Daily Illuminator Archive for January 2009

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January 1, 2009:
Still no flying cars, nine years into the 21st century. We do have communicators better than Kirk ever got, however, so maybe it balances out. 2008 was a heck of a year, by any standards . . . read article

January 2, 2009:
Terry Pratchett has been knighted . . . read article

January 3, 2009:
At Maker Faire last year, we saw many widgets, gadgets, and trinkets of incredible coolness -- an attraction magnified by the fact that each was homemade. If you're keen to start constructing similar projects of your own, Instructables.com is the answer . . . read article

January 4, 2009:
While clearing out old episodes of Ninja Warrior from my DVR over the holidays, I was reminded of Monster9's other obstacle course shows. Wikipedia informs me that Makoto Nagano, in addition to being one of the two men to complete the Sasuke course, is the only person to ever reach the final stage of Viking: The Ultimate Obstacle Course. I'd like to see that . . . read article

January 5, 2009:
The Fnorder is our first iPhone project. It's free! . . . read article

January 6, 2009:
Maybe you haven't noticed, but we upgraded our header. You know, that big gold-ish thing at the top of many of our pages . . . read article

January 7, 2009:
Renovations are ongoing, giving the office a smell of drying paint. It's . . . distinct . . . read article

January 8, 2009:
The rule-bending ubermunchkins at BoardGameGeek continue to rave about Munchkin Quest. Simon Lundstrom just posted a review with this perfect summation: [T]his board game version of Munchkin is a huge success with me . . . read article

January 9, 2009:
Late last year, David Tennant announced he was planning on leaving the Doctor Who franchise in 2010. Now, I'm a late-comer to the Whoniverse, but it's easy to recognize the power of a science fiction series that's lasted 46 years . . . read article

January 10, 2009:
Every so often, valued staff members escape into the wild, to see what trouble they can get into. Some of them get into so much trouble that we never see them again, and that makes us sad . . . read article

January 11, 2009:
Over the holidays, Will received the proofs for Munchkin Booty 2 -- Jump the Shark. After a festive checking session, he gave the printer the all-clear. Even as we speak, paper is taking ink, cards are being cut, and boxes are being labeled . . . read article

January 12, 2009:
The first non-holiday Thursday of 2009 has come, and e23 delivered two new GURPS goodies! GURPS Mass Combat by David Pulver is the Fourth Edition update of the GURPS battlefield rules. The focus is cinematic resolution of big battles, deciding the fate of massed companies of troops with just a few die rolls . . . read article

January 13, 2009:
One of the end of the year improvements we made was to order a greenhouse. SJ loves plants, and they're all over the office and grounds . . . read article

January 14, 2009:
Now that 2008 is well and truly "in the can," we can take a look back, and review the e23 releases for the year. Three volumes of Creatures of the Night Two entries in the Action series Four Dungeon Fantasy installments Two Power-Ups projects Two Pulp Guns volumes Two releases in the new PDF format for Pyramid Three supplements for Infinite Worlds: Britannica-6, Collegio Januari, Lost Worlds GURPS Thaumatology, and the pulp era setting based on it, Age of Gold GURPS Alphabet Arcane GURPS Banestorm: Abydos GURPS Locations: The Tower of Octavius GURPS Martial Arts: Fairbairn Close Combat Systems GURPS Spaceships 2: Traders, Liners, and Transports GURPS Tales of the Solar Patrol Ogre Miniatures Munchkin Tournament Rules The grand total is 1,218 pages of new, never-seen-before material . . . read article

January 15, 2009:
Steve Jackson Games is seeking a full-time Webmaster. The webmaster is responsible for maintaining, updating, and improving the SJ Games websites, developing new content and graphic designs, and acting as our in-house expert on the web and related technology . . . read article

January 16, 2009:
Steve Jackson Games announces, for release in April: Revolution! Blackmail the printer. Threaten the innkeeper . . . read article

January 17, 2009:
As frequent readers of the Daily Illuminator know, we closed the old weekly version of Pyramid a couple of months ago. Nearly all readers had their old subscriptions convert to the monthly PDF version of Pyramid, and most readers have already started downloading new issues from their e23 Libraries . . . read article

January 18, 2009:
Fade Manley, our webmaster and the designer of SPANC, has left us for the hallowed halls of academia. You may still find her around the forums, but odds are she will also be buried in books written in Latin, rather than in Perl . . . read article

January 19, 2009:
This week, the upload is The Ogre Book, filled with scenarios, fiction, and even the unofficial (but eeriely accurate!) unit cost calculator. If you don't know the Four Howitzer Defense, or aren't familiar with the Fuzzy Wuzzy Fallacy, you need this book . . . read article

January 20, 2009:
SJ's off to Chattacon this week, to show off new releases, playtest some designs, and generally wave the company flag. He'll also be speaking at a couple of panels, including one with David Weber, on the topic of tanks . . . read article

January 21, 2009:
Everybody loves Munchkin bookmarks. They're rare, they're special, and they're a munchkinly power boost right when you need it . . . read article

January 22, 2009:
The following items were received into the warehouse, and have been shipped off to various distributors. Your friendly local game store should be seeing them any day now! Munchkin Quest 2 - Looking for Trouble Trouble Is Good! . . . read article

January 23, 2009:
As we've mentioned before, SJ is away at Chattacon this week. If you're in the Tennessee area, it's a good opportunity to meet the man who put the "Steve Jackson" in Steve Jackson Games! . . . read article

January 24, 2009:
The seas north of Russia are cold, inhospitable, and isolated. Night reigns 100 days out of every year, but before the invention of GPS, someone had to show ships the way lest they crash upon the jagged rocks . . . read article

January 25, 2009:
Am I showing my age with that reference? Anyway, if you're looking to see what happens when you combine Lego with steampunk, point your browser to this Flickr group . . . read article

January 26, 2009:
The latest e23 upload is a new issue of Pyramid, this month titled Venturing Into the Badlands: Post-Apocalypse. The theme is pretty self-evident, but the articles present 44 pages of fresh thoughts for both gamemasters and players. Deathball" by Peter Dell'Orto (GURPS Martial Arts) and Sean Punch (GURPS Action) gives your competitive mutants something to do, when they're not struggling for survival. "Survivor's Moon" by Paul Drye (coauthor of GURPS Traveller: Interstellar Wars) details an Infinite Worlds timeline where (when? . . . read article

January 27, 2009:
I've worked for SJ Games since the summer of 1995 . . . or since the autumn of 1994, if you count the run of volunteer and freelance work that landed me my job. In the intervening 14(-ish) years, I've seen my coworkers sporadically at GenCon and GTS, but I've only been to Austin three times: Summer 1995, just after I took the job, to meet the boss and coworkers. "Wherein Dr . . . read article

January 28, 2009:
Hello, e23 Manager Steven Marsh here! For a few days at the end of January, and for the first time in my nearly nine years associated with Steve Jackson Games, I'm going to be visiting the Austin office . . . read article

January 29, 2009:
We've started leaving the 2009 Munchkin Silver Piece lying around the dungeon. It has the avaricious Super Munchkin on one side and the fearsome Plutonium Dragon on the other! . . . read article

January 30, 2009:
It's Real Snail Mail. No, not a quaint modern quip or a wry observation about obsolete societal infrastructure . . . read article

January 31, 2009:
The zombie attack that heralded the arrival of the infamous Dr. Kromm has been passed off as a hoax . . . read article

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