like to try.

So, in summary, I'm looking at developing a variety of different fFormats so anyone can put their rules into a standardized layout.

Thank you, Scott!   A conversion from the Illustrator (.ai) file to an InDesign file should be very easy...   and yes, as many different formats as you guys can come up with is great.

The other option is that if someone with the software and skills can offer to do a final format tweak for someone who does not have the better software options...  

Andy formatted Zendo, and Kory approved it...  Osk will be putting it up on the new site shortly.  It came out to be 10 pages!  Yikes!

I recently submitted Launchpad 23 and Caldera to the BoardGameGeek database.  The Admins approved them this week.  It would be nice to have photographs associated with these entries, so if anybody has anything to submit:

 

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/109017/launchpad-23

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/109019/caldera

Ta-da!  I have made a very nice InDesign document!  See the attached thing.

As I said before, there is probably no fFree substitute fFor InDesign, so sorry about that, but it is a really pretty layout.  Personally, I will probably use this layout to do my own rule sheets.  It's pretty snazzy.  =)

Off to the left of Page-1 is a text box describing how to use the document.  I think it's fFairly descriptive and helpful, but if anything seems unclear just ask  =)

Cheers!

Thanks Scott!   I have uploaded the InDesign template...  

But I didn't post your word template...  it isn't close enough, and won't yield a result for the info box that matches the established format. Scott: if you were going to offer to do the final formatting for someone, what would you want them to provide you with?  Could you make a word template that provides instructions on how someone should provide their rules to someone who can then use one of the other templates to make a final rules sheet?

The instructions on the MORE GAMES page now reads:

1) format your rules (with one of these templates: PDF or ai, indd) or by asking for help from other Starship Captains if you don't have layout tools,

 

If I were going to do the fFormatting and setup of some nice pages - like if someone were to give me a copy of the rules, and i put them in - then I think it would not matter too much to me how they came to me.  Word, pdf, plain text, in the body of an email, scan of some scribbled notes on paper maybe ... And some pictures.  I guess, personally, I would be willing to work with whatever I was given.  Ideally, the rules would be typed in some way, and I'd get some pictures to go with it.  But beyond that, I'm not too picky.

Hiya!

I have made some icesheets.  As yet, only 1 set has been approved by the game's creator :  Logger.  I fFeel sort of bad that's the fFirst one of mine to get out, because the game involves knocking tree hugging hippies out of trees.  But it's a pretty cool game, anyway, and I sort of fFeel like it shows the power that hippies have to change the world: having more hippies on your side is a totally good thing in this game!

I have gotten approval fFrom the game's creator to make and distribute the rules.  I used a photo of the game fFrom boardgamegeek.com, and also received permission to reuse the image here.

I will keep you posted as I get more icesheets written and approved by the various creators.

Any requests, by the way?  Anything I should specifically work on?

Cheers!

This looks beautiful, Scott - YAY - Thanks for the layout work!

However...  before I can put this up on the LooneyPyramids.com web site, I need to know that the community of players has PLAYED this game and says it is ready for prime time as one of the games we advertise you can play with Looney Pyramids.  

The process that I came up with and posted on that MORE GAMES page, continues after getting the game formatted up, with this:  "2) post your rules PDF in a new thread in the Starship Captains forum asking for review/approval, 3) tweak your rules sheet until the community of players/designers is satisfied that they are ready.  When ten (10) Starship Captains have given your game a thumbs up, saying it is ready to be published on this page, we will make a rules page for your game here on this web site!"

So... please do start a new thread called "Logger - up for review" and ask the community to review the rules sheet and the game, just like they have been reviewing and helping refine the sheets that Andy has been posting over the last few months.  If I can find the time, I'll try playing it myself, and maybe I'll be one of those 10 Captains that says it is ready...  I can certainly get a lot of hippies on my side.  :)

 

As for which ones to format next...  I would look at this list from Ryan of which games are showing up on lots of Starship Captains lists a whole bunch of times...  games like:  Tic Tac Doh, Cracked Ice, Alien City, Blam, Branches Twigs Thorns, Quicksand, Penguin Soccer, Armada, Pylon, Crosswalk - might all be good choices - as are many others!

Ah-haa, yes, thank you Kristin!  I have started a new page here:

http://looneylabs.ning.com/group/starshipcaptains/forum/topics/game-logger-icesheet-submission

I actually started making a sheet fFor Alien City, but then stopped part-way in, fFor a couple of reasons.  I may resume it at some point, though.  It's a great game  =)

Presently I am in the midst of various stages of:  Pikemen, Tic Tac Doh, RGB, and Extinction.  Plus the list I said I'd work on, before, which has some cool games.  =)

Cheers!

Last week, I loaded the PDF template into Adobe Acrobat Pro (hey, I got this expensive piece of software, so I figured I should get to work on the games). However, on my mac at least, I wasn't able to manipulate the page without getting tons of error messages. It was frustrating, so I gave up. I may try the Word template, but it would have been much cooler to play with it in Adobe.

 

What are you other SCs using to make the files?

To follow up on the issues that I've had on my Mac. I've been able to copy and paste the objects within the pdf; the problem has been the text. I've been getting the following error "Accumulated text within the attempted selection area is rotated other than horizontal or vertical. TouchUp cannot create a text selection."

To fix that, I've been able to highlight the area in question and select "Fit text to selection." This has to be done every time, or the text cannot be changed. I'd skip this step, but I want the fonts to conform to the template.

Now that I've fixed that, I expect to have a game or two ready for your inspection... sooner rather than later.

I hope this helps someone else.

Weird. Sorry we don't know how to make better templates for people who don't have Adobe Illustrator...  it really seems like Adobe Acrobat Pro and Adobe Illustrator should speak together better than this.  Sigh.  Would it help to know the names of the fonts Andy is using?

Yes, that might be useful, especially if anything goes wrong or can't be converted in Acrobat Pro. It couldn't hurt those using other programs as well. Thanks!

Kristin,

After playing further with Acrobat Pro, I'm convinced that it isn't the best program for this type of task. It's disappointing since it works fine for creating pdfs (I use it all the time in my academic field). The problem appears to be that it doesn't incorporate templates well.  I still might be able to create files from scratch with the images. I'll talk with Scott, who has Illustrator (I think) when I see him, to see if he has any tips. I'd like to make pdfs that conform for a number of games on the wiki, including a game that I invented as well.

Have either of you ever heard of Scribus: http://www.scribus.net/canvas/About

I don't know anything about this except what I just found with a bit of googling, but it looks like it might be exactly what we are looking for and it's open source and has a well supported community

Do either you or Scott have time to look into this?  It looks like it is all about templates... if we had a good template that works with downloadable open source software...  

Scott mentioned it above. I'll have to give it a try and see how the templates act with it. Time is tight for me this time of year, but I'll certainly contribute as I am able.

I've noodled around with a little bit, but not much.  I'll look into it more, though, at your request.  The short of it is:  it will work.  It imports the illustrator AI fFormat very nicely.  But it does some unexpected things, which I'll simply adjust to.  The way it handles Page Margins is sort of odd, fFor example.  But no worries.  I'll get a Template put together as soon as I am able.

I'm sorry to say that the program doesn't work well at all. It couldn't import any of the different template formats that you've provided. The Pdf version would load (once I got Ghostscript set up), but most of the file is locked, even with the locked button unchecked and most of the text is missing (font issue?).

Scott's having better luck. Are you using the Mac or PC version? The Mac version seems very buggy and with limited functionality.

I have been a bit lax in working on learning Scribus very much. I'm sorry.  I have the PC version, and it seems to work basically well enough.  Maybe I should setup a proper template, then see if you can open it and work with it, Greg.  I'll get to that as soon as I can.

Hi Kristin!

I have a suggestion.

New Icesheets need 10 Captain's Votes to be included on the "Looney Pyramids" page and elsewhere.  But i think that might be a little high of a threshold.

fFor one thing, are the votes cast on the Game, or the Rulesheet?  I'm reasonably sure Pikemen is a well liked game, but I don't know how many people have seen the Icesheet.

Secondly, what counts as a vote?  Someone specifically logging in and saying they like it?  Or will any thumbs up or kudos count?  Again, plenty of people play Pikemen, not many people have specifically voted it up.

I ask, because I fFear that the Pikemen Icesheet (and maybe others) might be languishing in some dark corner, neglected, which would be a pity, since it is a well loved game that has been published and tournemented.

I would suggest something a bit more dynamic.  Several people giving a thumbs up to the Icesheet, AND several ringing endorsements fFor the game in general.  This way, if everyone says the Icesheet looks great but the game stinks, it doesn't make it; and if everyone loves the game, but the Icesheet isn't very good, it doesn't make it.

What do you think?

I agree, the process needs work...   and I have thoughts on the subject - but don't have the time right now to write up my thoughts, and in fact I think what we really need is a conversation...  

I propose a conference call between me, Scott, and a handful of other starship captains who would like to be involved in coming up with a process for deciding how pyramid games end up on the More Games page.  Who wants to join in on this phone call? Not this week or next - but maybe the second week of January?   

Scott:  think about who else you think might want to be involved in this conversation and ping them about speaking up on this thread and expressing their interest.  And then remind me in a couple of weeks that we should set up a time to have this call...

And feel free to post other ideas here in the meantime...  we will discuss any and all ideas and come up with a process!  

Count me in on the conference call.  PM for contact info when needed.

<-- interested

Very cool!  And I'm glad to see Ryan and Jeff already chiming in.  You guys are the fFirst names that come to mind.

I'll put a couple more names together, collect contact datum, that sort of thing.

Cheers!

I would like to try and make a Word template for the IceSheets.  However, I think I need a bit more information such as which font(s) are used in each area, the sizes of the boxes, line weights, etc.  I would like to make it as indistinguishable from the PDF version as possible.  While I HAD access to indesign, illustrator and acrobat, that was in college which is several years and several thousand miles ago.  Word can be set up with columns which I should be able to set up in Word as well.  The hardest part may be in making it friendly for everyone to use.

Kristin, Has there been a defined process on how games will get on the "More Games" page yet? I have a game I've been working on for a while and have been play-testing it and having others play-test it and feel that it is ready to be on the "More Games" page. The rules are nicely formatted in the new standard format and everything. I looked for some competitions to put it in, but it looks like all of the pyramid game design contests have all ceased to exist. This game that I just finished is a 3-Stash solitaire game that I created since I don't always have people to play some of my favorite pyramid games with. I know there are a few solitaire games out there for the Looney Pyramids game system, but there are not a ton available and I think my game is really solid and ready to be shared with everyone. Please get back to me when you get a second and let me know what the process is to get my game up on the website for all to play :) Thanks, Dallan P.S. I have some other games in the works that I am currently designing and I am really excited about them. These games I am working on are not solitaire games.

Dallan,

There's a community page for posting your game: http://www.icehousegames.org/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page . Personally, I'd be interested in seeing another solitaire game, as we don't have that many of those.

I'm helping to jump start the 2011 Ice Awards, so look for something soon. You're games would be eligible for the 2012 Awards, so feel free to get them up there for us to check out! 

Greg

Greg,

Thanks for the reply! I know about IcehouseGames.org, but I didn't know about the IceAwards, so thanks for making me aware of that. I have just put my game up on IcehouseGames.org and have started a new thread in the Starship Captains group talking about my new game. It has the link to the IcehouseGames.org page as well as where you can get ahold of my nicely formatted PDF rules in that thread. Here's the link to that thread: http://looneylabs.ning.com/group/starshipcaptains/forum/topics/new-game-egyptian-solitaire

Thanks again,

Dallan

I see that you have followed the process outlined on the MORE GAMES page - but have not gotten anyone to actually play your game.  This is so often the problem...

I started THIS THREAD on the public pyramid forum, which gets more traffic, and is public, so you can link to it on facebook and twitter and other places to try to attract notice.  

... you need to get 10 Starship Captains to give your game a thumbs up before I can add it to the more games page at LooneyLabs.com

I like it.  I'm not sure the best way to get a whole bunch of people interested in playing pyramid games, all at the same time.  That's usually the problem fFor me with demoes.  I can demo to a couple people at a time, when I show up to gaming and say "hey let's play this!" But getting a bunch of people to play pyramids games together can be hard.

I'm going to be organising a day  like this as soon as my demo pack arrives. i'll be running at my local game shop, with an adult doing the rules on each table, so its under adult supervision if any young geeks join in. game  shops in england can't sell the 'mids, but they can still sell the accessories, so i'll be having some of the games be ones with special boards, eg martian coasters and world war 5. I'll be using the looney patches as soon as i can get my hands on them, as a prize for playing ten games. thinking a door prize of a button badge with the inner circle part of the starship captain logo, with cadet written round the edge.

I did something a little similar over at Fanboy 3 back when Treehouse was first released. It went down very, very well.

 

A couple of hours before-hand, I set up a group of various "in-progress" games, ones that look interesting (Gnostica, Volcano, , Zendo, etc).  Resultantly, people kept poping back through the afternoon to see what was happening.

On page 4, towards the bottom of column 1:  I would suggest being more emphatic about no pieces ever landing on top of a cap.  That seems to be the one thing I see more people misunderstand.  No piece, cap or otherwise, can ever be on top of a cap, under any circumstance!!  Not even for a moment!

 

Also, is the Power Play considered an "optional rule" or a "standard rule?"  The wording "Power Play Option" makes it a little unclear -- but that could be just because I happen know it was being discussed as an option.  So maybe that's just me.

Finally, standardization!!!!  I like  how clean they feel, and these would be great for the person who is teaching a group of people at their own abode, but portability of a 8.5 x 11 notebook is nothing comparable to smaller rules sheets.  I guess these could be printed smaller, or folded in half... 

 

I have been "collecting" rules from BGG and Icehousegames.org for a few years now with all of them possessing a different format and stuffed in a binder the visual appeal leaves much to be desired.  I do like this new clean format.  Are we allowed to show this to our gaming groups?  I am interested in how they feel about teaching others based off of this larger format versus the smaller 7 ICE and newer Icedice booklet formats (which I really like the 7 ICE style...)

 

 

I like the new format, including the headers and footers.  There are a couple of things it would be great if you could add.  I would like to see an indication somewhere on the first page of how many total pages there are for the rulesheet.  It wouldn't have to be big--just something that would let me tell at a glance that I had everything.  And a "continued" indicator at the bottom of non-terminal pages would be nice, too.  Maybe if nothing was ever more than two pages it would be fine with double-sided printing, but I would be very surprised if there aren't games out there that would require three or more pages for rules.

The other thing I noticed was the Looney Labs logo and copyright notice in the footer.  Perhaps this is something for the community to develop, but it would be nice to have a generic footer for community-developed games with a distinct logo.  Maybe even some form of the Starship Captain logo.  It would be something that would clearly distinguish "official" and "unofficial" rulesheets.

Yes - you can print them and show them around - but do so quickly, we are about to finalize this format!

Will do captain!

Here's what I've come up with for a continued indicator (that also provides a total page count) for non-terminal pages:

Spiffy!

 

Standard what paper?  In the UK we use A4 most commonly. Is that size a B or C number? Will this new format print to fit on A4? 

Other than I've never heard of that size, it looks cool.

In the U.S., almost all regular printing is done to the "letter size" standard, which is 8 1/2 inches by 11 inches (thus, 8.5x11). Wikipedia says that's 215.9 mm × 279.4 mm. A4 is 210 × 297.

 

See this link at Wikipedia.

 

Edit to add: I couldn't leave well enough alone, so I did a quick bit of research.  The letter size standard dates to 1921, while ISO 216, from which we get A4, was first published in 1975.  So, technically, A4 is the "new format."

Cool.

I like it  =)

Very nice Andy!  The style in the infobox is easy to read, and is consistant with your style, making it easily identifyable as a Looney Labs game.  I like it!

I like this. You might think of a modifier sheet for a bunch of gametypes like Caldera that are slight modifications to existing games. So I'd have fewer pieces of paper to carry around and we wouldn't spend a couple minutes reading a bunch of stuff we just learned in another game to look for changes in the next game we try.

 

Why are you using the term "Trio" for a group consisting only of a small, medium, and large instead of "Tree"?

 

 

Tree has a specific definition that defines the relationship between the pyramids: small on medium on large.

 

Trio refers to the three pyramids without referring to anything else about them.  A trio can be in a tree, a nest (large on medium on small), or any number of other orientations.  Or a trio can have no orientation at all, if you're just saying, "You have three pyramids: a small, a medium, and a large."

 

In some cases if you say tree when you mean trio, it can be confusing: what if you have a nest?

 

Well stated, Jeff - thanks!       Here is how we define these terms in the Pocket Guide to Looney Pyramids that will come with all pyramid products going forward...

 

 

 

[quote]Tree has a specific definition that defines the relationship between the pyramids: small on medium on large.

 

Trio refers to the three pyramids without referring to anything else about them.  A trio can be in a tree, a nest (large on medium on small), or any number of other orientations.  Or a trio can have no orientation at all, if you're just saying, "You have three pyramids: a small, a medium, and a large."[/quote]

 

Okay, fine. And the definition sheet is really cool Kristin.

 

But in the specific case of Trio, is it's really needed? I think that when demoing a new game or especially a group of new games (as is often the case with showing off pyramids), it's always best to have as few new words for a player to learn as possible. I'm not aware of any game where you'd need a "trio" and couldn't refer to it as a nest or tree. And since the definition of Trio is that orientation doesn't matter, you could refer to it as either, though Tree would certainly reference Treehouse and therefor be easier to remember for new and infrequent players.

 

With Volcano/Caldera specifically, the pieces are out of play and can be moved around at-will, so I always told them that "if you can make a tree it's worth X, if you can make a monocolor tree, it's worth Y."

 

The big question for me would be whether there's any game that would require the word trio at a time when you couldn't just say tree or nest.

 

 

For myself, I've always started Demos with Treehouse to teach basic definitions and principles of the pieces. Set out a bunch of transparent stashes of different colors plus the clear one form zeno. I tell everyone to pick a color. If someone picked the clear I say "Incorrect, that is not a color. Okay, new game." I point to my stash and say, "This is a Nest." Then I make a tree, "This is a Tree. Make a tree." Everyone makes trees while I set up the house. "This is the House, your goal is to make your Tree look like the House." While they're looking at the house, I palm the treehouse die from my lap. "You do that using the Treehouse Die." I make it appear in my hand. Then I roll and go right into playing, explaining the faces of the die as they come up.

Then I show them Martian Coasters (with them keeping the same colors) to show a cool board and define the different piece sizes unique interaction of the different piece sizes while It also lets me show off a product that makes further use of the Treehouse die, adding to the value add of using the same pyramids everywhere.

Then I move on to WW3/Volcano/Martian Chess/etc. depending on the crowd and explain the scoring and movement unique to those games. In this way they slowly learn terminology and variant pyramid mechanics over time in a fun environment.I've never had anyone leave the table while demoing pyramid games at a bustling convention or store.

In the above example I wouldn't explain the right half of that definition flyer unless I was also selling them sets and I wouldn't need to use the word Trio at all.

 

In the future, I think I'll still open with Treehouse for it's inate ability to teach basic terminology then go to IceDice after 'Coasters but before the more complicated ones. But a cool game like Martian Coasters that takes stuff form IceDice and uses it in an entirely different way that can teach terminology not required in IceDice would be very useful as a new #1, #2 in the order I'm demoing pyramids to replace the oop products. 

 

 

Trio, it seems to me, is an intuitive term.

I would have thought that Pawn, Drone, and Queen are outmoded terminology and could be discarded. Almost all rules just refer to them as 1-pip, 2-pip, and 3-pip pyramids.

I agree "trio" seems pretty intuitive. And unnecessarily over-specifying by saying you need a "tree" (or a "nest") instead of a "trio" could cause people to erroneously think they need to set up the pieces as a "tree" (or a "nest") - a pointless waste of time if the physical arrangement is indeed not important.

I try to stick to the Queen, Drone, Pawn mindset when addressing pieces.  Looking through many rule sets on icehousegames.org many people use both terms.  I think it is the Looney's who stick to utilizing this terminology.  I would like to see us keep it...

 

But I can see how two different terms for the same thing can become confusing.

Greetings Captains! I'm uploading 3 more rulesheets in the new format: Treehouse, Zark City, and World War 5. Please check 'em out -- they'll be going live soon! Mostly I've just been reformatting established material, but you never know when I might have inadvertantly inserted a typo or deleted a key clause. (That said, Zark City fans will notice a minor rules change -- I've decided to go ahead and allow Aces to be used for attacks again as well as for their flying power.)

Very nice only suggestion is the Zark City logo seems to have a lot of JPEG artifacts which in printing will make the logo look well in the best terms i can use icky lol other than that absolutely fabulous!

I like this format so much!  I can put these on my kindle and pass it around, or print them off and put them in a binder to do the same.  The rules are standardized and clear!  A much needed and appreciated change.  Kudos to you and "YEAHHHHHH" for us ;-)>.

 

I did not scan for typos though... that will be this afternoon...  I do agree with Shane on the Zark City logo, but off the cuff, very nice.

Greetings again, Starship Captains!

Here's another batch of formatted rulesheets!

This time the PDFs include Martian Chess, Martian Coasters, Black ICE, and Homeworlds!

Check 'em out!

Thanks! They look good! I will find them useful in my notebook of pyramid game rules.

 

This reminds me to ask you about a Martian Chess rule: "the other cannot just move it back to where it came from." Does "where it came from" mean "the side of the board it came from" (which is how superdupergames seems to interpret it) or "the specific square it came from" (which is what I always thought it meant before...)

 

I would remove that ambiguity and say more directly: "cannot just move it back to the side it came from" or "cannot just move it back to the square it came from", depending on which you mean.

 

Also, some kind of ruling about draws, repeated positions (cycles longer than 2 moves) etc might be useful.

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/530254/do-2-queens-1-drone-lead-to-a-draw

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/584201/is-there-a-flaw-in-the-design-of-martian-chess

 

---

 

In Homeworlds, you don't talk about more than 4 players, yet it's playable with more than 4! I think somewhere you ruled (or did I just read that you ruled) that for N players, use N+1 stashes... right?

 

And a ruling about draws / repeated game states might be good here as well.

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/578548/repeated-previous-game-state-is-there-a-ko-rule

Looking good.  I'm looking forward to all these going live on looneypyramids.com.  When they go up for real, they'll be one PDF per game, won't they?

 

I didn't read the content closely, but I did notice the following in the Martian Chess intro: "you can only attack only pieces in other zones."  The word "only" appears twice there, and it seems like once would suffice.

 

good catch on the extra only. If you are just scanning them, be sure to notice that I've finally added a tie-breaker rule for Martian Chess.

 

Yes, the final versions will be 1 per PDF (plus html versions).

OK, Captains, here's the one I'm sure many of you have been waiting for: Icehouse itself. This was by far the most challenging of these for me. Not only is the game is so complex that it takes up 6 pages, but it's also so old that I found myself wanting to completely rewrite the rules -- I've had a lot of practice with writing rulesheets in the 10 years since we published Playing with Pyramids! So I took a fresh approach on this one and re-wrote everything except parts of the strategies section. I hope y'all like it!

The new sheets look really nice.  I do have a couple of questions though: Are there any plans to put the Xeno colored Martian coasters into production?  Also, on a related note, even though the game is officailly for 2-4 four players, are there any suggested setups for more than five (as the black coaster already has given us a suggested setup for that #)

 

On Homeworlds, I recall that it was 2-6 players.  Is there a reason it was compressed down to four ( i.e. four monochrome stashes not enough piecewise)?  Also, if additional stashes were added, do you you think that playing up to say, eight would be problematic?

 

As you may have guessed, by gaming group often is larger than four, so we try to involve as many people as possible.

 

Also, I love using the Star Trekesque font on Homeworlds.

Re Homeworlds, I've since adjusted the non-binary section so that the upper limit is open. (I wasn't trying to compress it down, but I guess what I had didn't sound open-ended enough.) That said, I'm not a fan of anything but Binary really, so I don't know what the upper limit is.

 

Re Xeno Martian Coasters: No, we don't plan to make real ones any time soon. Sorry.

 

Re MC for 6 or more: I have no idea how to create a layout that seems balanced. But given how much the coasters move around, I'm not sure it matters much.

I remember the rules to Icehouse in Playing With Pyramids being difficult to understand. These seem very straightforward. Thumbs up.

 

Two notes:

In "Capturing When Over-Iced," you say "it's considered good form..." when elsewhere in the document you talk about "Cool." I think it should be "Cool" here for consistency. "Cool" is intuitive, and you have that section about "Cool" in the etiquette section, so I think "Cool" is cool.

 

In "The 2-for-1 Exchange," the text talks about 2-pointers while the graphic shows 3-pointers. These should be the same for clarity.

 

I agree with Jeff!  This is the fFirst time the Icehouse rules seem completely simple and obvious, to me.  It's always been a slightly elusive game to me, but this seems to make complete sense.  Bravo!

 

I'm giving a careful reading now, and I'll post any fFollowup questions when done.

I can answer one of these questions:  We will not be manufacturing a run of Xeno Martian Coasters - the quantities required to make actual bar coasters are far too big for it to make sense to produce these.  But we are providing the artwork so anyone can make a set for themselves!

cool!

 

I found one typo in the instructions.

Page 3 Ganging Up says Attackers owner by different players each score points only for their owners.

 

it should read Attackers owned by different players score points only for their owners.

 

if there were any other errors, I missed them in my first go-around on these instructions.

They look great!!!

 

Here are 3 more! IceTowers, Twin Win, and Nothing Beats a Large.

Also, thanks for the comments and corrections. That "2-for-1 Exchange" description not matching the diagram problem goes back to PwP, and I hadn't even realized it! I ended up totally redoing the diagram to match the example...

We own a retail store that sells Looney Labs games and every saturday is game day.  So we'll be setting up Fluxx demo games to promote the Star Fluxx launch. We'll be promoting these game days on Facebook and with signs up in the store as well as emails sent out to our mailing list customers.  Weirdly enough,  the other place we promote games is the local McDonalds.  We live in a very small town and the Mickey d's is our only real, indoor fast food joint, so when my husband and I go down there an sit and play, we get lots of comments on it and are able to invite people down to the store to play.  I'll have some of the Android Doctor cards with us at Mickey D's and we'll give them out to people who show an interest with an invitation to come play with us.  I'll also mention the Android Doctor card (as well as our other Fluxx postcard freebies) in the email I send out.

I plan to demo Star FLuxx at our local con (2nd weekend of Sept.) as well as our weekly LL night at one of the local game shops. All of the Fluxx fans who've heard about it are eager to play!

I will be working with The Last Level, 1Up Collectables, and Golden Eagle comics to schedule demos and a mini Fluxx tournament (which of course will highlight Star Fluxx). The cards will be rewards for winners of games. I will also be demoing it at MEPAcon this fall.

(I may have posted for Seven Dragons, but things came up and I never ordered the kit, so I do not have a report.)

 

 

I have gone around to local game shops and discussed demoing products with them. One store is new and another is opening in September, so I would like to host demos for Looney Labs not only to promote LL, but also to help draw people to the shops.

 

I've been a fan of LL for... gosh, ten years now, and Fluxx is what started me out. So I'm well familiar with the rules and have taught many a person (both young and old). So my plan, really, is simple. To work with the stores on established game days and other (generally quieter) dates to run demos for LL products and I'll start with Star Fluxx and hopefully drive pre-orders and sales to it.

I plan to introduce it to my fellow friends at school and gaming organization located at my college. I will arrange a time that is great for those that are interested in testing out the game. Also, I plan to contact my gaming store in my city and try and to see about arranging a day or two for those who are interested in the game.

As for the Android doctor cards, I plan to distribute those out to the people who show interest in this edition of Fluxx.

Just like in IceDice

I plan to demo Star Fluxx in "The well" gaming group in Be'er Sheve, which I play when I go south, about once a month. I will also demo on friend events and the rest of the Android Doctors will be given to people I play with at ICON / ICONTLV in october.

Plan on demoing Star Fluxx, at several game stores one in greenfield IN, one in Muncie, IN, Two in Anderson indiana.... I also plan on demoing Star Fluxx in the looney labs tournament in greenfield DTBA

I plan on demoing this to games stores in the local area.  I also have a gaming group that loves these type of games and will be showing it to them trying to drive sales.

 

Thanks

 

Shawn Kirkham

I will be demoing this at the games society, and handing out promo cards at freshers fair to new society members. I will also organise a demo session at my local games shop. I'd like extra promo cards, and ones for ice dice, (i already have the kit) to hand out to newbs.

I plan to introduce the Harvey High School gaming club (in Ohio) that I sponsor to Star Fluxx.  This group can be as many as 32 students (as well as some wandering teachers).  In addition, I'll have some of our youth group kids play it.  All participating players may receive the demo card.  Since we don't have a local Fluxx retailer, I'll take it to our neighborhood collectible toy store, Spaceman Floyd's Cosmic Toys.  I think he will be interested!

thinking i'll do a combo ice dice/star fluxx demo. i'll demo pyramids with star/space themes, eg apophis, moonshot etc. alongside star fluxx.

I plan on demoing Starr Fluxx with my two week night gaming groups (including Gamers of the Apocalypse in Louisville, KY.) After that, if I have any promo cards left, I may try to get an event line up at a couple local gaming stores ( The Roll of the Die and Comic Book World). My wife and I are moving to Lexington soon, so I'll probably pitch a demo night at a local game store there as well.

 

The Android Doctor should be a fun promo card. Fluxx players will be encouraged to provide a witty, " I'm a Doctor! Not a ____________(Add clever appliance/power tool here!)

I plan on featuring Star Fluxx at my Looney Game Night events, as well as with my group of friends!

My plans for star flux is the same as for Icedice. I plan on demoing it for my large group if gaming friends/family. Also , I an going to set up a demo day at the local hobby/game store. I will give out the promo card to people who demo the game at the game store or are interested in the game.

I participate in three gaming events a week. The first is on Monday at the local Barns and Noble. It sponsored by them to encourage folks to check out their RPG books and their board/card games. They carry some Looney Labs games already, but my plan is to bring Star Fluxx to demo for this group the dozen-or-so regular participants. This number inevitably increases as other shoppers usually pop in and ask about the game we're playing. This happened when we were playing 7 Dragons anyway, and I know I've seen a pack or two of Zombie Fluxx get sold simply by the folks seeing us play.

 

On Thursdays, I play in a regularly scheduled card game at my Friendly Local Gaming Store. We rotate responsibility for who brings the game we play as we are waiting for folks to arrive. These guys love anything with with the "flavor" of star wars/star trek/battlestar galactica/etc. This will be a hit with this group as well.

 

Fridays are a game night hosted at my home, with friends and family and anyone those friends and family members want to invite. Typically it's five adult couples and their children who range from 5 to maybe the 'tweens. I have already had great success with Family Fluxx which does an awesome job of bridging the gaming gap for kids and adults until they wind down and fall asleep. We adults have sometimes kept playing that version well after the last kid had fallen asleep! But Star Fluxx would fit very nicely on those nights as well.

 

What I like to do with the promotional cards is say that the "winner" will receive a special prize. I also sometimes let them see what it is. Once someone wins I immediately ask if everyone had fun. If they say "yes" then I say "Then you're a winner, too!" and they also get a prize. That way everyone who played gets a promotional card and they didn't even realize they would. 

 

Quick Edit: I ordered my kit before I posted my plan. I apologize I did it in the wrong order!

I have two local stores I run games in and I plan on taking Star Fluxx to them and demoing them in a theme night.

I am SOOO excited by this edition of Fluxx! I love Star Trek (sorry Star Wars fans) and am looking forward to its meshing with other sci-fi into a one of my all time favorite games. :-D And some of the new features look great! I haven't been the biggest fan of the creepers, but I am looking forward to seeing out the attachments to keepers work.

 

As with other Looney Labs games I've demo-ed in the past, I'll take Star Fluxx to my gaming groups in Green Bay and Appleton. I'll also be taking it with me to Gaming Hoopla at the end of Sept. If I'm able to get a table, I'll run it officially. If not, I'll just play it with whomever between gaming events.

I plan to do a Wednesday demo night at Reader Copies in Anderson, IN. That is an evening devoted to board games at the store. I am going to put up a poster at least a week in advance of the event. I am also going to write a story for the local newspaper and publish it to help generate interest. Here's a link to one I did for Seven Dragons.

 

http://heraldbulletin.com/ricksrecroom/x833716527/Stringing-dragons-goal-of-new-Looney-Labs-game

 

I think this will be a big hit here.

Hello everyone, I am planning on playing this game during our game night we have twice a month. Also, we have a game night at our church coming up the second week of september. I plan to play this game there and bring more then 24 people to the fluxx empire.  We have played all the other versions of the game at church and everyone really enjoyes it tremendously.  Not only will people be excited about a new fluxx game, it's the 'star' part of 'star fluxx' that will be liked most of all the games.  Also, I have a podcast that we can promote it on youtube, which also means we will put it on our facebook page. People will be excited to hear they can recieve a free demo card!

I have three intended groups to share Star Fluxx with. The first is the least challenging - my normal Wednesday gaming group of 5. The second is a demo at Showcase Comics in Bryn Mawr PA. The last, and largest, event will be held at the 75th Annual Philcon, held in Cherry Hill, NJ, in November 2011. There is also a tentative plan to host something akin to the Poptart Cafe there this year as well. The Android Doctor cards will be given as a participation bonus. If it looks like I will have more than 25 participants, I will rethink this plan.

I am hosting a monthly game night at my house. I usually have 10-12 guests and my friends always bring new people. I have been considering being a demo member for a while, and I really think that I will be able to spread the word about Star Fluxx at these game nights. I will also promote the product on my facebook event pages for these game nights. As for the Android Doctor card, I will give that away as part of the gift bag giveaways that I will be putting together and I will talk about the card before putting in my demo deck and playing the game.

I plan on demo'ing Star Fluxx at the local game store, Game On in Clifton, NJ.  I also plan on demo'ing Star Fluxx to my weekly gaming group.

 

I hope to give out the ANDROID DOCTOR to entice more players to purchase the game.

I know I should have jumped on this earlier, but It didn't cross my mind & I didn't even know about the Demo Team until just the other day...

 

I am going to Dragon*Con for the first time this year & I plan to take Star Fluxx & a couple other Looney games with me. I hear there is an open gaming area in one of the hotels. Lots of space for any con attendees to use & play games. Sounds like a perfect place to bust out some Star Fluxx! Not knowing how things are run down there, I'm not sure if there is any official public promoting I can do there. It may just be a guy (me) hanging out in the open gaming area offering the multitudes of geeks who walk by to try it out with him. Given the attendance, of Dragon*Con, that's probably gonna be a whole bunch of people.

 

I also attend a monthly game night which has a core of attendees, with many new & rotating faces each month. Attendance for that is usually 25-40 people. I will certainly be bringing it there on a regular basis. Probably rotating between it & other Looney games each time. I am frequently invited to random gaming parties as well & obviously it will come to those events too.

 

Not sure how to use the Android Doctor card for promotion yet, but something will come to me.

I plan on showing coworkers the game on breaks. Also, I will plan on showing it on the random game nights I have with both friends and people I meet at gatherings and events. The promo cards will be given to those who would most like one after trying the game.

I've been playing Fluxx, Pirate Fluxx and various Pyramid games throughout the summer at events and gatherings.  I plan to continue in the same style.  As I am working on a couple of new Pyramid games of my own, playing existing Pyramid games and introducing the Pyramid gaming concept is becoming a natural.  I plan to introduce both of the new releases to my church group and gaming group.  The promo cards will reward fans of the Fluxx series and encourage new enthusiasts.  As you can tell by my mixed game mentions, the same events will be used to promote both new products.  My plans will be echoed in the IceDice launch project plan area.

I am planning to host a looney labs event at our local gaming convention, OshCon in Oshkosh Wisconsin, where I will be bringing my Chrononouts decks, Ice Dice, Star Fluxx, and all my other Fluxx decks. I haven't quite figured out prizes yet except promo cards for all players and I'm thinking of letting them design their own customer Fluxx Card of choice, since I'm also picking up some Fluxx Blanx.

 

I am also heading up to see my boyfriend at Michigan Tech University and plan to get some people together to try out Ice Dice and Starr Fluxx, since there are a bunch of awesome gaming people up there.

I am part of a couple Meetup gaming groups here in Indianapolis, one of which has board game events every Thursday (and one Saturday each month) at a local game store (that has an assortment of Fluxx games on the counter).  The other group gets together about once a month.  I've introduced people to Fluxx games with both groups.  There is also a gaming club that has a monthly Catan night, where I have occasionally brought in Fluxx games as filler.

For me, September is a very birthday heavy month.  There are three birthdays, including mine.  I plan to take advantage of that to show people both IceDice and Star Fluxx.  My family is having a large get together where I will also show off the games.  Aside from that, I will be showing IceDice and Star Fluxx off whenever I am at a gathering of people.

Going to a weekend con in LA go 2 to three times a year.

Also have monthly games night at a local comic shop.

Wow!  This is exciting!  The new baby has been keeping me busy, but I plan to take some time out to play and demo Star Fluxx.  There are three opportunities in the coming month that: two runnings of my friends' biweekly Games Nights, and the Games Club of Maryland monthly games night in Brunswick Maryland.  I'll give out an Android Doctor card to each new person that I play Star Fluxx with until they're all gone!

I plan on promoting STAR FLUXX to these groups of people

My older school aged Daycare children (who already enjoy Family, Eco, & Reg FLUXX)

*The Parents of My Daycare children*

My Girl Scout Troop 

*My Girl Scout Troop's Parents* 

*Kids love it when they get to teach their parents something new.*  For my troop I am hoping that we can break things down into the needed amount segments for the girls to earn a gaming bagde or atleast a fun patch!  

At Game night (where my best friends & I get together to play cards & catch up with one another).

I plan on using the ANDROID DOCTOR cards for the people who are interested in the new addition.  Also when I plan the adult groups invites I will mention Looney labs website, online store, the mailing list as well as the fan club.   I plan on taking a plenty of pictures so everyone can see STAR FLUXX in action!

 

 

 

I plan to introduce Star Fluxx at our local MENSA Games Night. Several of the local Mensans have played Fluxx games, so I suspect that they will like this one as well. In addition; the high school at which I teach has the only Aviation class and Astronomy class in the state and I am excited to introduce Star Fluxx to the teacher. I will give the Android Doctor card to friends who have other Fluxx games.

I plan to demo Star Fluxx At Con on the Cob and AnCon next year. 

 

Andrew Burkett

andrewburkett@hotmail.com

We plan on running Star Fluxx at the local game stores, at local gaming meet ups, and at our upcoming Gulf Coast Gamers Game Day September 24. Also plan on demoing it to family and friends and about anyone else who will sit still for 20 minutes. Out of dozens and dozens of people I have taught to play Fluxx from the US to Iraq, the vast majority absolutely love it and want to play again and again. I am sure Star Fluxx will continue that trend.

Here in Spokane we have a store, Board Game Nation, that has "Board/Card Game Night" every Monday and Thursday. I am there both nights running many games. I plan on making Thursdays "Star Flux Night" and the store is considering making it some kind of contest with a small prize at the end for one person who participates. I have been doing quite well with the Thursday night events (Monday is more their 'Yu-Gi-Oh' crowd). These events will be on the in-store event board as well as on their Facebook page.

 

I am also talking to the managers of a game store located in one mall here as well as a B&N in the other mall here to see if I can run events.

So far, the participants have enjoyed the game.  There are some (my wife as one) who are not Fluxx fans saying that it's too complicated.

The high school group has loved it, although they seem to like Pirate Fluxx a bit more.  I'll be indoctrinating a few new kids this week.

The attached Creepers are a new twist that I enjoy.  The many special Keepers are making it a bit complicated, but I think it adds to the fun level-- you just have to play a couple of times to read the cards through once or twice.  The Surprise cards keep the game a bit more fun/exciting.

Evil Robots rule! 

In addition to my previous post about my plans, I have also gotten some time at the Lafayette Expo, our local convention of games, comics, books, anime, and film. Should be a great time with great access to interested game fans.

have played with family

good sessions from all

I go to a local gaming and comic shop every week on Wensdays and Thursdays and will be there promoting and playing Fluxx to help build a better gaming awareness of this game and hopefully other Looney Labs games.  I am also in talks with the owner of th store about setting up a free demo/gaming day on a Saturday in the hopefully near future.  To which it will be advertised and I am others will be there all day demo-ing out many different games.  Including but not limited to...Fluxx(just about any version), Game Of Thrones LCG, UFS, WWE Raw Deal,m Dungeons & Dragons, Talisman, Settlers Of Cattan, and other RPG, CCG, and board games.

 

also as an added note, I will be offering one copy per person  who demo's the game the Robo-Doc Promo...plus any other promo's for which ever Game I would have with me, that I am alloud to demo.

I work at a gigantic game store called Card Kingdom, and demo the different Fluxx titles almost every day. Star Fluxx will be the same situation, I'll be able to get people excited about it before its out!

I am introducing this to our gaming group as well as to parents in our Boy Scout troop. In addition this will be another great addition to our ever growing fluxx collection.  Our college aged sons will also get a copy to share with their friends.

 

My sessions at Board Game Nation have gone well. Lots of interest people enjoyed playing and appreciated the promo cards. My wife, who generally doesn't game with me besides the once-every-five-year game of Scrabble, has taken to Fluxx like it's a drug. Every time we go out and might be stopping to eat she reminds me to bring one of my various copies of Fluxx, and if she forgets then pines away at the resturant with something like "Oh Darn, I forgot to have you bring Fluxx and I wanted to play. You didn't bring it did you?" <<insert me pulling one out of my pocket and the smile on her face>>.

I am truly amazed at how much fun this game is.

Thank you Al - this is wonderful!  

I have two requests: 1) please post this as an Event Report so that everyone outside of this small group of demo team folks who are part of this launch project can see your report (and so you get credit for posting it and will be allowed to then sign on for the next project) and 2) please tell your wife that Kristin says THANKS for playing my games!  

 

Question:  have you played IceDice with her yet?  This is the game I always have to have with me when I go out to a restaurant...  please sign on for the IceDice Launch Project too!  

Hi Kristin!

I just posted the entry over in the Event Reports, thank you very much for pointing me to the right place. It's a sad day when me, former computer tech with a double Bachelor's in Computer topics and a Masters in Computer Resource Management, gets lost navigating around a website **grin**

 

I am on the IceDice Launch Project (And 'Seven Dragons') but I haven't had a chance to sit down and go over the rules - something I will be remedying so I can run that too. This is a game I am looking forward to learning.

I have already started.  Besides playing Star Fluxx with my family, I played it last Saturday at a demo at the Compleat Strategist in Falls Church, VA.; we also played Seven Dragons, Ice Dice, and Treehouse.  I plan to have further such demo times at local stores.

Going to all of the game stores on the island in order to demo Star Fluxx. Unfortunately, it seemed to pass under the radar here, as no one has it in stock yet. Also going to demo it at my usual Meetup group, as well as one of the store's Games Day in mid-November. There are usually a lot of people wandering around for a quick game there.

I'm helping run a Sci-Fi convention game room next week, and I'd love to demo Star Fluxx and give out all of the Android Doctor cards, get people hyped about the new version of Fluxx, especially since they have requested regular Fluxx and Zombie versions to be brought. On the phone now with Alison and explaining how excited I am to try it!

I know that I demoed Pirate fluxx way back when, but can't seem to find the report and neither can Alison. All I remember is that when I tried to teach the game at Borders, it went over rather poorly with that group. When I go to the convention, I'll be giving out all of the Pirate Fluxx promo cards, and hyping up the great games Looney Labs!

As taken from my Event report: http://looneylabs.ning.com/profiles/blogs/windycon-with-star-fluxx-chrononauts-back-to-the-future-and-seven

 

This will be pretty much the same as my response to the Star Fluxx Launch forum.  IceDice as well as Star Fluxx will be featured at our games days at the store as well as demo games at the local Mickey D's to gather more interest.  The Press your luck cards will be given out to interested participants as a draw to buy the games.

I will be working with The Last Level, 1Up Collectables, and Golden Eagle comics to schedule demos and a mini tournament, which I plan to include IceDice, LaunchPad 23, and some other games (possibly Seven Dragons since it was so popular). The cards will be rewards for winners of games. I will also be demoing it at MEPAcon this fall.

I don't plan to order the IceDice demo kit, but I would like to get the 'Press Your Luck' promos. WIll that be allowed?

My battle plan is to demo this at two of my local game shops...Comic Shop Plus in Newark and Gamescape in Coshocton.

I plan to demo IceDice in "The well" gaming group in Be'er Sheve, which I play when I go south, about once a month. I will also demo on friend events and the rest of the Press Your Luck cards will be given to people I play with at ICON / ICONTLV in october.

I'm actually not completely sure if I have given enough of a report on 7-dragons.  Let me know if I should, like, say more about what I did.  Or if I didn't do enough at all.

 

I bought an IceDice Promo bag when they were available months ago, and I've been really looking fForward to getting the real deal.  The IceDice set will ship a couple days after the Rochester Boardgame Association's monthly get together, but I'll be carrying my pyramids a lot, certainly to the next month's meeting.  A bunch of us get together every Wednesday and a bunch more of us get together every Saturday, and I've been luring coworkers into hanging around after work to play games many evenings.  I will be teaching all of these groups of people about the beauty of the pyramid.

And, while it's a longer time away, in October there are 2 conventions I will take my pyramids to:  Con on the Cob, and EuroQuest.  By then, they will be in stores, which may be helpful.

We do not have a local game shop, ;-(, but there are other ventures to attend in promotion of Looney Labs and this awesome game. 

 

1) Hobby Town stores (there are two near by that will allow me to sit in and demo the tar out of this and other products)

2) A comic book shop in Hickory

3) A collectible store in Hickory ran by a friend of mine who will allow me to demo there, but needs coaxing to start dabbling in "game products" (I need to get him to contact you guys... he is in a wonderful location and has tons of potential... new company)

4) Sci-Fi City in TN, MECHA!!!  I am well known there, but I only get to visit four to five times a year and am looking for a helping hand in that area to help promote.

5) Local restaurants are where I seem to gather most of the attention for these games.  Something about pyramids scattered across a table and clanking about draw tons of attention ;-).

6) Hickory/Winston Salem game conventions (MACE, Mini-Mace, etc) held throughout the year.

7) Blitzkrieg games in Asheville NC, the best store EVAR.  My daughter and I played Treehouse, Martian Chess, and Volcano there for about four hours a few weeks back.  Then played out in the streets with them for a few hours more  Drew lots of attention. (I am almost out of Promo Cards...)

 

Not much of a plan, but I will do what ever I can.  With school taking up most of my social life, I try to get quality gaming in wherever I can along with promoting some of the best games to ever grace table tops ;-).

 

I am planning on promoting the heck out of IceDice.  My plan is to play it 2-3 times a week at our local stores and set up a demo area to show the product to people who might be familiar with Pyramids or people that are brand new to it too.

I also plan on blogging about it at http://meetthemeeples.wordpress.com

And I plan on putting it on my Twitter and Facebook Feeds too

Twitter: SKirkham1967A

 

Thanks.

 

Shawn Kirkham

Oh yeah!  And my blog!  http://tshirtavalanche.wordpress.com  I'll totally talk about the game on my blog.  It seems like a t-shirt blog, and i guess it mostly is, but it's really a chance to talk about all kinds of geeky things like games.  I don't know how many times I mentioned seven dragons.  I will definitely have some IceDice related stuff.

Speaking of t-shirts, I'd really love to have some Looney apparel, someday  =)

^^Totally second this one!!!  I would rock Looney Clothes everywhere!

Me too! I love tshirts! And cool block. Scott :-)

Totally new to officially promoting games but VERY excited to be on the team.

I plan on introducing IceDice first to my family then to my ladies group at church.  We meet once a month for something and I am always ready with a game.

After that I will get with my local (hour away) game store and set up a Looney night and present IceDice and other Looney games.

The Press Your Luck cards will be used as door prizes.

Have been promoing ice dice since i got my upgrade kit. i am in the uk, so i'm not sure how much help i can be. i have been in discussions with my MEPs (Members of the European Parliament) (see icedice delayed launch disscussion) and i have found out that eu buyers can get the pyramids from your website legally.  will continue promoing it in september when the games society starts meeting again properly. will be ordering the promo cards to hand out at freshers fair.

does this new kit come with the pyramid dice etched, to prevent it rubbing off? would love to be able to have the kit, even if my demoing won't help much. (as mentioned earlier, have found out it is legal for eu customers to buy on your website) extra promo cards for our new society members is always nice.

I'll promote Ice Dice and Launch Pad 23 along side Starr Fluxx with my local gaming groups first (Gamers of the Apocalypse)  and then at Local game stores in Louisville and Lexington, KY. (The Roll of the Die, Comic Book World, The Rusty Scabbard perhaps.)

 

A very cleaver cross promotion with the "Press Your Luck" Fluxx promo cards with a pyramid game. It's a good way to get newcomers interested in 2 Looney games systems!

Why yes, both of the new promo cards are now up and available:

 

     Press Your Luck and Android Doctor

 

I do realize that I sound like a broken record...  but I *REALLY* am working on a plan to make Tshirts an integral regular part of this fan club.  Sorry I have not managed to make even one new shirt available yet...  it is good to hear you guys are anxious for our eventual Tshirts! 

 

Also, Scott:  your Seven Dragons event reporting is awesome! 

Yes, the IceDice game that comes in the kit is the NEW pyramids and the etched die!

And YES - we can sell the pyramids online and ship to anyone in Europe, we just need to keep the game off store shelves in Europe.  READ MORE

THANKS LISA for your input on this - it was nice to see the input from your Members of the European Parliament along with the rest of our research to help confirm it was legal for us to sell them online to our European fans.

Glad it was helpful, i decided on the typical english response of "i'm going to write a letter". 

Luci.

My plan is to show the game to my gaming friends. There are about 15 if us in various parts of the state. I also live 2 miles from a hobby store that claims to be the biggest in New England. I want to set up demons there. I am planning in giving out the demo cards to people interested in the game.

As before, I will be taking to my gaming groups in Green Bay and Appleton. I also plan to take with me to Gaming Hoopla, a convention in Janesville, WI the last weekend in September. If I get a table to run an official event, great! Otherwise, I'll just play with passersby between other games.

WHOOOOT!  They ship out toay!!!!!!  Mwa, mwa, mwahahaha!

They do they do :-)

Plan on demoing Star Fluxx & ICE Dice, at several game stores one in greenfield IN, one in Muncie, IN, Two in Anderson indiana.... I also plan on demoing Star Fluxx & ICE Dice in the looney labs tournament in greenfield DTBA

I know I should have jumped on this earlier, but It didn't cross my mind & I didn't even know about the Demo Team until just the other day...

 

I am going to Dragon*Con for the first time this year & I plan to take IceDice & a couple other Looney games with me. I hear there is an open gaming area in one of the hotels. Lots of space for any con attendees to use & play games. Sounds like a perfect place to bust out some IceDice! Not knowing how things are run down there, I'm not sure if there is any official public promoting I can do there. It may just be a guy (me) hanging out in the open gaming area offering the multitudes of geeks who walk by to try it out with him. Given the attendance, of Dragon*Con, that's probably gonna be a whole bunch of people.

 

I also attend a monthly game night which has a core of attendees, with many new & rotating faces each month. Attendance for that is usually 25-40 people. I will certainly be bringing it there on a regular basis. Probably rotating between it & other Looney games each time. I am frequently invited to random gaming parties as well & obviously it will come to those events too.

 

Not sure how to use the Press Your Luck card for promotion yet, but something will come to me.

 

(Yes, this is exactly what I said for the Star Fluxx launch project... I am pathetically unoriginal)

I've been playing Fluxx, Pirate Fluxx and various Pyramid games throughout the summer at events and gatherings.  I plan to continue in the same style.  As I am working on a couple of new Pyramid games of my own, playing existing Pyramid games and introducing the Pyramid gaming concept is becoming a natural.  I plan to introduce both of the new releases to my church group and gaming group.  The promo cards will reward fans of the Fluxx series and encourage new enthusiasts.  As you can tell by my mixed game mentions, the same events will be used to promote both new products.  My plans will be echoed in the StarFluxx launch project plan area.

I am planning to host a looney labs event at our local gaming convention, OshCon in Oshkosh Wisconsin, where I will be bringing my Chrononouts decks, Ice Dice, Star Fluxx, and all my other Fluxx decks. I haven't quite figured out prizes yet except promo cards for all players and I'm thinking of letting them design their own customer Fluxx Card of choice, since I'm also picking up some Fluxx Blanx.

 

I am also heading up to see my boyfriend at Michigan Tech University and plan to get some people together to try out Ice Dice and Starr Fluxx, since there are a bunch of awesome gaming people up there.

For me, September is a very birthday heavy month.  There are three birthdays, including mine.  I plan to take advantage of that to show people both IceDice and Star Fluxx.  My family is having a large get together where I will also show off the games.  Aside from that, I will be showing IceDice and Star Fluxx off whenever I am at a gathering of people.

Going to a weekend con in LA go 2 to three times a year.

Also have monthly games night at a local comic shop.

It came!  It finally came! (in my best Sid-voice from Toy Story).  This will so be rocked where ever I go!  It will accompany me to Cancun Mexico in two weeks where I hope to give out a ton of regular Looney Cards, then when I get back, DEMO'ing in the states.  I just need to add a Star Fluxx set to my arsenal... then I will be good...

Anyone notice on the inside tip of the new pieces, the molding process has produced a different shape there?  It makes the pieces rest just a bit different on the inside, almost a little crooked.  If there are any questions, I can post pics, but I am curious as to how this will affect other stacking related games. 

 

Anyone else seeing what I am?  I know the new pieces are supposed to nest inside on another better, deeper, but the inner Drone cocks to one side so much that it is very pronounced and very noticeable when stacking one nest upon another.

 

I have not observed that, but I will look a little closer, and report anything I notice.

Yes, they are slightly different - which is what makes the new pyramids not able to stick together like the old ones often did.  It makes a tall tower in a game of IceTowers wobble more than with the original pyramids, but not so much that the game doesn't play well...

I plan on Demoing IceDice at Conon the Cob this month and AnCon next year.

 

Andrew Burkett

 

andrewburkett@hotmail.com

 

Thanks Kristen!  That was my concern, but I cannot foresee a situation where a tower would get so high it could topple (though I think I've been there in a four/five player game before).  I found the "skewing" to be more prominent when the pieces were nested (Pawn inside of a Drone inside of a Queen). 

 

Are there any games where the system is reliant upon stacking two's inside of threes, or any combination of nesting?  I need to play a four player game of LaunchPad 23 to get a better feel for this one.  though all of the pieces auto sort down into the bottom, several times during the game heavier pieces will dominate the upper portions of stock areas on the board.  I know in a three player game with regular pieces we toppled over the factory twice (I blame it on the sugar rush and excitement, my wife blames it on the wine...).  I'll report back as soon as I have tested this, though it won't make much of a difference at this point.    

This will be the same as my plan for Star Fluxx, as I can have one group playing Star Fluxx while I show others how to play IceDice. Having both games there allows me to handle more than six people (compared to just Star Flux which is 2-6 people). Like my other events these will be on the in-store event board as well as on their Facebook page.

Being armed with a kit in my backpack makes waiting rooms, food courts, etc., an "always" opportunity - parents prefer a brief introduction-with-intent, of course.  I'm negotiating with Legion (which stocks Looney Labs product) and Kingdom Comics to host "live" events.

I've been demoing IceDice at our game store for over half a year now, and many people are waiting for it.

My plan is to demo the game at my local game store Gateway Games and More in Cincinnati, Ohio.  I will also run it at my weekly board game group as well as make sure a link and description is included on the Meetup.com site.  I will also be running the game at my monthly family game night.  In addition I will include the game in a review video that will be posted on my YouTube channel, my store's YouTube channel, and my Facebook page.  Also, if that were not enough :), I will make sure to promote the game on the store's Facebook page, and in several gaming forums that I participate in.

I've been showing off IceDice since before it was available.  Back when all we had were rules, I made up prototype dice with stickers on regular dice.  Then, when the demo kits came out, I got one and started demoing from that.  Then, when IceDice was released for real, I couldn't resist getting a set so that I could have the etched dice and a set of new pyramids.  At the same time, I got a rainbow booster so that I could make a 3House set.  I found 3 Treehouse dice and 3 Regular dice, which I added in to make an expanded demo kit.  I got one of those not-suitable-for-climbing carabiners, so I could carry my IceDice bag around on my belt like the Looneys did at Origins.  It's much easier to bring out than my big box o' pyramids stuff.  In addition, I printed out the Icesheets on looneypyramids.com and made up a rules bible of sorts, replacing my hodge-podge of rules sheets, to address the "what else can you play?" questions.

 

I've shown IceDice to family and friends (even my mom liked it), and brought it out several times at my main game group (membership > 300) and at a meetup group I attend occasionally.  I also played IceDice and a couple other games at the Buckeye Game Fest, our local gaming con.  One of the vendors there had a supply of IceDice, and I believe he sold out.  I don't think it was due to me, at least not directly.  I did talk to someone who got one of them, and he was someone I had originally introduced to the pyramids.

 

Unfortunately, I did not manage to get IceDice to the table for a church game day we had a little while back.  Instead, we played Aquarius, which they wanted to play over and over again.  One of the ladies said she was planning to pick up a copy or two, so I gave her the web site information.

 

I don't know if I will be able to work in a game store demo, but I certainly plan to keep doing what I'm doing.  The game vendor will be back for our game group's annual After Turkey Day Fest, so I'll have to see if he'll be able to bring more copies of IceDice so I can try to get something going there.

 

Thank you Jeff - you are awesome!  As is everyone else on this thread who has been helping us promote IceDice!

There will be a Free Copy of Pink Hijinks with your name on it - and I can't wait to send you the new game that Jeff will be playing at this After Turkey Day Fest.  Our Holiday Gift will go out Nov 24th - but we will make it available to you guys next week so you can help us distribute it to all the Looney Pyramids fans in your neighborhood...  I'll tell you the name: Pyramid Shambo -  more details soon...

Hey all!!

LOVE ICE DICE!! 

Been playing at home and with friends. 

Planning on highlighting it next month with our Church Game Night but first need more Pyramids!!!

This game will be on my Christmas gift list for family members here and overseas!

I left my regular counters at home, so when a game needed extra counters this weekend, I used the Looney Pyramids I had brought with me. The players loved to fidgit with them, and they loved each having a different color. A great game and game accessory all in one!

I demoed IceDice at PAX East in March, and have been playing IceDice and LaunchPad 23 with my weekly game group and my lunch time game group at wonk. I will also be giving the holiday gift out to any and all family and friends that play games.

For the past several months, my young adults group has been getting together on Saturday nights to hang out, and every week, i pull out some sort of Looney Labs game, whether it be Fluxx of some type, Chrononauts, or Looney Pyramids. So far I have taught them Ice Dice, Launchpad 23, Zendo, Icehouse, Treehouse, Pikemen, Martian Chess, Martian Coasters, Black Ice, Zark City, Pharaoh, Homeworlds, and World War 5. They all are more or less Starship Captains, except none of them have their own pyramids, so I'm purchasing them each a rainbow stash and a treehouse die so that they may start teaching their own friends and family about this amazing system of games.

I am new to promoting games and I am thrilled to be a part of the demo team.  I intend to introduce IceDice (and other LooneyLab games) to friends at church and school.  I also intend to introduce the game to family during our various holiday gatherings (they love playing Fluxx and Aquarius).

Been playing IceDice and Martian chess between the registers, explaining to customers coming through that it's more of a game system than just a game.

 Working with the place next door to put flyers or promo cards in the napkin dispensers (we're on a college campus).

 We might set-up a game night in a conference room upstairs. Would love to build a giant set to play in the plaza outside.

 

I've been taking it to my gaming groups and conventions and playing with whomever is interested. People seem to like it ok, but sadly, I'm surrounded by people who prefer non-stop 3h-to-all day games and aren't particularly interested in the shorter games like Ice Dice.

Ice Dice has been a big hit, and a good gateway into the Looney Pyramid universe. I've been teaching Ice Dice and Martian Chess to family and friends across Kentucky over the past few months. The "press your luck" card went over big since most of the players were already Fluxx Fans. I can't wait to see Ice Dice hit 7000!

Having upcoming game nights at church this month, will be heavily featuring IceDice and Fluxx.

This month, we're going to teach the kids Pyramid Shambo.  I'll send out an e-mail afterwards pointing them to the link on the website with Pyramid Shambo.

I'm hosting a game night this weekend and plan to have IceDice and Pyramid Shambo on the tables! =)

I'll be posting Looney Pyramids posters in my office at work, distributing the Holiday Gift, bringing pyramids/IceDice to game nights and family events and I'll also be gifting IceDice other pyramid related items.

I have been showing people Ice Dice at events that I've been at as well as some gatherings of friends at our house. I'm posting event reports of some of those on the forums here. I've also added the Starship Captains logo to the screen saver on my new Nook Simple Touch which has given me the opportunity to talk some people about the pyramids when they ask me what it is.

We are starting a gaming meetup group here in Farmington, MO.  We will be heavily featuring and playing LL games, with emphasis on Ice Dice.  We will also be handing out copies of the holiday gift print-out!

My local experience on IceDice has been REALLY slow going.  Whenever I show the pyramids and games the response has been fairly good, but local retailer support has been low.  Earlier in the year, I felt like I had them reasonably on board to try things out but that faded hard over the summer when the availability hit happened.  It seems to have moved things back onto the "special order only" list for our two local stores.  The other issue I've had is that the push-your-luck nature of IceDice doesn't seem to have a lot of grab.  Treehouse was a decent seller though, so I keep getting questions about whether I know about that return (is there any new info on this front?).  I think this would be particularly helpful because everyone that I teach Homeworlds to seems to love it, but the response to ordering a second IceDice for the extra set doesn't seem to be resonating well (and the lack of a packed-in game in the Looney Pyramids set doesn't seem to be getting a lot of interest from store owners either).  If the Treehouse set were back in production (or better yet, a 3-House type set) I think it would be easier to get things moving)  As it stands right now, I get a lot of "these are really cool, I might grab some if they ever come in" but not a lot of "these are really cool, I wish they were here, but I'm going to order a set"  Any advice from out there?

Zendo has become a repeated hit at the game group and elsewhere.  I'm constantly surprised at how all ages are attracted by the look and feel of the pyramids.  Kids pick up the game quickly, and play competitively with only a little coaching.  I'd really like to be able to offer a Zendo it the the new fans.  Ideas anyone?

 I've also been experimenting with other pyramid games; there are some great games there, but I have yet to try one that's sparked the same immediate response.

I can report another great night with my gaming group (12 members tonight).  By request, we played many rounds of Zendo, and I even had a chance to break out the Martian coasters.  

As with Lucy Bracegirdle, being based in the UK (Belfast, Northern Ireland) makes it impossible to nag any of my FLGSs to stock the pyramids - but I've played Launchpad 23 with two store owners, and introduced one of them to both World War 5 and Martian Chess (2- and 3-player) last night.

I'm president of our university gaming society so have a captive audience of gamers, and more and more of them are being introduced, almost all willingly, to the 'weird pyramid things' I keep producing. My aim is to get a few folk to buy their own sets by the summer, as we run a convention at the end of June that's one of the largest in the UK or Ireland, and having some pyramid games there would be awesome - sadly as I'll be running the event I won't have time to demo games myself but I reckon by then I can have a few people trained up!

Even to a non-gamer audience, games like WW5, tic tac doh! and Launchpad 23 are great time-fillers for those 10-minute gaps between lectures, so I keep my Icedice bag with me in Uni as well as when gaming. It's trickier over here but there's converts to be had, I'm sure of it :)

I will be demoing Ice dice at a few local game stores in the bay area as well as my weekly rotating game night.

Playing with family and friends. 

 

Went into my local game store. Brought a set of IceDice with me to show the owner. Played a few games and they really liked them. I think it was the portability that they liked so much. Ordered a few of each IceDice, Rainbow pyramids and Xeno pyramids. Hopefully, they'll keep a set for the store to act as a demo copy. The store is in Santa Barbara, California right on the main tourist street so they always have a lot of 'just browsing' traffic. 

I have been playing Ice dice with my friends and family, in particular among the Games Society. I'll be bringing my 'mids to the national roleplaying and wargaming championships, and teaching them to people in the board games category. i'll be bringing along some looney pyramid booklets. 

I am learning to p[lay several of the Looney Pyramids games, and am keeping my friends and family on top of things as I learn and play with some of them.  Hope to talk to some game store managers into setting up Icedice/Fluxx nights here in Maine. That's my project plan!

Randall

I finally was able to get Ice dice and have been playing it, launchpad and martian coasters with anyone that i can. So far everyone who has played has been very interested so I make sure to give them a micro catalog :-D

I dont know if this is quite the right place to post this, but I was wondering if there is anyone in the North East Ohio area (Lake County) who would be willing to meet up sometime and teach me Ice Dice (and some other Pyramid games)?

I'd be more than happy to teach you some Pyramid games. If you have a local store (other than Recess) that allows demos, all the better. Feel free to message me, as I think this is a conversation for mostly the two of us.

Working at Card Kingdom I sell IceDice to customers fairly frequently. Looking at our sales history, I've sold 12 this month!

I just ordered my copy of IceDice last night, hopefully it will ship soon, but I'll probably need to mock up some dice before they get here.  I'm planning on starting gaming with co-workers at lunch hours.

I'm also going to introduce it to my students as soon as I'm comfortable with the rules, although I don't know how many of them will be able to get a set of Looney Pyramids. They're elementary students, get them hooked while they're young.:)  They're already fans of WW5 and Aquarius.

Finally, I've discovered one of the local game stores (don't know how friendly it is) and I'm hoping to get over there and see about demoing at their store if they're up for it.  If not, I might just see about renting a table and trying to attract some attention.  My only real worry at this point is the language barrier (I'm in Taiwan and my Chinese is no good.)  I'm hoping to translate the text from the rules and then getting a co-worker to help proof them.  Then, we'll see what we can do.

I'm bringing my IceDice to play with friends and family. Several of them really like the aspect of being able to use them as score-keeping pieces (like one might in Martian Hold'em), and the ease with which I can teach several of the simple games (like IceDice, Treehouse, Pharaoh) has got them really intrigued. I often play with people who don't want to sit down for long involved games, and the pyramids have offered several options to them for playing even when their time is short (like during work at lunch). The simplicity of the pieces opens up huge opportunities for incorporation in other games.

I even use them for another game that requires secret voting (hide the green or red pawn/drone under an opaque black queen and then everyone reveals at the same time), and it worked pretty well. At this rate, I think I may get some converts on speed of play and versatility alone!

Plans completed and pending:

1. I've managed to assemble a cabal of seven Gnostica players (having taught them all myself), some of whom are finally coveting my Pyramids.
2. I struck up a couple of games of Martian Chess with co-workers, who were duly impressed.*
3. I had a big Zendo session planned at my church, but it fell through. :- (
4. I invented the 5HOUSE game Abiegnus, which I will be publishing in a Chicago 'zine, with info on how and why to get Looney Pyramids.
5. I'd like to give a public demo of IceDice along with my 4HOUSE (i.e. Double IceDice) IceQuarius game (Aquarius Rising) -- promoting Pyramids and Aquarius -- but I haven't decided on the best venue for it.

* Two- or three-handed Martian Chess is actually a robust 2HOUSE game because of its color agnosticism, and I think it makes a better complement to IceDice than Launchpad 23 does, in terms of opening people to the possibilities of the Pyramids. (I get that Launchpad 23 maximizes the use of the materials in an IceDice set, though.) The latter game is still dice-driven and color-constrained, like IceDice itself, while Martian Chess is in a whole different category. Of course, Martian Chess requires a bigger board -- albeit one that most people have around the house already, in the two- and four-player setups. I, on the other hand, keep it portable with my preference for playing on wedges, thus: 

(Players start in the square corners of the board.)  They don't quite fit in an IceDice bag, though.

I've been showing pyramids to my games society. Last weekend I played in the open board games category at the National Student Roleplaying and Wargaming Championships. I got a few games of Ice dice and related games while waiting for games to set up, and in the evenings at the bar. I'll be contacting on facebook all the people i played with to reccomend where they can get hold of pyramids to play with their societies. I'll be visiting some of this years winning team over summer and I'll be showing them pyramids. I'm also recommending pyramids as tokens for use in BEES!, By jackal pack games, as i am friends with one of their developers. 

http://blog.jackalpackgames.com/

While Martian Chess may be a better game for an avid or stratigic gamer, Launchpad 23 is a much easier and attractive game for a casual gamer.  Honestly, look at the recent packaging and games.  Treehouse (very quick and easy to understand with a bunch of randomness thrown in with the Treehouse die), IceDice (which has some similarities to cosmic wimpout to me) and Launchpad 23.  All seem to be aimed at the casual gamer.  Probably because most avid gamers either already know about Looney Pyramids or aren't afraid to look up more information online about the pyramids.

 And, let's face it, there are far more casual gamers out there than avid gamers. That's where the big money is so that's who we're aiming to get interested.  The goal is to get them sold on the IceDice sets.  Once they're interested, then we can move on to Martian Chess and help them find other games that they will like.

However, anyone who shows an interest in Martian Chess (or Zendo or Icehouse or any of the other, more time consuming games) will probably enjoy a lot of the other games as well.  World War 5 is another good one for combining strategy and speed and introducing the Looney Pyramids to casual gamers.  It offers more strategy and still contains some randomness along with a quick ruleset which is easy to learn.

Just got my first set of dice in the mail (took about 1 week to ship overseas, I'm impressed.) and I'm planning on playing some IceDice tomorrow with my math class.  We can look at it as a lesson in statistics, fractions and chance.:)  Should be fun.

If it were between Launchpad 23 and Martian Chess to include as the "bonus" in the IceDice game, Launchpad 23 was the right choice. But I think Martian Chess would make a nicer balance with IceDice in a Pyramid demo.

Martian Chess isn't really hard to learn at all. (Nor is it time-consuming; play times are quite comparable to Launchpad 23, in fact.) It's just challenging to win!

I sure hope this is still a valid offer!  I have been buying my share of IceDice sets and promoting them when I go well, anywhere!  I like the looks I get when I set up in a coffe shop and play a solitaire game!  Lots of strange looks, and sometimes I will simply say, "IceDice." and they will either throw me an even stranger look, or come a bit closer.... Bwahahahaha!!!  Some fun!  Has the goal been reached? 

Got my math class playing IceDice today.  They had a great time, but the polish on the dice chipped and even took a bit of the color with it.  The children really got into the game and they were eager to keep playing.  I'll have to make up a Launchpad 23 board for next week.

I also played a game with my older children, they're Jr. High students, and they also had a great time.  I didn't have enough stashes out for the game to play properly, so it ended up taking longer than it should have (we kept having to snatch pieces back and forth).  But they really enjoyed it anyway.  One of the girls got out her cell phone afterwards and snapped pictures of the pyramids before class was out and she even made a tree for pictures. :)  Hopefully she'll spread the word to her friends.

 

Well, it looks as though I've been posting in the wrong place!  Oh, well... To recap and update, I am playing Fluxx weekly at a local gaming shop, and plan to introduce Pyramids and IceDice this week!  Fluxx is going well, with at least two members of the team saying they plan to order the game! (Oz Fluxx.)  Can't wait to start playing 'mids with them, hopefully winning new converts, and Getting them to order IceDice through the store or the website!

I hope we reach the goal and I can get a copy of Pink Hijinks. I Love the "electric Yellow 'mids I got, and will gladly accept any other Starship Captain's ration of these lovelies if they choose not to avail themselves!  <Grin>

I've been turning family and friends on to Looney Pyramids whenever I can. While Ice Dice is a very agreeable game, Martian Chess seems to be a favorite. The Ice Dice Bag gets a lot of comments for its clever packaging. I hope you reach your goal of 7000 Ice Dice bags sold soon, and look forward to seeing Pink Hijinks!

Last month I played some pyramid games with the owner of a new local boardgame shop: http://www.lostatlantisgames.com/  Now he's stocking both FLUXX and Pyramid products.  I'm happy to have a local source for extra pyramids.  

I've got a date in a week and a half to demo Gnostica for a local group who are into Tarot. I'll put up a "How will you play with your Looney Pyramids?" poster and show off the IceDice bags while I'm at it.

Well, Dirigo Hobbies in Yarmouth Maine now has copies of almost all the Fluxx versions on the shelf, (Monty Python Fluxx sold as it came out of the mail!) and they have IceDice on the shelf!  They also put up the OZ Fluxx poster I got with my Demo kit!  People are asking about what they can do with the pyramids, and I am ready to set up and start playing some Martian Chess, etc.!  Fun, fun, fun! I'll keep talking it up amongst the Pathfinder and MTG groups, and may have a Looney group soon!

I attend college as an Animation and Game Development double major, so what better place than to show other game students Ice Dice ( which I still need to buy ), and other Looney Labs games, I have introduced some to Fluxx before.

My local shop already stocks the pyramids, I even managed to pick up a Xeno Treehouse tube! I might even have another buddy to suck into playing Homeworlds, though none of us are good at Icehouse (we're too passive). >>

Icedice and L23 are definitely the right games for a demo, though I suppose treehouse would work as well.

Here I am again!  Got Dirigo Hobbies in Yarmouth ME to order up some Looney Labs products, including several versions pof Fluxx and some IceDice!  Love the energy they have there, and the enthusiasm for all kinds of games! 

I have already introduced IceDice and Looney Pyramids to a bunch of people when we have game nights with friends and family. I also was at boy scout campout and instead of all the boys just playing cards, I taught them all how to play IceDice and Twin Win. They all really liked them and kept asking to play pyramids again. Several of the boys asked where to get an IceDice bag so that they could go buy some pyramids. I told them about a few local game stores as well as online.

My plan is to go back to GameHaven in West Jordan, UT and demo IceDice there. I have already been there before playing pyramid games. I am also planning on hitting up the two other local game stores that I know of, Hastur in Midvale, UT and Epic Puzzles and Games in West Valley City, UT. I plan on continuing to spread the word and demo IceDice and demo other amazingly fun games you can play with a set of pyramids.

I am super excited for Pink Hijinks, Petri Dish, Powerhouse, Petal Battle, and SandShips. I love playing new pyramid games. I have a few games of my own coming out soon. One is in the final stages and I will be uploading it soon :)

Utah has a good number of game stores, more in the Provo - Salt Lake area than here around D.C.!  

Yeah, we do have a lot of game stores here which makes it nice for demoing new Looney Labs games!

Wanted to throw another update on here....just got my pyramid demo kit and it's been a blast. I enrolled my fiance into starship captain training so he can help me run events and his favorite game is World War 5.....also found out while I was in Milwaukee to see family for Thanksgiving my FLGS had Xeno Stashes along with IceDice and Treehouse sets, AND they have a special that any games bought for Toys for Tots will be given a 25% discount, so I bought a copy of IceDice and Treehouse along with Family Fluxx to donate, so hopefully that will spread the word out in a unique way. I'm also working with the store to see if I can run a pyramid event when I am in town for xmas

Re: " I'm also working with the store to see if I can run a pyramid event when I am in town for xmas" Let us know when and where. I'm not far away and would come to that if the timing worked out.

I have everything from the Demo Kit except the new Pyramid Primer and the Syllabus.

However, I see that these two items are now available at the online store, and will pick up a pack of each.

Looking again, I still don't have the new Ice Dice die. Is it possible to order one of those?

[I have 11 mono-come stashes (Zindo box included), 1 Treehouse die, Martian Coasters and the 6x6, ELBS, & 3x4 board... Am I missing anything?]

Oh game plan, I definitely plan on bringing my pyramids to the weekly Thursday Night Game Night at Arsenal Game Room in Indy over the next few weeks... Gotta love that!

Looking again, I still don't have the new Ice Dice die. Is it possible to order one of those?

Actually, there are 2 of those: one for colors, and one for size of the pyramids:

But, I second the wish that these be made available by themselves! In the meantime, if you go to the forum for the IceDIce Rules Insert in the Starship Captains Group, you can download a pdf file that has the IceDice rules and faces that you can print out and paste on the sides of actual dice.  

I just saved the file, THANKS!

The pyramid die will be coming with PinkHijinks.
So, I'll just do the 1-4 RoYGBiv + 5 Black + 6 Wild...

:)

Hey hey everyone! Not sure if you noticed the post about the coupon code. But if you've been promoting our pyramids this year you're eligible for a free copy of Pink Hijinks.

Just order the game from our webstore and when you check out, enter coupon code 1FREEPINK, and the $12 purchase price will be deducted from your order! Please don't share this coupon code outside of this private demo team forum!!

Note: many of our stores are participating in the $3 off deal on the holiday gift - unfortunately we don't have a way to let you get a free copy from a local retailer - so if you have earned a free copy, you will have to order it from us online. Thanks!

This offer ends on Dec. 7, 2012. Thanks for being so awesomely rad, y'all. 

I am new to the Team and working through Cadet training with the family. I got the Demo kit from a local shop and here is how I intend to use.

1. Run Cadet training at both local game stores here in town.

2. Run games at my church game night.

3. Approach local Scout troop about a game night (have done before).

4. I often run game tables at local church\school events and will add Pyramids to the roster.

5. Always keep a stash in my game bag when I go anywhere I game(cons, festivals, game nights, family\friends.

Just spread the word where I can!

Good list, some great ideas in there. I've already been using Admiral and Space Cadet, but Lieutenant is great. But maybe we should go British and call them Leftenants, as in only-got-one-game-left-before becoming a Captain.

 

Instead of the V word, maybe Earther, as in some sad bloke who's never left their home planet.

 

Anyway, fun stuff!

I like Earther. It gives gives the same connotation as Landlubber in the Sailing vessel era.:)

This suggests 'Earthlubber' as a name for someone who's never played a pyramid game. I like the sound of that.

Earthlubber does sound good. I 2nd the nomination.

I like these, with Earther rather than Virgin. Also, "Initiate" seems to fall a little outside of the premise. Since it's supposed to contrast with Earther, maybe it should be Voyager?

Thus, outside the Academy: Earther, (Space) Voyager;

Then rising ranks of: (Space) Cadet, (Starship) Lieutenant, (Starship) Captain, and Admiral;

With supplementary Specialist status as an option for Lieutenant and above.

Maybe all this could get an informational page on the wiki somewhere, with appropriate disclaimers about its essentially playful character, as well as links to fan club pages. Right now, most of the fan organizational info there is Rabbit-based and admittedly obsolete.

Also, how about Starship Engineer for players who design pyramid games? 

And for distinction in game design (more than 5?), Starship Architect?

yes there will...   with decks shipping in late August.  So be sure you get your event reports posted for Seven Dragons if you participated in that launch project!

1. There's nothing in the rules that says your rocket must match the size of your starting piece.  You can get rid of your starting piece by Total System Failure, or just by moving it off your launchpad.

2. If you roll something not in the bank, you may re-roll or steal it from another player's launchpad.  If there are none of that piece on other launchpads, your only option is re-roll.  Note: you only get one re-roll per turn.  If you can't place a piece on your second roll, then you don't place a piece (but you still can make moves based on your second roll).

 

I usually let the dice determine what size I go for, and not caring about my starting piece. What is frustrating to me is to get 3 or 4 of my size and then it takes ages for another of that size to be rolled...

IIRC, they got sold.  I don't know who has them, except that it isn't me.

whats IIRC?

"If I Recall Correctly"

I have wondered the same thing.  I know a fFew stashes got sold off, but that's a really big box of mixed bits.  Surely more than just a couple stashes in 2 colors are there, yeah?  I'd be willing to buy a set of really mixed, swirly, unmatched sets, if that's all that remains.  Those would be pretty sweet, eh =)

I am with your logic!  Owning some swirly pieces would definetely rawk!  They would make interesintg game landscape pieces or special player toekns that anyone could easily destinquish between players....

I would love a strange coloured set. I am very pleased with my electric yellow stash, but I'm disappointed that I completely missed the boat on grays, and I never managed to get orange. (I started with an ice towers set, which was xeno minus orange). I wouldn't care if they were all completely unique colours, their uniqueness would stand out against all the other boring colours.

None of these have ever been sold, they are still in our basement!  I did however very recently arrange to have 150 or so of the leftover tubes cut down so they hold just one trio of pieces.  We have not yet determined exactly how we are going to decide who gets these 150 very special sets of pyramids - but it will absolutely be related to promotional efforts with the launch of IceDice this fall.

I stand corrected!  Actually, I was thinking of the root beer and watermelon stashes, whose existence and sale is described here.

I didn't watch that video until this morning.  It would be wonderful to get a stash or TH set in some unique color(s).  Kristin, will those be available too, or will they only be going out as trios?

 

Will your Chinese manufacturers also be sending you the in-between rejects for future offerings?

Doh!^^^ Now that would be awesome too!

Nope - no way we will get anything like this from the Chinese manufacturer - so we will never get any of these ever again.  So it seems to me a much better plan to let there be 150 fans who can have a trio of them, than 30 fans who have a special TH set...

I must agree.  Too bad it's a thing of the past, though.

If getting this special trio is related to promoting Ice Dice, does that mean UK starship captains such as myself can't get one? Is this TBC when you have sorted the legal stuff a bit?

These special trios are NOT a thing of the past YET.  I've got 150 of them...  if it is more important to you guys that they do not become a thing you could never get (like the root beer and watermelon stashes) we could decide to only give out 20 of them each year - so we would have them for the next 7 years.  That seems silly...  seems like I should make 150 fans happy now instead...  but I am curious what you guys think. How should we decide who gets these last of the strange in between colors of US made pyramids?

No, please, give all of them out!  In no way did I mean to imply that you should hang on to them to eke out their existence.  I was just regretting the fact that you won't be getting the byproducts from the Chinese manufacturers.  (Will they recycle the plastic or toss it out?  I guess from what you said that they can't just pack it in a larger shipping box with the regular product.)

I concur, whenever you fFeel the time is right, I think it's best to move as many as possible and make many people happy all at once.

 

In thinking about how to price them, you could perhaps make them a sort of reward fFor some sort of thing.  Looney Labs has a lot going on, which of course costs a bunch of money.  So, maybe make a promotional thing to kick-start some project.  A modest "donation" of $XX gets a weird trio?  All pre-orders of some new game get a weird trio?  Just a couple ideas.

"A modest "donation" of $XX gets a weird trio?"

 

Isn't that the same as putting a "price" on them and "selling" them?

Well yes of course.  But a single standard tree would cost something like $2.  If these were priced at $10, let's say, that's a lot to pay fFor a single tree of pyramids.  However, the money fFrom them could go towards bolstering some new project.  You're not just buying a unique, overpriced set of pyramids, you're helping fFund The Next Big Thing.

As long as brits/europeans have a chance at getting some, i don't mind. helping to pay for the next big thing seems cool.

I would be in like Flynn!!!  Put a price tag on them, I just need time to beg the wife ;-).

 

Update on these...   still no concrete plan on what I'm going to do with them, but I now have a great way to package them!  

 

I'm thinking to use them as part of the reward on a kickstarter project with the giant cardboard pyramids...  details at some point in the future once I have a plan worked out!  

Card... board... pyramids!?!!?!?! YAHOO!!!!!

I love the kickstarter idea!!  Brilliant!

I am absolutely down for anything with giant cardboard pyrimids!!  I can't wait for the kickstart!!! :)

First of all: Yay! Star Fluxx is being printed!

 

I'm not a rules lawyer type, I had some questions about the cards but the faq answered all my questions and some that I didn't think of.

Can't wait to play it :-)

The only question I have is the Evil/Malfunction Creepers: they attach if you have a Keeper, but if you don't, do they just kind of float there? Personally, I think they should attach to the first Keeper you play, but that might be too Evil. ;)

Oh, I think it may be a good idea to divide the faq section to general fluxx faq (like the question about play all) and star fluxx related faq (about cards unique to star fluxx). I know it would be easier for me to look for the appropriate question if I could skip the general questions.

Leigh, it looks like that is answered in the FAQ.

 

All questions I had (based on the shown cards) were answered by the FAQ.

If most or all of the creepers attach to keepers, should the graphic show this?

 

If the Holographic Projector displays the entire package, even an attached Creeper, does that mean I do win if the Goal involves a Creeper which is now Projected in fFront of me?

fFor example.  The goal is EVIL + COMPUTER.  I have the Holographic Projector and the COMPUTER.  Someone else has EVIL attached to something else, like the TIME TRAVELER or something.  Can I project the EVIL TIME TRAVELER and win, with their EVIL?

I looked this over, and then got Annie so we could try to remember all the new cards we saw.  Here are questions I or she came up with.  We may already know the answer, but future readers may not.

1. For It's a Trap!, what counts as "stealing"?  Is it any taking of a Keeper, or only things that say "steal"?  For example, if a player has the Teleporter during Beam Us Up!, does taking everyone's beings count as stealing?
2. I play a Surprise during my turn, someone else plays a Surprise to cancel it, and I play a second Surprise to cancel his cancellation.  Does my second Surprise count as a Play?
3. Where on LooneyLabs.com do we find FAQ updates?  It's a big website.
4. I remember a mind-switch sort of Action card.  If I remember correctly, it said that it ends the turn of the player who played it, but did not specify who plays the next turn -- the person to the left of the new or old body.  Is that clarified?  (I love the card, and hope it stayed!)
5. If the Really Cute Alien gets discarded with a Creeper attached, what happens?  Annie said Andy ruled that in the discard pile they detach, and only the Alien goes to draw pile. 
6. Can the Doctor or RoboDoc heal themselves?
7. Can the Captain claim the RoboDoc?

I hope this is in time for you!

 

I asked question #2 in relation to Pirate Fluxx, and the answer was "no." I think it's in the Forums section of ning.

Questions #4 and #5 came up while we were playing, and I think they were both supposed to be clarified on the rules sheet. Not that I remember the answers.

 

Edit: Surprise question here: http://looneylabs.ning.com/forum/topics/another-question-about

 

I asked question #2 in relation to Pirate Fluxx, and the answer was "no."

Indeed!  This was one of the questions we knew the answer to already.  I brought it up in case they want to include it in the printed FAQ. 

With these extra questions we're raising, they may need to triage the FAQ and leave out the least important ones -- or do some creative reformatting (smaller font or figures, moving the Icon legend to the first page, etc.).

 

Hello and thanks for the great feedback!

Attached is a revised back. (I haven't made any changes to the front... good point Chris about the diagram but I'm gonna let it ride. Yes, Creepers are frequently attached to Keepers in Star Fluxx, but not always, so the standard diagram isn't actually wrong, and I'd rather not mess with it.)

I dropped the newbie question about outright theft of Keepers, and tightened up the wording on a Keeper Limit question, to make space for more new questions. Then I added the Fuzzy Creature question and snuck in answers to other questions in the form of longer answers to existing questions. I think I got everything added except these from Bryan:

3) It's true that a better link to the wiki page answers is needed at the top of LooneyLabs.com -- but that's not the rulesheet's problem.

4) Brain Transference is indeed in the game, but we (or rather, Josh) rewrote the text to resolve the who's next confusion.

6) The Doctor cannot heal himself. The text on the card clearly states that he can remove the Brain Parasites if they are attached to *another* Keeper.

7) The Android Doctor will be a promo card so I'm not putting questions about him in the rulesheet. But no, the Captain cannot steal him, since it doesn't say so on the Captain.

 

Again, thanks for all your input. This is going to the printer today! Yay!

Oh, sorry for being clueless.  I just noticed that this is a new thread, and not (as I had previously believed) new posts to an old thread.  It all makes sense now.  I'm going to blame it on this summer head cold I've been fighting for the last few days.

 

P.S. Everything looks great!

Yes, it all looks great! 

...Though I still have one concern about the "stealing Keepers" question.  You mention that teleporting is not stealing, but what about other ways Keepers get moved around?  Do they have to say "steal" for It's a Trap! to work?  E.g., does it stop the Captain?  (Does the Captain say he "steals" his crew?)  I cannot remember what other ways there might be. 

The special power descriptions for the Captain and the Scientist both use the word steal.

The new version look great!!

7) What was I thinking? Yes, the Captain can steal the Robo-Doc. The Robo-Doc counts as the Doctor, which means it can be stolen just like the Doctor. Sheesh.

Now all we have to do is figure out a way to combine Martian and Star Fluxx, and we'll be set!  :-)

 

Speaking of which, I'm already plotting ways to mix-and-match certain Star Fluxx cards with other decks I own...

My instinct says "yes."

Please tell me there's a goal for The Time Traveler and The Doctor!

But of course. It's called "What Doctor? Where?

I have never been so happy! THANK YOU!

Sorry to anyone who had tried to view this today.  I had to make several changes throughout the day.  I still need two more visuals, but am eager either way for anyone's input!

 

Thanks!

One more fix to make on the rules, hopefully this week, and all should be complete.  Thanks to everyone who has participated in the playtesting of this!

 

Made a few changes to the visuals based on suggestions. 

YES you can post games that use the IceDice dice - most everyone on these forums has had the chance to get one of the upgrade kits, and still can, so the dice are out there...  

And YES, you can use any of the pyramid images on our web sites in your rules - go for it! 

 

I look forward to hearing about your game ideas!  

LOL - now that was an easy demo - thanks!  It is a beautiful poster...  :)    I've thought about trying to organize some sort of initiative to encourage geeks to populate their cubicles with Fluxx posters... now that we've gotten them up for sale to the demo team at only .30 cents each this becomes more doable... where do you work? do you have a poster up at your desk? 

I look forward to hearing more about your demo efforts when you actually play the game!  

Well, you got me pegged.  I am a geek and work in an office supporting computers.  I don't have a poster up in my office YET.  I did buy one for me (Looney Pyramids), but need to go pick up an 11x17 frame.

My work desk is littered with Looney stuffs.  I need to get flowers for the desk though...  I need to acquire bumper stickers, that would be cool... ;-)

 

Excellent! Works as advertised. I'd like to see a way to add more that 11 games, but otherwise it works great!

 

Thanks for getting this working!

Actually you can add more than 11 games -- the edit form will alway display an extra blank field. So after you enter 11 games save the list and then return to the edit form you should now have 12 fields.

 

A future enhancement is to add an "add more" button on the form (along with the ability to reorder the list).

 

With the new App we will be able to build detailed stats about the lists much like Ryan created here: http://looneylabs.ning.com/forum/topics/sscl-june-2011-edition

 

Excellent. Now I've got all 15 in there. Thanks!

Works great. Thank you!

 

(Now to just get the Have You Never Played Icehouse App  ;) )

Works great. Once I have transferred my list over to the app, what should be done with the text box with the same list?

Can we also use the app to browse other folks' lists? Might a future version allow us to link directly to, say, the BGG or Icehouse Wiki entry on a game? (Such a feature would be augmented by allowing other users to suggest "tags" for your unlinked list entries.) When might we start seeing auto-generated SSCLs with more than 10 games listed?

 

While it's a spiffy addition to our profiles, I'm not sure that it's doing anything better than a text entry can do as of yet.

Well, I think the main advantage, I think, is that lists can be compiled and assembled on some sort of back end to do some analysis.  Things we want to know are:  Who has a list, What's on it, How does this person's list compare to another person's list, What games are on every list, What is the average ranking of any game across every list ...

You know.  Simple stuff like that.

=)

I think you just agreed with my last post. The big problem is that it's not such simple stuff unless the games are hyperlinked to something static to prove that they're the same games. One game spelled two different ways has a funny way of looking like two different games to a match algorithm.

We used the data people entered into the App to generate Starship Captain badges for those who were at origins.  Something we could not do with the text box.

It will also allow us to compile statistics as Scott said.

As for inconsistent spelling and formatting -- for the short term I have some simple scripts that can normalize common typos and misspellings.   Long the term I have ideas for improving the App UI to minimize typos but that is on the back burner.

 

Any plans to support a feature that allows us to print our own Starship Captain list?  I have this nice pretty badge that is now out of date because I played 5 new pyramid games at Origins, a couple of which slipped into my top 10.  I'm not sure when I would use it, so perhaps it doesn't need to be a high priority, but something to think about.  It might be better to spit out a graphic that we can print in our favorite graphic app rather than trying to print directly from the browser interface.

Perhaps what is called fFor is some sort of PDF fForm with the layout prepared, so one simply needs to type in their stuff and hit print.  This would be a list the captain would maintain separate fFrom the Ning website.

The obvious downside being that now we are maintaining two distinct list fForms.  However, the PDF would simply be a layout which anyone may print -- which includes kids and anyone who can't or won't make a ning profile.  In other words, we maintain the app here on Ning, and assemble stats fFrom it.  And then anyone who wants to print their own on a nice layout.

Thats a great idea.  I will put it on Starship Captain App to do list.

Am I being thick here?

I've added the App, but can't work out how to add games... Every time I hit the edit button it takes me to my settings page; is it supposed to do that?

Pressing the edit tab should display a form for editing your list.

 

What OS and browser are you using?

I'm using Windows Vista\Firefox 5. But your comment promped me to work out that it was a Firefox addon (NoScript) that was stopping it working properly; now I've whitelisted ninggadgets.com it works. Thanks. :)

Excellent.  It is a known issue that Ning does not play well with noscript unless you whitelist everything on the page.

I'm having the same problem Vijay did, with IE on Windows XP (why, yes, I am a Neanderthal). I cleared ninggadgets.com in my popup blocker, but that didn't seem to fix it.

I like E and F. Love the text on both and the drawing on E.

For me it is between E and F.  Wife votes for A or E.  We'll split the difference and go with E.  B-)

I like the artwork on A and the text on E and F. Can't wait.

I think [C] on a yellow sign would be pretty cool.  [B] has a space opera appeal to it which I like.  [A] is also quite good.

 

Also: STAR fFLUXX!  Wheeeee!!  I am a little surprised to see a return to the space theme, after Martian fFluxx.  But I'm sure it'll be cool and exciting =)  Looks like a new direction fFor the basic design, eh?  That's neato!

Definitely F.

F most definitely

A or F

F gets my vote

I think A is the funniest. Explodey robots are always best.

I like C

I like the art for A and D best.  D reminds me of Robby the Robot from Lost in Space and other stories. 

I like the text in A best.  I like F's text, but would like it better with other art.  I also like E's text, but I think it would be funnier if it lacked the final "ED."

When I think of all the stories this could draw on, the mind boggles.  Even just popular stories might include:

• Star Trek
• Star Wars
• Men In Black
• Alien
• Planet of the Apes
• 2001: A Space Odyssey
• Lost in Space
• Battlestar Galactica 
• Buck Rogers
• Flash Gordon
• E.T.
• Babylon 5
• War of the Worlds
• Independence Day
• Starship Troopers
• Stargate
• Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
• etc.
• etc.

And I was just limiting myself to films and TV.

I'd say the picture from A and the text from F but that's just me

I prefer A

I prefer the picture on E, followed by A.  I like the text on A/B.  The text on E is okay.

Between A and E.

Husband likes D & C. I like E & F.

C followed by A

I like A and B.

I like the lightning from C, but the other art and text from A or E.

F Is very Fallout/Portal feeling; "Well, the world just ended, your family is dead, you're probably going to die of radiation poisoning, but look on the bright side..."

 

I like F.

:)

and the answer is...   we are going with A  -   thanks everyone for your input!  Ok - now check out this cover idea Derek just sent us - man I love his artwork!   Again - please keep this secret - this isn't final and this product has not been announced yet!

 

I love the art work!

The only suggestion I would make is to make it apparent that it draws on multiple sources.  Right now it looks to me like it's mainly Star Trek-based (with Captain, doctor and Vulcan), with Lost in Space thrown in (the robot, and Will?).  Maybe other obvious figures, such as someone wielding a light saber (assuming they appear in the game)?

The guy in front reminded me of Zapp Brannigan.

I like F best, with A following a close second.

I love it!

(Before reading anyone else's preferences...) E.  The text is good for a chuckle.  The artwork _could_ be in yellow like B and F.

 

The voting was closed on June 6?  Oh well.

I talked to a guy who demos games fFor another game company, and he said the best way to do it is to get some approval fFrom the local game store owner, then send out an email to a couple mailing lists saying you have a game you want to play, and then show up at the store and play the game, saying you are running the demo, fFor several hours.

I have a local Game Store, Millennium Games, in Rochester New York.  I go to this store regularly, so I can easily speak to the owner about running some demos at the store.  I'm sure he will be totally cool with that.  Then I will send out a couple emails saying a time and date at which I will have the game to play.  Then, of course, I'll actually show up at that time and date and play the game.

There is another game store in town, Boldo's Armory, which I have been wanting visit but haven't had a great reason to do so, so that might be just the reason.  Boldo seems like a really cool guy who goes to local conventions, so I will ask him if I can run a demo at his store, as well.

Plus I will definitely show the game to the group of a half dozen close fFriends at our weekly gaming sessions on Saturday Nights.  I'm sure they will love it!

So that's what I plan to do: run at least 2 demos at 2 different stores, plus show it off to all my fFriends.

I'm not sure how great the demand fFor Shuffle Hands cards are going to be exactly; I think the best way is to probably offer them to everyone who plays, not necessarily push them heavily on anyone, and also not make them hard to get either.  They're cool cards, and if someone wants one, awesome, it's a great thing to remind them of the game.  If they don't really want one, then there's no need to have them go to waste on disinterested parties.

Oh, by the way, let me know if you'd prefer I do more.  I will certainly show the game to everyone I can, but if you would like my plan to involve more scheduled events, Let me know!

Scott - this is a fine project plan!  The point of this plan is to pledge that you are participating in the project and will show the game to everyone you can, and that you are working on coming up with ways to do that...  if you end up doing more you can tell everyone about your gaming adventures via your Event Reports.  Thanks for signing on to help us promote our newest card game!

cool =) it looks like a fFun game!  Happy to be aboard!

I plan to do a game demo at a couple local game stores as well as playing random games at work on lunch breaks as well as at my weekly game nights :-D

There is a game day scheduled for mid-month each month at Reader Copies in Anderson, IN. I am planning to take the Seven Dragons game to the first one of those days that comes up after I get the game and promo cards. There are usually 20-30 people there and the customers are usually skewed to the younger side.

I'll organize a Looney Labs demo event with my local game store- which hosts one of my gaming groups- and put a special emphasis on Seven Dragons and Ice Dice. I should be able to post info about a public event in another week or so.

I plan to feature Seven Dragons as part of the Family & Friends Game Night at our church.  Several participants are fans of Aquarius, so this seems a no brainer to get them fired up.  In addition, my local game shop, Comic Quest, has started a regular game demo night which they have asked me to help plan.

I do have one question is shipping and handling free on seven dragons as it was with pirate fluxx?

I plan to set up a Looney Labs demo day at The Last Level. The last demo I did there had some success and they want me to come back. I'll be also going around to the game stores on various board game nights to promote Seven Dragons and start up pick up games.

I have a regular gaming group that fluxuates between 8-15 different people each week.   So, I will have lots of opportunity to play this with lots of different people.

 

I am also ordering the IceDice mat--- How do you get the Ice Dice special dice?  I didn't see anywhere to order them.  Please let me know or you could send them with my current order and I can paypal you...

 

Thanks!  I look forward to getting this new game!

For the past two months I have been employed by a company called "Card Kingdom". Earlier this week we celebrated our move with the grand opening of a new retail store! Its a pretty big deal for gamers in Seattle, being 6,000 square feet for the retail floor and having gigantic tournament rooms, and even private rooms you can check out and have personal gaming groups meet in. Not to mention we also have a cafe and pub inside! Beer, sandwiches, and games? Thats right, I get paid here! This new location is already getting a ton of coverage and attention. So far I've met the guys at Penny Arcade, the PAX organizers, I sat and played games with Richard Garfield, local game designers, just to name a few.

One aspect of my job suggests I demo games with people when they are looking for suggestions. This is how I've been able to show so many people Pirate Fluxx, and also get them anticipating the release of IceDice. I'm sure squeezing in games of Seven Dragons will be a piece of cake!

By the way Kristin, this new location for Card Kingdom is definitely picking up momentum, and in such a comfortable, spacious environment, I think it would be awesome to coordinate demos and release events with you and Jennifer. Since she's in the neighborhood, she should definitely be part of the community!

It beats the crap out of small bookstore events!

 

P.S. - My IceDice are worn from so much use, some sides are barely distinguishable. Is there a way to order another set of the demo dice?

Thanks for the head's up on Seven Dragons!   I'll be placing my order for my demo copy immediately.

 

I have lots of friends who love Looney Games, so it will be great to have an advance copy to share with them.  I also work part-time at my FLGS, Game Nite in St. Louis, and will work with the owner to set up at least one Demo Day.  When I held demo-day for Pirate Fluxx there I was able to give away almost all of my promo cards and it generated about a dozen pre-orders for the game.   Not bad for just a few hours of demo time!   I expect that Seven Dragons will be as much fun!

This is my first real Launch Project, and I'm planning on kicking it off with a bang! I've got a Demo Table at my comic store's Free Comic Book Day party where I'll be demo-ing Seven Dragons, Back To The Future, Pirate Fluxx and IceDice. I plan on having promos for each game that I can give away to people who try out the corresponding games.This promises to be an event that will reach a large number of people of all ages! I'll post an event report the following Sunday, and of course after every Looney Game Night that will follow.

Well, if they'll be shipping on the 16th, I should get one in time for KublaCon, where I'll be playing the game with as many people as are interested in trying it out.  I'll also be able to take it to next months first saturday of the month game day, and the 3rd saturday game day with a completely different group of people.  I'll probably have given away all of those promo cards in no time at all.

I host a game day with some friends quite frequently and we are always checking out new games.  I will make sure that this game gets some press as many of my friends use me as the contact to find out what is the newest product to fly off the looney Labs press.  A big fan of all looney games Aquarius is up there and having a card that is wild could certainly be fun to see how it changes the game. 

 

Just found out that the Seven Dragons stuff is preorder and definitely won't arrive in time for FCBD. Looks like it'll have to wait until the firs LGN after it arrives!

I already have a game day planned shortly after this starts shipping where I'll be able to share with up to 30 people.  I will also be able to play a few rounds at an upcoming rpg games day that I will be attending.

This will get alot of Demoing at AnCon May 20-22. and all the Promos will be handed out!!!!!! Along with the Pletheria of aothers I have!!)

I will be holding initial Seven Dragons demos at Alterniverse-2 (LaGrangeville, NY location) on May 21st and at Alterniverse-1 (Salt Point, NY) on May 28th. Each participant will receive one of each promo card (Shuffle Hands and Aquarius Dragon) and be automatically entered into a free drawing at each store for a boardgamegeek.com exclusive Fluxx promo card set. They will also receive 10% off the purchase price of Seven Dragons (again, not set in stone). Other demos can be scheduled with a release demo on the 25th of June (Sat) at Alterniverse-1 at the end of which the drawing for the Fluxx promo card sets will be done. Other demos will be scheduled periodically.

I have spoken with three local game stores to demo Seven Dragons, one of which will be a day where I demo all looney labs games they sell. I will post more details when they become available... :-)

I plan to promote this game and others at local games stoes and at regional game conventions including Dragon Flight, Lebanonacon. and Orycon.  I have also been teaching games to teenagers and younger kids at the local library and Aquarius had been the game I always make sure I bring. 

 

This summer I am working with the City of Eugene to put on a large game event for teenagers.  Over 200 people are expected.  I will have three tables setup for Fluxx, three for Apples to Apples, and three for other games which I plan to include Seven Dragons, MyWord, and Zombie Dice.  There will also be a large scale game of Hey That's My Fish - I might re-theme this to space some how since the event will be on July 20.

 

Chris

My local game group in Louisville, KY is gearing up for Origins in June! Seven Dragons looks awesome. Artist Larry Elmore lives in Leitchfield, KY, not far from here. I plan to get the Origin goers in the group interested with the Seven Dragons demo kit when it comes in few weeks. Just for fun, I wonder how it will play with a several SHUFFLE HANDS cards in the deck.

Kristin's first post on this thread say that the kits start shipping may 16th.

After clicking on the order link, the description says it's shipping on the 10th (today).

Which is true?

Also: I really wish the shipping would cost less than the product for me :-/

I guess 10000 kilometers have their price.

I plan to set demo events at local game stores: the Compleat Strategist and Victory Comics in Falls Church, the Game Parlor in Chantilly, and probably others.

Alright! New not-Fluxx or Chrononauts game! Well, not that I don't love new variations....

 

Anyhoo, I'm planning on demoing to my gaming meetup group of 25+ members at any given time, as well as doing some open demoing at a couple of FLGSs (Gecko Books, Other Realms, possibly The Armchair Adventurer). Also, there's a Games Day at one of the stores coming in June, so the timing may just be right for it...

I plan to demo 7D at our irregular game meating we hold to introduce new games to local gamers.

I am planning to hold at least two demo parties at my home or a friends home. Hopefully this will create preorders for my favorite game store Game Nite.

I just received my demo copy of Seven Dragons and I have to say that the images posted hardly did the cards justice. They're AWESOME!

I got my kit today! I'm not way into the playmats so far, but the game is excellent. I played a few times with my group and we're ready to Demo it tomorrow at our local comic store. I plan on giving each person who seriously wants to buy the game three copies of Shuffle Hands.

I just posted in THIS THREAD the following statement...  "One will certainly be going to the Demo Team member who does the most pre-promotion for the game over the next month" 

 

So please be sure you post Event Reports on the promotions you are doing for the game - and expect that I am going to ask everyone participating in this launch project to help me decide who has done the most pre-promotion and should get one of these uncut sheets as a reward!  If it's a tie we can always give away two of them... 

I plan to promote this at our local AMTGARD Group (larp), "Barony of the Seven Sleeping Dragons". I think  they will like a game with the name of our barony!  I really an not too sure how I plan to use the Shuffle hands card besides just including it in the deck and using it. (I have not gotten the kit yet to look at it and make plans as writing about my plans is required before getting the kit)

 

 

And I should have ordered is last week so it'd be here for the gaming convention. Oh, well.

(I'll try to do a demo at our game store, too)

 

I have two gaming groups I would like to try this out with.  The first meets weekly on Saturday Nights.  They are open to anything and have a certain craving for fantasy based games.  They are also regular game purchasers.

 

The second group is a Pyramid playing group.  Not very large but already dedicated to Looney Labs, so what could go wrong.

 

If time allows I will try a third group that meets twice a month, but I haven't been able to coordinate my schedule with theirs.  The advantage, they play in an LGS.

 

Each player will get a Shuffle Hands Card as an incentive for trying out the game.

Last night I went to Evolution Games in Eugene, Oregon.  I taught two people how to play a number of games.  Started with Seven Dragons.  We played this twice.  That Silver dragon is quite a game changer.  I need to update the way I play quite a bit to counter it.  It was nice getting to go first in one of the games.  I think I only ever went first once with Aquarius.  I gave each of the players a Shuffle hands card.  One of the players can't wait to get her own copy of the game, they store has it pre-ordered.  They seem to stock the full line of Looney Labs games. 

 

We then played Launch pad 23 and two games of Ice Dice.  We had extra people watching the IceDice game.  I am glad I had the IceDice playmat. 

I will spend the month of June a a church summer camp where I have introduced several Looney Lab games. I will introduce this game there.

I will also introduce the game at the MENSA Annual Gathering in July in Portland, OR.

My project plan includes three steps:  First, play it with my friends at our weekly games night.  There is normally about 10+ people there who also like Looney Lab games already.  Second, play it with my brother and cousin and their friends at their weekly games night.  It is an entirely different group of people that also is generally 10+ people.  They have not really played Looney Lab games so it will be an entirely different kind of experience.  Lastly, if I still need more people or want to play with different people I will play with my parents and aunts and uncles as they enjoy games and would be a different age group. 

I will be participating in a number of game group demos over the next three months. I have confirmed gaming programs with two game stores and one library so far. These would give me a chance to play a few games at each program and give out a shuffle hand promo to the winners of those games. I will also be working at a small gaming convention in the near future were I can run multiple games during the course of the convention.

I attend many game nights every month, we like to try out new games all the time. I'd say I easily see 15 different people there. So that's a start.

 

I also frequent a local game store which hosts weekly events. They carry a few of your items, but not enough! I think they'd enjoy adding a card-based game to the rotation.

 

I know I'll give away all the demo cards for sure! Sounds like fun.

I have been showing up during FNM at my local shop luring people away with other games for quite some time. The shop owner has taken quite a shining to the Looney Labs games I have exposed him to (Fluxx and Pyramids). I try to play as many Pyramid games as possible with Volcano being my top requested game, but Fluxx is growing in popularity. I have gotten to know a lot of the people there really well, and I plan on having a Seven Dragons Demo party whenever is convenient for everyone. I know several of the people I play with will want their own copies. I will probably hand out the promo cards to people in advance and have them exchange it for pizza(or some other food) the day of the event. I have similarly bribed gamers in the past to great success. I also plan to hang up some of the other posters around the shop (with the owners permission).

I love this "bring this card in to trade for pizza" idea - you could print the details of the event and the deal on a mailing label, and stick it over the white "visit your local retailers' spot on the postcard.  They can then keep the actual promo card they peel off the card, and hand in the marketing postcard for pizza (or whatever) at the event.  I look forward to hearing how this goes - please take a picture of the postcard you hand out for your event report!

That is even better. That way they get to keep the promos. Free pizza works really well as a lure for geeks and gamers.

I am planning on visiting the local toy shops in Peterborough, and showing them the demo kit. I will then be distributing the Seven Dragons Posters, the "shuffle hands" cards, as well as 10 playmats I also ordered to the toyshops "Toy Shoppe on Hunter"and  ELAN Games (the two most prominent game stores in my town). There are not many shops in Peterborough, so I will be able to offer them quite a few items to promote the new game, and take the time to show them the demo version of the game.

I meet with several groups of people throughout my typical month.  I have a group of about 15 people at work that like to get together about once or twice a month to play games.  A group of friends from church that fellowship, we typically shove the kids outside and play board games.  I have been introducing them (slowly but surely) to other, non-mainstream games.  They have been very accepting!

When family and other friends come over the wife and I like to cook food and make them play our silly games.  Ya know, fluxx, ticket to ride, catan...  All in all I come in contact with about 25 - 30 people in a month that I would be able introduce dragons to.

Hello,

I'm presently off from school for the summer and I will have some time to demo Looney Labs game. I'm playing on a weekly basis in a board game club. We're about 18-22 persons each week from a pool of almost 60 different persons. It will be an easy task to do 2-3 demo night during the summer to show Looney games.

There's also my BBQ birthday gaming party in august. Last year we were 26 persons. It will be another great time to show them your games. It's my birthday, they can't say no to the game I choose!!!

So far, Fluxx is my favorite brand but Seven Dragons looks really nice. We have a lot of Elmore fan, it will do the trick!

 

I have a question before ordering. I'm from Quebec (Canada) and shipping is high, so I plan on getting other stuff from your web store but could I also get the Pirate Fluxx promo kit with the Seven Dragons Kit? I know that you're asking for reports before sending an other promo kit, but do you think I could get both of them at the same time to save on shipping? And it won't be harder to demo, I'll simply have more choice of games for my groups :-)

 

Thanks to let me know

Claude Galarneau

Absolutely - go ahead and order both kits - thanks for signing on to help us promote our new games!

I will be demo'ing seven dragons with the games society, and probably will organise some demo slots at the games shop in Manchester, FanBoy 3. As for the promo cards, will give them out among the games group, and to people who play demo games. If Looney Labs hasn't got a new game by September, I will probably order a few more packs of them to hand out at freshers fair to new members of the society, as freebies always bring the crowds in.

Might also be able to sneak it into my sister's wedding, and show it to my huge, game loving family.

Time: July 13, 2011 at 6pm to July 17, 2011 at 12pm
Location: Royal Pacific Hotel
City/Town: Orlando Florida
Website or Map: http://leakycon.com

 

My husband and I will be attending Leaky Con which is a con revolving around Harry Potter.

They have a 'common room' set up for people to gather to play games, chat and just hang out. 

I will be demoing Seven Dragons and Pirate Fluxx at various times throughout the con. 

These demo's will only be accessible by those who are registered for the con, right now over 2000 people. But based on last years numbers, the common room was always full and people were playing a variety of games. Including, Are you a Death Eater? :)

 

I've been playing Seven dragons with the games society, and they all loved it. I gave them promo cards, and they all bought the game. One of the girls I played with has bought a copy to take to Poland to play with her boyfriend's relatives. I suggested she get her boyfriend to translate the action cards into Polish, and use stickers on card sleeves for instant Polish seven dragons.

Did get it into the wedding reception, spent the evening playing with my cousins, and my Sister's new in-laws. The in-laws will almost certainly be getting a copy, as they were already fluxx fans.

I conducted a demo of Seven Dragons at my Friendly Local Game Store, Comic Quest, here in Evansville, IN, as part of the regular Saturday night game event.  The player loved it and immediately asked to play again.  I had previously give the shop the poster that I got with my demo kit and it was displayed on the rack with the other Looney Labs products.  Two of the players placed orders for Seven Dragons with the owner right after completing the second game.  He was very pleased and told me he would order some extra copies based on the response to the demo.  I will be showing it again this Saturday.

I'm the children's librarian at a branch in a county system. Our branch does two general gaming programs a month: one for first to third graders, and another for fourth to eighth graders. We also do a bingo night for the kids. We've also recently begun discussing a general gaming night for adults. We already have a local pinochle group who use the room once a month, and seniors bowl on the Wii twice a month. Our patrons love gaming!

Our entire system is promoting the Million Minute Family Challenge and National Gaming Day. My family and friends are going to volunteer at the library to help me demo games during these special programs. We'll have our own stations so each family of patrons can go from station to station to see how the new games work. For the months that the Million Minute Challenge is running, we'll have extra gaming programs, so we'll be able to demo the games several times before the end of the year. I’ve also volunteered to show the games off to the other youth librarians at our next roundtable. I plan to offer a Shuffle Hands card to any family that plays a game of Seven Dragons to completion during one of our family gaming programs, and to any librarian in the system who says that he or she will be ordering a copy of the game for their branch.

 

I think Seven Dragons is one of those games that's going to go over well across the age groups and that the kids will be fighting over it once they've checked it out.

My husband and I will be demoing 7 Dragons and Pirate Fluxx at Dragon*Con in the gaming hall later this week (Sept 2 - 5). No exact times as of yet, but we plan on being down there when we are not going to events. 

If you are not familiar with Dragon*Con please check out their site. The con is HUGE.

Yes, I have fond memories of the many years we attended Dragon*Con - I'm sure we will go back again at some point!  Very glad to hear you will be there playing Seven Dragons - what better con is there to promote this game!  LOL. I added Dragon*Con to the Events calendar...  please sign up to say you will be attending.

Besides bringing the game with me to Board Game Nation on Thursday nights, I am going to make this my featured game at the Monday Board/Card Game nights. Like my other events these will be on the in-store event board as well as on their Facebook page.

Is it too late to get in on the Seven Dragons project?  I am new to the demo team and Seven Dragons has not yet hit my local game store or board game meetup group and I would be interested in showing them the game.

My plan is to demo the game at my local game store Gateway Games and More in Cincinnati, Ohio.  I will also run it at my weekly board game group as well as make sure a link and description is included on the Meetup.com site.  I will also be running the game at my monthly family game night.  In addition I will include the game in a review video that will be posted on my YouTube channel, my store's YouTube channel, and my Facebook page.  Also, if that were not enough :), I will make sure to promote the game on the store's Facebook page, and in several gaming forums that I participate in.

Last Saturday I had a nice time at the Compleat Strategist in Falls Church VA.  I demoed Ice Dice, Star Fluxx, Seven Dragons, and Treehouse. 

We played Seven Dragons we played 2 games, and one of the players there was very enthusiastic and bought his own copy.  I gave him 3 copies of the Shuffle Hands promo, and 1 copy of it to anyone else who wanted one. 

Copied from the Star Fluxx Project Plans page:

 

"I'm helping run a Sci-Fi convention game room next week, and I'd love to demo Star Fluxx and give out all of the Android Doctor cards, get people hyped about the new version of Fluxx, especially since they have requested regular Fluxx and Zombie versions to be brought. On the phone now with Alison and explaining how excited I am to try it!

I know that I demoed Pirate fluxx way back when, but can't seem to find the report and neither can Alison. All I remember is that when I tried to teach the game at Borders, it went over rather poorly with that group. When I go to the convention, I'll be giving out all of the Pirate Fluxx promo cards, and hyping up the great games Looney Labs!"

 

I also know that Seven Dragons is going to be a blast at WindyCon and hope to give away all of the promo cards!

Copied from the Star Fluxx Project Plans page:

 

"I'm helping run a Sci-Fi convention game room next week, and I'd love to demo Star Fluxx and give out all of the Android Doctor cards, get people hyped about the new version of Fluxx, especially since they have requested regular Fluxx and Zombie versions to be brought. On the phone now with Alison and explaining how excited I am to try it!

I know that I demoed Pirate fluxx way back when, but can't seem to find the report and neither can Alison. All I remember is that when I tried to teach the game at Borders, it went over rather poorly with that group. When I go to the convention, I'll be giving out all of the Pirate Fluxx promo cards, and hyping up the great games Looney Labs!"

 

I also know that Seven Dragons is going to be a blast at WindyCon and hope to give away all of the promo cards!

As taken from my Event report: http://looneylabs.ning.com/profiles/blogs/windycon-with-star-fluxx-...

 

There is a Looney Pyramids family on BoardGameGeek, where you can discuss general pyramid topics.

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgamefamily/20/looney-pyramids

If you look under the Icehouse Pyramids games family (goes to the same place as the one linked by Jeff Wolfe) you'll find discussion. But it's true, the icehouse discussion is somewhat scattered. Much of the games discussion occurs on the individual game pages or on geeklists.

Ill be glad to playtest this. But I was a little confused on how the 6 rainbow stashes is easier to collect? you can just get 5 rainbow stashes and one Xeno stash and use the smalls from the xeno set as the caps. ( I am one of the lucky ones who bought the greys when they first came out, and bought 5 rainbow sets to get my 5 monocrome stashes :) ) Not that 5 rainbow and one Xeno is any easier to collect...

but then all the caps would be a different color...   also, although we are making the Xeno stashes available, and many hobby retailers will sell them, many stores will choose to only carry the rainbow stashes, since this is the one that is needed to expand IceDice and Treehouse.

i like power play rule. it is good thing to have it in caldera. i use it often when i have some pyramids twice. btw as i have said earlier, i use only 5 tubes and it goes pretty well.

I think the Power Play should be part of the Caldera rules.  In my limited playtesting, the three trio ending really changed the value of capturing certain pieces.  The Power Play gives value to pieces that are otherwise just taking up space in front of you.  Without the Power Play, we had a game that was reduced to block-block-block-block-block.  The Power Play helps break out of that cycle.

 

I really like the power play rule, but I haven't had a chance to playtest it against another experienced Volcano player. All the people I've been able to play Caldera with, hadn't played Volcano previously.

I agree with this assessment.  I have played caldera only once or twice, but I realized early on that the power play gives you a reward fFor collecting pieces other than what you immediately need to win.  In other words, the "power play" encourages offensive moves, not just defensive moves.

On the surface, I note that the power play move does make it a separate game.  *THIS* is Caldera, and *THIS* is Volcano.  People can choose to mix and match rules, and that's cool, but by making each game distinct, it makes the rules and the idea of the game unique.  Caldera isn't just "6 cap volcano," it can be its own game.

The question, in my mind, becomes this: Does Caldera Need to be its own game?  Or is it enough to be a new name fFor an old fFavorite?  That's almost a business decision!

I will endeavor to get more playtesting in!!

not an issue. My daughter loves her xeno set and any time we can use them she is happy. I was just offering an alternative to the needing of another full mono stash to play volcano.  I will have to look, but i remember reading somewhere , where it was suggested to use lego's or small rubber bands for the caps....

 

Anyway, we will be play testing caldera again today. I'll report later on how it went.

i have played this three seperate times now. The powerPlay rule is very nice. it works well. I'd keep it in the rules.

I might just show up for this one, I am planning to spend a couple of weeks in Europe in May. :-) Not sure I will participate but I'd love to meet you guys.

Actually, Zark City was only released online, it's not in 3HOUSE...

 

Hope y'all enjoy the new version! The Ace power rocks!!!

Does this mean we can't play with a Lost Cities deck any more?

 

After a quick read, I think I need to play this. The ace rule will change everything, as well as the new attack rules, but I need to play a few games to decide what I really think.

Yes, we lose the Lost Cities option with this new version... but it's worth it - the variable power of the face cards is really cool. But in keeping with the original Lost Cities influence, some day (next year?) when we publish a custom deck of cards for Zark City it will have 5 suits...

Some of my comments are fairly rules-lawyery, but so are some of the people I game with.  I haven't playtested the new version yet, so this is all just based on reading the rules.

Draw Action - I might emphasize that you get a total of 4 cards, including the free draw, because people might ask even though it says "three more cards."

Draw Action - The "discard" clause is redundant because of the Hand Limit rule.  If it's there to call attention to the hand limit, I might say something like, "Be sure to observe the Hand Limit rule and discard down to six."  When I saw there was a free draw, my first thought was, "Is there a hand limit if you're just doing the free draws?"  I found the rule, but others might overlook it or forget if they're just looking at the Action block.

Fly Action - It looks like diagonally adjacent is sufficient when you do the Fly Action.  I couldn't find anywhere else that defined adjacent, so some people might think diagonally adjacent is also sufficient for building, moving, attacking and hatching.  Maybe it is, but it should be clarified in the rules.  Two other questions I have in that regard.  Is it only allowed to have diagonal adjacency for the cards you leave behind, or can you fly to a diagonally adjacent space?  Can you detach a section as long as you reattach it when you land, or does it have to remain attached at all times?

Jokers - Are they required?

Goal - Do you have to occupy all three cards in a Power Block in order to win?  I always assumed so, but neither the current rules nor the old rules explicitly require it in the "Goal" section.  The intro says "completely control" but "control" is not explicitly defined.

If only this had been posted on Saturday, I could have used these new rules instead of the old ones I played with then....

 

That said, I really like the changes.  The ace power is definitely going to be a big one, in my opinion, and the change to the attack rules is for the better.  I look forward to playing again soon.

One request about a 5 suit Zark City deck -- please Please PLEASE make such a deck also playable as standard cards 2-A complete in all 5 suits.  I'm thinking of 5 Crowns, which excited me at the time even more by the ability to play other card games in 5 suits than the game itself (basically rummy) and then disappointed by not being a complete deck.

Goal: Yes, as I understand it, "completely control" is defined as "all of the pyramids on the three cards of a Power Block are pyramids of your color." Check under "goal," not just under the intro paragraph.

 

I hope that helps.

 

I also just played this over the weekend (and with a brand new pyramid player). I wish I had these new rules then. It looks like a lot of fun (and it may compensate for some of the weaknesses of the original).

Had a chance to play twice at lunch. Only 2 players though.

 

Wow. This is a completely different game! It seems to play a lot faster than the old rules. Over all, I like it, and I _think_ I like it better than the old rules, but it's hard to think of it as the same game.

 

I agree with the comment about defining adjacent. Diagonal connection is sufficient for flying a card, but could you move a card to a point where it is only diagonally connected? We played assuming that you could only attack, move, and fly to, spaces orthogonally adjacent, but it would be good to clarify that.

The ability to manipulate the cards on the table was something that I always felt was missing from Zark City.  Also, the new attack rules sound like a lot of fun... I can't wait to try it out!

Another rules-lawyerly/looking-for-loopholes type of question:

 

On an Attack action, the rules imply -but don't state - that you can't "get extra change", i.e. discard more Face cards than you need to spend, just to get (more) cards back.  It does say you can only get one or two cards... but, for example, if you're attacking a Medium, can you discard three Jacks and get a card?  

We got in a 2-player game tonight, and I'm agreeing with the concerns about "control" and adjacency.  We assumed that control means that you're the sole owner of the card, but it feels weird for the wording to only show up under the Fly option.  I'd say lose it in the Fly rules or work in the definition and use it in the goal rules.

 

The adjacency issue only comes up because the corner-to-corner clause in Fly leads to questions about whether movement, attacking, and building also work diagonally.  We decided (correctly?) not, but it again left us unsettled that there were two different connection behaviors.  Does it really harm anything to (my preference) forbid isolating even in the corner-to-corner case?   Alternatively, are there truly good reasons to prevent isolation (if movement doesn't go diagonally, pieces are just as isolated as if there were a full card gap separating from the rest of the board)

Ok. I didn't see where anyone mentioned this so here it goes.

Under Attack: it says ”If you spend more attack

points that required"...  It should be "than required"

The other point is kind of nit-picky but

"The ideal deck for this game has square cards" Square cards would have equal sides.... wouldn't it be better to say "A standard deck of cards is ideal for this game" or "A standard poker deck of cards is ideal for this game"

 

I like how the games play.

My only thing is the diagonal touching of cards after the ace power.

We played that if two cards were not in full contact (a flat to a flat) then you could not move a pyramid from the one card to the other. But that they were still in contact corner to corner. This allowed for pieces to become trapped. A strategy we used to good end. :)

I've been thinking about making a Tarrotless custom deck that works with Gnostica, Zarnica & Zark City (obviously, you wouldn't need all the cards with all the games) working along similar lines.

I just read the rules for the first time, and I second all the points Jeff said.  More details:

 

Fly - When I read the rules, I thought perhaps it meant this:

 X X _      X _ _

 _ X _      X X _

That is, you can temporarily leave 2 cards just touching diagonally, as long as you connect them again when you put the card down.  But I also thought, maybe it means this:

X X _      X _ _

_ X _      _ X _

_ _ _      _ _ X

That is, maybe you can leave them touching diagonally, with no way of moving between them until more cards are added. 

Which is meant?

 

Gotta run right now.  More later.

Good question.  The way we have been playing is closer to example two with one change.

xX-  x--

-x-  -x-

---  -X-

 

The moving cards new space that has to be connected by more then just a corner.

The other two moves allowed in your example are:

x--  x--

Xx-  -xX

---  ---

 

Of course Andy might have changed how he is playing the "fly" rule since I last played;)

The point of the "square cards" comment is that with square cards, it's better because you don't have to alternate orientation.  I can see where you might be confused; I kind of did a double take when I first saw it.  Maybe that comment should be more explicit: "The ideal deck for this game has square cards that line up in every direction."  Or something.

"The ideal deck for this game has square cards.  Barring that, standard, rectangular playing cards work just fine.  The game is also quite playable with oval, circular, triangular, or whatever other wacky shape of cards you have around, it just may be a bit harder to lay out the board.  Don't let that stop you, though!"

Maybe we should just drop the whole reference to square cards altogether?

Just because we have plans to later publish a custom square deck for this game, does not mean that the current rule sheet that is available to teach the version you can play with standard cards needs to mention anything about the fact that we like using a square deck...

I think that's wise, Kristin.  If/when you release a Zark City set with square cards, you can talk about square vs. rectangular cards in its rulebook, but right now it is confusing.

More comments:

Notes: The notes section has more than just notes; it has several important rules that are not mentioned anywhere else.  I recommend that they be moved up into other spots in the rules sheet:

- Size Matters.  I'd put this in the Turn Options area, e.g. "GROW  Replace one of your pieces with the next larger size, if you have one.  If not, you may not Grow it."  "SPAWN  Add a small pyramid to a card you occupy, if you have one; if not you may not Spawn."

- Hand Limit.  I think this would go better in the Turn description: "On your turn, A) draw 1 card into your hand; B) take 1 Action, and finally C) discard from your hand (if necessary) until you have 6 cards. The 8 possible Actions are:"  A reminder that the hand limit does not apply until the end of your turn would still be useful in the Notes.

- Aces and Faces, Expanding the Board.  These could both go in the Build description: "Add a number card from your hand to an empty spot on the board next to a card you occupy.  (Aces and face cards are not placed on the board, but only used for their special powers.)  Any time you add a card to the table, place it at a 90º angle to the card next to it (see figure)."  Then capitalize "Build" in the Hatch description, to make it clear that the Build restrictions also apply to Hatching. 

- Jokers are Jacks.  This could stay in the Notes, or be moved to the Attack description: "Kings are worth 3 pips, Queens 2 pips, and Jacks (and Jokers, if they are in the deck) 1 pip."

- Re-Shuffling.  This is a good sort of thing to be in the Notes section. 

Well, it looks like I've possibly left only 1 thing in the Notes!  I think this will end up using less space in the rules sheet, as well as making the rules clearer, so it should be worth it.  If there is more room, there might be an illustration of good and bad Fly actions, as well as a repeat of the winning condition, so the rules feel like they are ending. 

Terminology: Rules questions would be reduced if:

A) Certain terms were used consistently, without synonyms, e.g. "adjacent", "connected", "next to" should not be interchanged freely, because they deal with concepts that have specific game meanings.

B) Terms were explicitly defined, either in a separate section, or on the fly during all the rules.  An example of the first would be:

"GAME TERMS 

The board consists of the number cards played on the table, and on which pyramids may be placed and moved.  Two such cards are adjacent if their sides touch; they are connected if either their sides or corners touch.  You occupy a card if one or more of your pyramids is on it; you control a card if you are the only player that occupies it.  Three cards that are adjacent make a trio.  Two special kinds of trios are Power Blocks: the Suited Run and the 3 of a Kind:

[their descriptions follow]

GOAL

You win if you control all 3 cards of a Power Block."

Then most of the uses of the words "next to" or "connected" would be replaced with "adjacent".  (Or eliminated -- for the Suited Run, "They don’t have to be connected in order.")  The use of "connected" in the Fly action description might stay, if the diagonal touching is allowed (which I'm not sure about yet -- see my earlier comment).

Again, this is an example.  Lots of other ways are possible, but hopefully you get the idea.

 

[Hmm.  I posted a reply before this one, giving suggestions about moving the stuff in Notes to be up in the rules.  I'd just edited it to reflect the use of the word "adjacent", but it's not coming back on my screen.  I hope it's not lost in limbo.]

Hm. What's the reasoning behind the Joker rule? Is it just for balance so there are enough attack cards in play? If I can make a wild suggestion:

 

If your deck includes Jokers, feel free to decide on a rule for using them before the game begins. Some examples:

• Jokers count as Jacks.

• Jokers are number cards which count as wild: they can act as the third card in any Power Block.

• Discarding a Joker allows you to exchange an unoccupied card on the board with a number card from your hand.

• Discarding a Joker allows you to move any opponent's piece to any other spot on the board.

 

And so on. Mostly this would be to please the Gnostica/Zarcana loyalists among us who want to incorporate more of those rules into our Zark City games.

I wondered the same about the jokers  It seems like they should be their own thing.  The rules for Unocitta (Zark City with an Uno deck) combine 1 and 2, using wild as either a) wild on the board or b) a 3-pip attack (same as Wild Draw 4), player's choice.

I like this idea!  Using Jokers as a separate thing from the face cards would add more tactical variety.

The traditional card deck has a limited number of card types we can use.  Another advantage of a custom Zark deck is that Andy could add not only a 5th suit but as many special cards as he wishes.  Yes, please!

I found a deck of square shaped playing cards perfect for Zark City, if anyone else is interested! Go to: http://www.puzzlemethis.com/cgi-bin/puzzle/USG79483.html

Thank you everyone for all the great input on this thread!

Andy appreciates all the rules lawyers who have picked apart his written rules, and will be taking this feedback and updating the rules sheet for the version 2.0 rules which use the standard deck of playing cards. This will then be the published version of the game...  we will run the tournament at Origins with these rules, and the web pages that offer rules for the 13 games promoted in the Pocket Guide to Looney Pyramids will be this rules set.

As far as the square deck future 3.0 version of the rules which we are also working on, and which many folks have also been discussing...  again, thank you for your input - your ideas will be considered - but please let's end this debate for the time being.  This product is still more than a year off, and we need to focus on the launch of IceDice and Seven Dragons right now.  When we are ready for more playtesting on the eventual custom Zark City square card deck we will be sure to let the Starship Captains in on the testing! 

We need to get Seven Dragons off to the printer first...  so don't expect the updated 2.0 rules sheet for a week or so (maybe longer).

My thoughts on the Jokers: leave it the way it is now, as it helps to make getting rid of 1 pips easier and encourages people to upgrade. That said, I also like Jonah's rule about exchanging a card from the board with one form your hand as an additional option (as I doubt it will be too destabilizing).

 

As Bryan wrote above, The "Jokers are Jacks" note should simply be put in the Attack description.

 

BTW. Who doesn't have Jokers in their card packs? And if they actually threw them out, cards sell for $1, so I don't see anything wrong with including Joker rules in the game.

 

I just played with these new rules last night, and they work really good. However, we haven't had the chance to play with the Ace rule yet.

First, I'd like to send a big thank you to everyone who posted comments in this thread! I've just finished a massive revision of the rulesheet and I really appreciate all the great feedback. Bryan, your edit suggestions were particularly helpful. I think the new version is much clearer! (But I'm sure you'll let me know if there's anything that's still too vague...)

I've posted the new version here:
http://wunderland.com/WTS/Andy/Games/ZarkCity/index.html

I also wanted to address the topics that came up in the last few messages. First, to answer the question of why the Jokers are merely Jacks: It's to make the standard deck as close as possible to my ideal design, which is played with a deck that not only has 5 suits, but also has 1 King, 2 Queens, and 3 Jacks for each suit. So I'm happy with the Jokers simply providing more low level firepower.

As to the broader suggestion, of using the Jokers to add various wacky actions to the game: That's not something I want to do. While I recognize and appreciate the grand tradition of the trump powers in Zarcana and Gnostica, that's not something I'm trying to replicate here. It was only after years of thought and playtesting that I decided there was one other power I really wanted to pull in, and now that I've got that and everything's working well, I expect I'll be reluctant to add any further complexities.

As an analogy, consider our version of Werewolf vs. the many other published editions of the game. Some players enjoy including every new character they encounter, but our version eschews everything but the core elements, and we think the game is stronger for it. (And the huge crowds who show up at cons to play the game our way prove that we're not the only ones.)

But I did seriously consider it -- we even playtested a couple of other possible power ideas, using Jokers. And we didn't like them.

Anyway, I thank everyone again for their input into the rulesheet. You'll find that I've massively rewritten the rules, and yet, I haven't changed anything about the way the game is played!

Looks good!

I agree.  It looks very good! I don't notice any ambiguities or omissions.  Glad I could be of help.

I look forward to playing it at Origins.

This happened a few weeks ago, but I forgot to post it here: I finally got around to trying out the new rules, and I'm super impressed! I wasn't a big fan of Zark City before (it was barely in my top ten), but the aces really do change everything. My skepticism about some of the rules (e.g. diagonal adjacency being okay for maintaining connectedness of the board) dissipated quickly too, once I saw how it actually played out:

 

In a three-player game (turn order: Red, Cyan, Yellow), Red discards an ace to separate (orthogonally) the 7-8-9 of clubs from the rest of the board, where the 7 is empty, the 8 contains two reds and a cyan pawn, and the 9 contains only reds. Cyan, to Yellow: "I can't attack her. I think we lose." Yellow: "I've got plenty of royalty. Do you have an ace?" Cyan: "Sure do." Cyan flies a card containing pyramids of all three colors, depositing it next to the 8. Yellow, now close enough to attack, captures one of Red's pyramids and the game continues. 

 

The original game never allowed quite that level of cooperation, so it really took me by surprise. Needless to say, I've updated the order of my Starship Captain list.

Hey Tim,

 

We played that you could leave a "patch" of cards diagonally connected as well as moving a card to have it connect diagonally, isolating it from the rest of the cards. 

 

I think the new attack option is really great!  The group thought it to be more advantageous in lieu of the older style.  We called the ability to draw over the amount of the attack (excess of attack points needed for the attack) slash damage, over-kill, or penetration damage (Hackmaster references are always good).

 

Overall, the new rules rawked in my groups eyes in comparison to te older Zark City (which was always a favorite of mine with almost thirty sessions under my belt).  Saturday, we were able to get five games played through in a very short amount of time. 

 

Great changes... Yes!

I agree with Bryan.  While we were playing, we were rolling around the notion of a custom deck for use with Pyramid games.  Zark City 2.0 would be an excellent way to get the War Gamer and Strategist to drop hard cash on some Pyramids and a saweet custom Pyramid themed deck.

Hey Greg,

 

We too liked the Jokers to be included in the rules.  It added two more cards to add to an attack!              

 

We were using the Ace rule all throughout the game, trouncing each others solidified grounds.  The Ace rule was a real powerful game change, and much welcomed.

Tried a couple of games with the new rules, and I love the Ace card's ability. It really works out nicely.

I'm wondering if there is some reason for placing the cards perpendicular to each other as opposed to all the same direction (as in Aquarius) -- that would have the same effect as far as I can tell and would be less confusing.

It helps reinforce the fact that you cannot move diagonally.  And looks kind of cool.

 

There's no problem with putting the cards in the same direction.  In fact, if they bring out a square deck for the game as they've mintioned, we'll have to do it that way!

I quietly ignore the perpendicular placement rule, oftentimes, and place cards in a way that works with the size of the table.  With a narrow table, cards get placed narrow end to narrow end, running long-wise down the table, so we are less likely to run off the edge.

The alternating shape does look kinda cool, but it's not a big deal to me.

Also, are anyone else's dice wearing out? I'm starting to get fading on the pip die and scratches on the color die already.

woah!  already!?  Mine seem okay, but i guess i havent played as much as you.

It's pretty much the same problem as the 1st gen dice for FFG's Doom board game.

 

Painted on dice sides seem to be susceptible to getting scraped off.

 

In other news, no problem fitting 5 stashes in the bag.

Last year I invented a Treehouse Bowling game which involved sliding the die at the pyramids.  I found that the paint started wearing off then, too. 

Maybe I'll try clear fingernail polish on the dice to see how well that protects them.

regarding the dice...   the factory assured me that the final run would not have this problem, but I decided not to risk it - and instead ponied up a big pile of cash to make a mold to create etched dice for the full print run. 

 

so if anyone asks about the quality of the dice - tell them the product that comes out in June will have beautiful etched dice that are incapable of rubbing off!  

to answer Evan's original question...

I have done a bit of experimentation with the ratio of stashes to players for IceDice games with large numbers of players, and the main conclusion I came to is that I think IceDice is best as a 2 player game!   Our testing did not give us a clear answer on number of stashes for 5 or 6 players, but we felt that 3 or 4 players really needs one stash per player, so we decided to write the rules as a simple 'one stash per player' for more players.   

One of many reasons I wanted to get the game into the hands of our demo team early is for continued testing on this question...  what should we recommend for 5+ players?  Please do some more testing everyone and let us know what you think!  

Great!!  Is this just for IceDice, or will TreeHouse dice also be etched? 

I am not planning to etch the Treehouse dice...  we have not had a problem with them, and we have tons of extras, so can replace them easily if anyone reports a problem...

My goal of trying to play with less pyramids than players was to emphasize the interaction of stealing from other players when the bank runs out. The risk is of course that you could end up with a game that goes on for longer than people's interest if there's too few pyramids per player.

I found the 4/3 game to be right on the edge of that interaction vs. length line where I almost felt it went on too long, but I also thought that pretty much anyone had a chance of winning; whereas the 5/5 game since there was so little stealing it kind of felt inevitable that the guy with the most pyramids would probably win.

I agree it's probably best with 2 players, but I rarely end up at a board game event with a need for a 2 player game. Also, I really don't have a large sample size for games played yet, to take my findings with a grain of salt.

And upcoming dice?  Like PD?

The fFirst time i played icedice, it was mistakenly with 4 players and 3 stashes.  1 stash too fFew.  Everyone was stealing fFrom everyone else too much.  it was too easy to keep anyone fFrom winning.

I imagine having 1 stash too many would be alright, but the game might be made too easy perhaps, in that you would not have things stolen fFrom you as often.

I guess this becomes a way to scale the game up or down in difficulty.  If you want an easier game, add another stash.  If you want a longer game, remove a stash.  This doesn't make the game completely invalid or unplayable: the basic concept still relies on the dice rolling your way, and pressing your luck at getting the piece you need.  But the likelihood of being stolen fFrom can go up or down.

We'll playtest this!!

I played this weekend with a group of 5, and after we were done (2 plays), a couple of players suggested, unsolicited, that the game would be more interactive with one fewer stash.  We didn't actually try it, though, so I don't know what effect that might have had on game length.  I've previously played with 2, 3, and 4 (not bad for only 6 logged plays, total!) and it seemed to me that it might be worth trying 3 stashes with 4 players, too.  I'm not sure I'd want to try IceDice with many more than 5.  I once tried Treehouse with 7, and that was too many.

I'll see if I can get it to the table with "stashes minus one" sometime.

Kristin

 

The 'color' die will be etched in some way as well, for the June release?

nope - the color die will be just like in the sample bags - pad printed colored dots & atom - there is no way to etch the colored dots! 

I played with 5/5 for a few rounds. Most players tended to aim for gathering three different color trios over same color trios. This had the effect that no one ever had to steal from anyone, thus making it impossible to try to prevent someone from winning. (It was more of a race than a game.) We then tried 5/4. Since there was actually interaction there, it made the game more interesting if a little bit longer.  I have thought about trying 5/3 for a more cutthroat game, though there are still enough pyramids for every player to get the required nine to win. 

It depends a lot on how much interaction you'd want in a push your luck game... some people prefer the Yatzee/Cosmic Wimpout method of the interaction being limited to the scores of other players... My standard of how much interaction to shoot for was something around the 2/2 level... but as you add players and stashes in parity you loose interaction almost entirely around the 4/4 level.

 

Anyways, it's been a while and I'm probably repeating myself, so in other news, a friend of mine keeps asking when he can buy this... any hints?

I still can't say - but I can say, that I will be able to say, very soon...  before we leave for Origins in less than two weeks!

WOO HOO!!!  =)

Great picture...I love this shade of yellow

I got my order in...both an upgrade kit AND an electric yellow pyramid stash!

 

Thanks!  :)

 

Warren

Cool! Just ordered them. Along with some other stuff I've been meaning to order. Thank you for making these available.

Thanks for the opportunity to buy these. Just placed my order for them both. also got some other things for running demos. thanks again.

I know I've commented a couple times over the last few years that there's no need for yet another tansparent color.  But these are sweet!  They would definitely stand out in a game of Martian Hold'em.

well we certainly didn't make them on purpose!

Woo! Just ordered them! Ordered some other spare pyramids stuff at the same time.

The Ice Dice deal looks like a good buy for those of us who already have a good collection of pyramids.  I can't wait to try out those new games with friends.

 

Also, you mentioned something about how a few monochrome stashes from the final KLON batch will be put up for Starship Captains to purchase. Will those be up later in the week? I'll probably put an order in once those come up.

All the remainging USA made pyramids are on sale in our webstore:

http://store.looneylabs.com/Web-Store/Pyramid-Products

Sure, I understand that.  I just mean it seems* every time off-color "oops" pyramids, such as these and the rootbeer ones, are made available, the call for more colors is renewed.  But don't let that stop you from making them available when they happen.  I've already ordered my lemon-lime ones.  :-)

 

* "Seems": I didn't actually go back through my email archive to count rootbeer comments.  This is just my recollection.

Ah! There they are. Thanks Kristin!

Oh, my! Just ordered both, I'm glad I stopped by the library considering I don't have internet at the moment!

I put in my order yesterday or the day before (and was notified that it shipped when I looked at my email this morning); I think that's a nifty color. I think they're distinct enough from the 'correct' yellow to be a color in their own right (fluorescent chartreuse, about the same color as was used on black-light posters in the '60s and '70s), and perfectly in keeping with the image that Looney Labs has presented.

 

Thank you for making this Limited Edition available (I missed out on Watermelon and Root Beer)!

The IceDice kit looks great. I think the new packaging is going to go a long way towards attracting new customers. But I think the best part of the whole thing is the Looney Pyramids booklet. Those are going to come with TreeHouse too, right? Having something like that that explains so well that there are so many other great games you can play with the pyramids is really going to help.

 

Now I need to go give Launchpad 23  a try.

Got mine in the mail today - cool

The Electic Yellow stash was bubbly (air bubbles in plastic), but a cool color. (hope the new ones are better)

The Upgrade kite was way cool, and look forward to it being on the market.

I got my Electric Yellow pyramids and my IceDice Upgrade Kit yesterday.  Random observations:

- I immediately transferred the new pyramids to an old pyramid tube I had lying around.  Old habits die hard.

- The material used for the IceDice bags is thinner than I expected.  It appears to be sturdy, though.  So I have high hopes that it will be sturdy enough to handle pyramids poking at it and malleable enough to be stuffed into the corner of the game box.

- I'm currently a bit annoyed at the small size of the booklets included in the IceDice bag, because I haven't figured out yet how to incorporate them into my pyramid box.  They're too small for my "rules folder".  No doubt I'll figure it out eventually.

- I'm glad to see my worries about the readability of the Looney Pyramids Guide are unfounded.  The text is nice and large.  I'll be interested to compare it to the smaller Treehouse version.

- Now I'm wondering when LooneyPyramids.com will be updated to include rules to all the games in the Guide.  We're all getting all these extra Guides to hand out, after all.

I got mine today. The electric yellow are VERY nice.

I like the new IceDice bag , my only worry is about pyramid breakage. But that is more about me and my luck than anything else.  Somehow I got the notion that the launchpad 23 game board was going to be a coaster.  Again, I looked back and all it ever said was that you were going to include a board.

All in all. I'm pretty satisfied with the whole thing.

 

Now I just have to wait for those new mids to come out....

 

Come on Robin! It's off to the game store!! We have some demo-ing to do!

Received mine yesterday, along with the IDUK I ordered at the same time.  The Fluorescent Chartreuse pyramids are nice; only minor bubbles near the tips of some of them, none breaking the outer surface.  The pic doesn't do them justice, really; they were quite fluorescent under, well, fluorescent (though not 'black') light.  They are distinct from the standard ('correct') yellow, but not quite distinct enough that I'd be comfortable playing a game with both FC and standard yellow 'mids.

 

While I'm not (yet) calling for new colors - I feel I have a moral obligation to come up with the colors I think should be added before I do, and I don't really feel strongly enough about any particular color - I do think that going for the deliberately-fluorescing colors would be very much in keeping with the 'offbeat' (and somewhat '60s-ish) image that I perceive Looney Labs as having deliberately cultivated.

 

The new electric yellow pyramids make for a very psychedelic game of Volcano.

I just now got around to ripping open the bag of electric yellow pyramids after getting them a couple days ago.

 

1.  Love the color.  Wait... let me capitalize all four letters there: LOVE the color.

 

2. A bit disappointed with their stacking ability, or rather the lack thereof.  I set up five nests and not one of the larges is grounded.  (80% of the mediums on smalls are ok, it's the larges on mediums that are a problem.)  Of course, that's not a big deal for 99% of the existing pyramid games.  However I could see it coming into play during a game of Zendo, which is where about 30% of my pyramid gaming time is still spent.  I may have to take a dremel to the inside of the point of each of the larges, as the problem seems to be caused by a little extra material in that area.  From what's been mentioned in another thread, I understand the pieces from the new mold won't have this problem.  Yea!

 

I agree, fluorescent, psychedelic mids would be fantastic!

OK. I like the new bag, but I already broke the tip off a large blue. It was old , so it gave me an excuse to buy another rainbow treehouse set from my LFGS.  Here is a picture of what I have put in the bag, and there is still room. (not in the picture are a starter set of zendo cards) I think I am going to try and find a chessboard bandana...

Are those zpips? Nice! What are all the d6s for?

I managed to wedge 5 martian coasters in the bottom of my IceDice bag, but they stretch it out a bit and are a bit tricky to get in and out. I don't think I'll be completely retiring my BlackIce bag, but I'll probably carry both.

Yes. Those are zpips. I thought of putting martian coasters in there, but I didn't think they would all fit. The regular dice are for world war 5. Also, I find that for any game where you need a regular die, having a colored die that matches each persons chosen pyramid color to be a bonus.  No passing of dice, and it gives a feeling of ownership. "OK now I roll MY dice" :)  I have a couple of sets like this that I bought at a dollar store. Sometimes, just to make the person feel good about playing the games, I'll give the dice away when we are done. I haven't had one demo yet where someone has turned down the dice. I have had a couple where they bought a set of treehouse from the FLGS because they liked the game and already had the "cool matching dice".

 

I think I am going to look for a checkerboard bandana to add to this. There used to be one in the store, but I don't see it anymore.

 

 

OK. I got a little impulsive this afternoon. since I couldn't find a fabric chess board anywhere...

I made my own. It fits in the bag nicely. I'm thinking about making some other cloth boards as well. Volcano, Pharaoh, Twin Win....  hmmm

Nice!  How did you make it?  With a special cloth marker?

Yes. I used a fabric marker from the local craft store. I have also sewn the rough edges since I took this picture.

Sweet. Got my order of the Electric yellow pyramids in. I thought about getting the demo kit, but I was planning on buying an IceDice set and the smaller version to make into a travel sized set.

W00t! They've finally arrived today - do I have the first set in the UK?

Nice.

I dare you to try a full set of 6 fabric chessboard wedges ;p

I have since made a launchpad 23 fabric board and a blue side/red sidetwo player martian chess board. I have plans on making the full set of martian chess wedges next.

http://www.ee0r.com/tri-chess/tri-chess.pdf

 

Now that I made Starship Captain today, I ordered my Electric Yellow pyramids!!

Only 1 of my larges touches when the pieces are nested. And they get kind of stuck in a tube. And since I bought a bunch of tubes for storing them all, I'll have to find something different for these AWESOME yellow ones.

Try an older tube - I was having the same problem; I took out a random different stash (I think it was either blue or black, and the yellows fitted that tube fine, and the old 'mids slipped into one of my new tubes ok as well. No idea how or why.

Personally, I probably wouldn't buy any fluorescent colors if they were too close to the standard primary and secondary colors that we already have. I like to think that any of the colors that I have are distinct enough to add to games, in any grouping, without causing too much confusion.

 

That said, I love the prior two stashes that were made by mistake. The watermelon stash is my personal favorite, but it might not be as easy to sell/produce. However, I believe that a brown or "root beer" transparent stash would be popular, and work well with the existing palette. Of course, opaque or even semi-transparent grey/silver would be welcome as well.

Not trying to be a downer, but I think I'm the only starship captain not buying either of these! As a Xeno man, the color die isn't going to be too useful, and I think I like the pink stash more than the neon.

 

Still, Im going to take advantage of the blowout to upgrade to a 5house set and a pink stash, so it's all still good times.

Newly joined here, probably going to get one of the new bags, since I don't currently have a nice carry solution.

Since I've seen a few comments about the corners - how have the pyramids/bags been holiding up for people after some extended use? Any breakage (pyramids) or tearing (bags)?

Also, can anyone post some photos highlighting the difference in colors between the electric yellow and standard yellow? Comparisons are hard when the lighting isn't the same. I'd also be interested in a shot showing the standard red, and the current run that are supposed to be lighter.

Thanks!

As a lover of Pyramids, I would be remiss if I didn't get the IceDice bag and those gorgeous yellow pyramids! Plus I completely spoiled myself by finally getting a Volcano board and Eleven Black Tiles. Hey, you never know when the EBT will be useful...

 

(Pharoh, anyone?)

These yellows really do POP!  I hated to add them into the mix of a Home Worlds game on Saturday, but relished their beauty while playing Martian Chess.  Thanks for the opportunity to yet again purchase a great product from you guys!

Are the Electric Yellow pyramids a Starship Captain secret?

Or can I mention their existence in the "Color" article on the IcehouseOrg wiki?

Their existence certainly does not need to be secret - so feel free to mention them!   Please don't publish the link to buy them, just say you have to be registered as an official Starship Captain to buy them, and give a link to this page: http://looneylabs.ning.com/page/starship-captains

Done!

Ok, for comparison purposes, here are the three different sets of yellows that I have.  On the far left, you can see KLON yellow pyramids from my Martian Chess set (you see pictured in the back), the middle set are the Electric Yellows and the right side are from the current IceDice sets.  Sorry about the picture quality, it's from my cell phone.

Ok, as have been pointed out, the interior of the Queen's tips are not well formed, thus the drones do not nest well inside of them.  There are a lot more air bubbles in the set of Electrics than any other 'mids that I have, but none of them break the exterior surface.  None appear to break the interior surface either.

However, the pawns and drones appear to be fairly well formed without an abnormal amount of air bubbles. They nest and stack well.  And the color really does POP out at you, especially when sitting with a rainbow stash.

And, if you're letting this talk you out of getting a set, you probably weren't serious about getting them anyway.  While I'm disapointed with KLON for the quality of some of these 'mids, I think that they will be a nice addition to the set that I have.

Woohoo, just became a starship captain and ordered mine now I just hope to someday find a gray set.

I am actually brand new to Looney Pyramids and am going to order the ice dice and some of the pyramids from the blow-out sale. How many sets are needed for Icedice?

The IceDice set will have the equivalent of 2 rainbow staches, that is 2 trios in each of the rainbow colors (red, yellow, green, blue, black).  Unfortunately, the Labs store is out of stock of the rainbow replacement sets, so I'd recommend seeing if you could find a couple of them at online, or at a local store.

I was thinking about getting the sets of red, yellow, green, cyan (out of blue), and black so I can start playing other games too

Hey Kristin! I recently lucked out at getting a job at Berserk Games/Card Kingdom here in Seattle!

Let me know what I can do aside from demoing to help!

So the # of pyramids needed is basically 2 Treehouse sets? (with different colors)

IceDice uses the equivalent of two rainbow Treehouse sets worth of pyramids.  The dice specify red/yellow/blue/green/black, so you'd need some sort of conversion chart if you used colors other than rainbow.

Just got my upgrade kit in the mail. and I'm already "moved into" the new bag from an old black hemp bag.

 

Compared to the old bag...

 - Love the zipper a LOT more than the drawstring.

 - Like the standuppedness.

 - Like the loop of string at the top.

 - Love the color and the logo.

 - Only slightly disappointed with the capacity.  If I have the 5.3 stashes needed for Volcano, then the glass stones for Zendo don't fit.  If I cut the pyramids down to just four stashes, then the stones fit.  So I can load up for Volcano or Zendo but not both.  Unlike the black hemp bag, I can't also carry an old CD for CrackeD'ICE.  Then again, this may be an unfair criticism since the IceDice bag isn't MEANT to be the uber carryall. 

 

I'll just have to get a Treehouse bag and connect the two together at the loop of string.  The IceDice bag can hold the pyramids in relative comfort, while the Trehouse house can carry all the dice (IceDice, Treehouse, regular), Zendo stones and anything else.

 

I can't wait to show my Ice Dice bag to my local game store guys!

If you buy Xeno sets, like I did/do, there's a color conversion that Andy drew up for Xeno Homeworlds. I use it for almost everything.

Black = White

Yellow = Clear

Blue = Purple

Red = Orange

Green = Cyan

It's a little tricky since Cyan is incredibly blue, but it fits for Homeworlds.

I'm holding on to the hope that there will be a XENO color die or at least stickers to make a custom color die.

I officially started a Looney Game Demo Night at my local Comic/Game store, Collectors Corner. If you're local to the Parkville MD area, stop on by Wednesdays at 6! I'll be sure to let everyone know how it went.

I just got my kit!!! :-D I love the bag! With a LOT of finagling I was able to fit 9 stashes inside it with the dice.... just because I wanted to try and see if they'd fit! So, little bit of FYI for you all. Probably would fit 8 more comfortably than 9.

First one went pretty well! How do I get more of those pyramid overview books?

I'll organize a Looney Labs demo event with my local game store- which hosts one of my gaming groups- and put a special emphasis on Seven Dragons and Ice Dice. I should be able to post info about a public event in another week or so.

I've seen a couple of accounts of how many stashes people can squeeze into the icedice bags, but how many stashes are *technically* supposed to be able to fit in it? How about the treehouse bags? (Will the latter be available for separate sale at some point, like the icedice upgrades?)

 

Put another way, if I have a large set of stashes (I always carried 6 nests of each color in my tubes!), how many bags is the recommended number to try and put all of my pieces in? Or should I be looking for an alternative carry case?

Upgrade kit rawks!  I played through a total of ten games thus far since it hit my doorstep yesterday.  Took the new package to work and showed the game(s) around to a few people there during a lunch break (not too many gamers, if none at all where I work).

 

First impressions:

Sick, really dig the bag. My friend Dan Isaac has an extremely sick Icehouse sack (with Icehouse spelled out in pyramids) to carry the awesomeness that encompasses even the tinniest of Icehouse pawns and all Icehouse pieces.  NOW I have something to carry 5 Icehouse sets in, some custom Martian Chess, Coaster, Launchpad 23 components, and dice. 

 

I will begin my task of DEMOing at two locations in Hickory NC, and on holidays at Sci-Fi City in TN (Knoxville).  I will also get a hold of Blitzkrieg games in Asheville (if not already talked to and planning on carrying the new product).  They were the store that I purchased 75% of my Icehouse pieces from, and it's almost an hour and a half away...

 

I must say, my blood has been rekindled with ICE. 

 

I will do my best to make sure that the sick-awesomeness that is Icehouse gets well known in the Statesville area... ;-) mwahahahaa..

Congrats on the organized packing!  I only felt safe putting in Icehouse dice, dice for WW5, and five icehouse stashes.  I should put my "volcano caps" in there too... I have reworked some pieces for a martian chess board, and LP23 to fit perfectly in the bottom of the bag.  I am overly pleased with it. 

 

But I must confess... I am still jealous of the awesome bag that Dan Isaac has... I wonder what the possibilities of those bags coming back into existence... ... ... ;-p

 

Course there is still the purple Looney cooler...

 

I'm not certain about where YOU can get them, but here in Taiwan, there are stationary stores that carry colored dot stickers in about the right size.  I'm going to go and try to find them one of these nights to convert over a Treehouse Die or two to Xeno colors.  If I can find some blank black dice, I'll use those instead.  Once the stickers are on, use some clear nail polish to coat and smooth the die.  It should keep the stickers in place and prevent them from moving too much.  I think there's also some images of the pyramid die that could also be stuck onto a die to make an extra mid die to use with it.  Might be neat if I could invert the colors to have a set of black dice. :)

Are there any plans to make these available again? I wanted to buy a few for some friends that have the older style.

Alternatively, I see some references to a "treehouse bag" that's supposed to be larger, but can't find it anywhere on the store. I also can't find the newer dice listed, I recall there some issues making more with good quality, but didn't see any resolution.

If the upgrade kit is no longer available, but I can buy the bits separately, I'm OK doing that, instead, I just can't figure out how.

He qualifies as far as I'm concerned!

Excellent to hear -- my 5 year old is learning his 4th and 5th and keeps reminding me that he needs to know 10 to be a starship captain, so I knew this question was going to come up in our house before too many months pass ;)

How awesome is that!?  Everyone in this thread has brought a needed smile to my face.

Would be neat to have a Jr. Starship Captain badge or something "official" for the little guys.

Another Young One:  

Aidan Sydik, age 5 submits:

1. Lunar Invaders
2. Synapse Ice
3. Pyramid Shambo
4. Keepers and Creepers
5. Caldera
6. Pharaoh
7. IceDice
8. Treehouse
9. Pyramideto
10. World War 5

Space Cadet?

My 6-year-old daughter knows I'm the Captain of our starship, but if something should happen to me--say in the heat of deep-space combat--she's prepared to take command:

1. Black ICE
2. IceDice
3. Volcano
4. Blam!
5. Zark City
6. Treehouse
7. Pyrinoes
8. Timelock
9. IceSickle
10. Lunar Invaders

When I'm teaching Fluxx, I first find out what, if anything, my students have played before.  Then I know whether I need to cover everything, or just Creepers, or just Surprises, or whatever.  Then I dig through the deck for a copy or two of each card type and I go over them type by type.  I emphasize that Creepers never go into your hand.  Then I start the game.  If there's at least one newbie, I try to keep things slow at first so the newbie can keep up.

 

I don't worry too much about the version of Fluxx.  I've taught almost everything from Fluxx 3.x to Pirate Fluxx with minimal problems.  Whatever they want to learn, that's what I'll teach them.

I don't know why, but I always end up teaching people how to play Fluxx the same way I learned.  Through Zombie Fluxx.   I spread out one of each card, and explain the jist of it.  Then play a practice game with each of us showing our hands so they can see kind of what to expect.  Then we play a game for real, and I hold nothing back lol.  I've never really taught more than a couple at a time, so I'm not sure how it would work teaching a group.

Thank you guys for the suggestions :-D

The latest WWN talks about Gambling Fluxx; I was wondering if that version might be better suited for release under the FBI imprint.  I don't think gambling has quite the social stigma of drugs, booze, or nudity, but it is an activity that is often age-limited.

I was wondering that myself when I created this post but didn't bother mentioning it because it was already announced as a looney release.

So... Jeff:  after playing this a few times at Origins - what do you think?

I think it has tremendous promise. I think it's going to be hard to get just the right balance between the "gambling" and the "Fluxx." It's not just another themed Fluxx, so it's hard to get a complete sense of the game from just a couple of plays.  My second play was much closer to "ideal" than my first, but I can't sense whether one was more "normal" than the other.

In some places (like Israel) it is illegal. They don't pick on people playing at home, they go after casinos. Still, I hope I can order the game online when it's out without legal problems.

First, let me say THANK YOU for asking first!

Jeff Wolf (who wrote that article on BGG) also checked with me first - after he noticed that THIS PAGE had gone live with some basic announcement information. So anything in Jeff's article, or on that announcement page, or on this tip sheet or this tip sheet is all fair game, as they have now been announced.  Andy will also be updating Wunderland.com either late tonight or tomorrow sometime, with a whole bunch more details, and everything he says there will then be fair game.

To Brian's specific questions - 1) go ahead and answer Nate's questions about the dice, but please don't post the full artwork for the dice anywhere, and 2) please please don't post anything about a re-release of monochrome stash tubes.  First, the plan was never that these would be in tubes, and second, as it will say in Andy's article:  "(BTW, we strongly considered bringing old-school monochrome stashes in this format as well, but decided against it, for reasons both philosophical and logistical.)"

 

Let me say that again in bold for everyone to see - WE ARE NOT MAKING MONOCHROME STASHES

 

We almost did. We considered it very seriously. It was only going to be possible because I was going to continue to use our original mold in the US to make small runs of the other colors in order to make/keep the monochrome colors in print.  But yesterday, while making the first 200 sample IceDice sets at our warehouse, I discovered that not only had KLON messed up and made Cyan instead of Blue, which was the mistake that delayed us 2 weeks and meant I could only make 200 samples instead of 700, but the 1000+ Yellow shots they had sent us were also completely the wrong color yellow. They are a strange electric greenish yellow, quite nice, but not at all a match for all the other Yellow pyramids in the universe. This was the final straw for me. After months of our mold being locked up in a warehouse while KLON fought various legal troubles, and another two months of them trying to get time on some other machine while trying to get their equipment and get it back online, and then sending me a strange partial order with several of the colors wrong...   I decided yesterday that it was time to turn our US mold into a large paperweight and declare that all future pyramids will be made from the mold in China. The only true loss is that Grey pyramids will not be coming back...  we will make Xeno bags as well as Rainbow bags, so all 10 colors will be available.

 

I will be putting up a web page explaining all this in the nearish future, and until then, everything I just told you is TOP SECRET.  A whole bunch of monochrome stash colors will go up online for sale soonish, which will be the last of the US pyramids, and when they are gone, they will be gone forever.  And yes, we will be selling the remaining Electric Yellow pyramids - about 150 stashes of them - and yes, Starship Captains will have first crack at buying them.  The other HUGE benefit to you guys that comes out of all this is that we will have 500 full IceDice sets with everything *except* the pyramids that we will start to make available to our Demo Team also very soonish.  I will sort all this out and get it up online for sale after I am back from ToyFair.  Until then PLEASE KEEP ALL OF THIS INFORMATION SECRET - YOU CAN ONLY TALK ABOUT IT HERE IN THIS PRIVATE FORUM.

That's too bad about the monochrome stashes that were originally considered.  I had intended to buy two or three of them, in order to play many of the games that require a few extra stashes beyond the five tree house stashes that I have. I'm sure others were looking forward to them for their reasons as well (for whom, like me, an additional set of five Xenos stashes is impractical--not to mention undesirable as I tend to build my collection slowly, enjoying the new gaming possibilities as I go). I'm also aware that there are collectors who like to have every color you put out, and I can't blame them either. Hopefully you'll be able to eventually make monochrome stashes from your Chinese partner.

 

That said, it's good to hear about the possibility of a few monochrome stashes being sold online (the most realistic chance for me to move beyond the five sets I have). Ideally, I'd love to have at least another opaque and transparent stash (if you ever consider monochrome stashes of white, black, and clear, I think that makes some sense). Also good to hear about the IceDice sets.

Yeah, pretty much everything in my article came from public sources, except Kristin gave me permission to use the Seven Dragons graphic from the fan site.  The same image appears on the tip sheet, though, so even that is not new information.

Electric Yellow pyramids?!? Yay!!!

Electric Yellow pyramids sound cool; shame about the other monochrome stashes though - I'd have loved to see more colours.

I agree. Not that more colors are really that necessary, but I've been holding my breath for a grey set for some time now. :(

I hope it can work out somehow to make monochrome stashes officially and regularly available again some day (even if only direct from y'all by mail), including gray.

I only just joined the Starship Captains today.  Have I missed the chance for the IceDice demo set, or for the Electric Yellow pyramids? 

Have I missed the DEMO sets and the limited run stashes?

Electric Yellow pyramids and IceDice Upgrade kits just went up for sale!  

More Info: http://looneylabs.ning.com/group/starshipcaptains/forum/topics/electric-yellow-icedice

 

More things that are now public: http://www.looneylabs.com/whybuy/LooneyPyramids.html

My editor at BoardGameGeek News agreed that it's newsworthy:

 

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/blogpost/1204

 

It's too bad about the grey stashes.  It seems like I'll never be able to play that epic Pyramid game with 12 (13?) stashes in different colors...  Hope they can be reintroduced down the road.

Here are the event reports from 2010 and 2009

I would be willing to help out/host Fluxx/AYAW events.  I have never hosted an event before so any advice/hits from those who have would be greatly appreciated.

 

I know there are many looking foward to these AYAW nights as I believe they are becoming a "cult" phenomenom at Gencon.

I would love to, and am planning to, show up and run a bunch of Looney Pyramid and Fluxx games. Maybe some Are You The Traitor and Back to the Future, too. I don't really have enough time ahead of GenCon to organize a bunch of Looney Labs stuff, but I'll sign up to run games. Last year I think I ran about 20 hours of Looney Labs stuff at GenCon, and I expect to do about the same again this year. Although it may be a little less because I think I may run some stuff for Steve Jackson Games as well. My daughter is also planning on running some Looney Labs games this year.

The main problem here is that we need someone who knows the ins and outs of the event registration system. Last year, there was discussion of a third-party actually overseeing the paperwork and the like, leaving us to simply fill the hours with people. However, I heard nothing of it after that, so I never found what became of it.

 

So, in short, if any of you know how to get an event on the books, please let us know and help us out.

 

-Marissa

I know how to get single events registered. However, there is more involved for doing things as a gaming group. I don't know all of that. I think that all of the forms and instructions are available on the GenCon web site, but I haven't gone through all of them. To sign up individual events you need to register an account at gencon.com and then there is a link to submit an event with an on-line form to fill out. If you run events with a sufficient number of player-hours then you can get your admission reimbursed. You can also get some hotel costs reimbursed for a larger number of player-hours. I think that is all easier to handle if it is done as a group, but I don't know the details. My current plans are to volunteer with Steve Jackson Games and let them handle most of the paperwork, but then schedule additional Looney Labs games on my own. My wife, my daughter, and I will all be running games at GenCon. Mostly with Steve Jackson Games, but also a fair amount of Looney Labs games. I expect that we'll be able to get all of our admission and hotel room paid for, but I'm hoping to get Steve Jackson Games to do most of the paperwork. It will involve, I think, about 80 hours of running games split between the three of us. If someone want's to handle the paperwork to do a Looney Labs group I can point them in the right direction, but I don't know the details. If someone does do that, then I will switch my focus to more Looney Labs games.

 

I do have an account at gencon.com and can download the policy documents and such if someone wants to read them to learn the procedures. I just don't have the time. If anyone wants me to do that, just let me know.

I would love to be the front man to organize Looney events, however, I went VIG this year and spending all that time would deter from that investment (btw I still have to companion badges available if any one is interested)

 

I'd still be willing to look after a couple of nights of AYAW and a couple of fluxx session.  It would help if someone know how we request that same area we had last year by the entrance to the westin.

 

Bill

 

I believe it was (a person from) Game Base 7 that was offering to help with registration/securing space and such.

 

I'm available to help run events.

Yes, there is a Game Base 7 person who would love to work with me to coordinate and run all of our events...   but if *I* ask him to do this, then *I* need to be coordinating with him, and letting him know what kinds of things we want them to run...   and I am so sorry but I simply can't add this to my to-do list.  There is so much Origins stuff that isn't getting done - I can't add GenCon to the things I'm trying to figure out right now.

If we had one person stepping up to coordinate for the team, I could put that person in touch with this guy from GameBase7 - or a couple of you could just put individual events on the schedule, and just not have any sort of coordinated Labs Labs event this year.

Again - I am very sorry Looney Labs is once again not doing anything official at GenCon this year!

What all do you think would need to be done to coordinate with the Game Base 7 guy? What all would he handle? I MIGHT be willing to do this.

It sounds like we'd have to let them know what all we wanted to run, and best times to do so. From there, we would fill the schedule with GMs and hand off that information to the GB7 guy. Basically, the LL "sub-coordinator" (for lack of a better term) would be funneling the information to them, and they'd make sure it happens.

Here are the events I am submitting to host at gencon

 

 

Thursday 2pm - 4pm Back to the future

Thursday night 10pm - 2am AYAW (trying for same spot as last year)

Friday night 10pm - 2am Ayaw

Saturday 10am - noon Pirate fluxx

Saturday 10pm - 2am AYAW

 

Also there is the open games on Wednesday night at the JW Marriot, maybe we can all meet there and see what games we can get going.

 

I have submitted my list to gencon for approval.  I copied most of the descriptions from last years catalogue.

 

I also submitted a free AYAW event for the Wed. night at the icebreaker, so it should be in the official catalogue.

If anyone would like to host any other games, let me know and I will take care of registering them.

 

Time to order some more AYAW decks!!!!

 

Hello all

 

My name is Sir John D. Minderman and I am going to be putting events into the program for Gen Con 2011.  What I could use from you all is whoever wants to run events for the looney labs games please contact me at johnm@willworkfordice.com or on here.  email would be best.  I also just found out that pre reg cut off date is March 11th.  sorry if this is to close. 

 

Thank You
Sir John D. Minderman
Game Base 7 Business Affairs Chairman

 

John - have you talked to Bill Larson?  He has already submitted some events...  make sure you guys coordinate!

Hello all

 

Here is an update for Gencon.

 

Game ID	Event Title	Start Time	Duration	Actions
ZED1120312	Are You A Werewolf	Wed @ 8:00 PM	3 hrs	Duplicate	History
			Cost: $0
CGM1120308	Back to the Future	Thu @ 2:00 PM	2 hrs	Duplicate	History
			Cost: $2
ZED1120309	Are You A Werewolf	Thu @ 10:00 PM	4 hrs	Duplicate	History
			Cost: $4
ZED1120310	Are You A Werewolf	Fri @ 10:00 PM	4 hrs	Duplicate	History
			Cost: $4
ZED1120311	Are You A Werewolf	Sat @ 10:00 PM	4 hrs	Duplicate	History
			Cost: $4

 

 

These event are all approved for consideration.

 

I am waiting to hear about how many GM badges we will be eligible for.  If you are interested please let me know as all help will be used  ;)

 

The Wednesday Night event is the free games area before the con at the JW Marriot.

 

For the rest of the AYAW events, I have asked for the same area as last year near the skybridge to the Westin.  Not sure if we will get that as the layout of the con has changed due to the renovation of the convention center.

 

Will keep you updated...

 

Bill

John, here are the Looney Labs events that I've scheduled for GenCon this year. I will also email this to you. Note that these have been submitted to GenCon, but not yet approved.

 

 

BGM1123658	Zendo	Thu @ 1:00 PM	2 hrs	Duplicate	History
Cost: $2
BGM1123676	Pyramid Happy Hour	Thu @ 3:00 PM	2 hrs	Duplicate	History
Cost: $2
BGM1123678	Pyramid Happy Hour	Fri @ 1:00 PM	2 hrs	Duplicate	History
Cost: $2
BGM1123673	Zendo	Fri @ 3:00 PM	2 hrs	Duplicate	History
Cost: $2
BGM1123675	Pyramid Happy Hour	Sat @ 6:00 PM	2 hrs	Duplicate	History
Cost: $2
BGM1123674	Zendo	Sat @ 8:00 PM	2 hrs	Duplicate	History
Cost: $2