February 2024 Update
Belated happy new year! I’m just back from a month in Guatemala and slogging through the hundreds of emails in my inbox. This makes me feel slightly guilty for sending you one — but there’s fun stuff you might want to know about! In this update:
Game updates: Wyrmspan and Picky Pixie are now available, and you can still preorder Undergrove.
Upcoming events: lots in and around DC, plus I’ll be a special guest at Origins.
Miscellaneous media
Critter of the month: Leafcutter ants
Game Updates
Wyrmspan
Wyrmspan is a freestanding game about dragons that is inspired by the mechanics of Wingspan, but takes the level of complexity up a notch. It’s designed by my friend Connie Vogelmann (Apiary) and I served as a developer — which in this case means I was a consultant to Connie helping her puzzle through some design challenges and, mostly, helping figure out the right feel of “in the Wingspan family but its own thing.” Reviewers seem to agree that we hit the right notes!
You can order Wyrmspan directly from Stonemaier Games, or contact your local game store to preorder a copy for the retail release in March.
Picky Pixie
Picky Pixie is a logic puzzle game that I designed to fit in an 18 card wallet. My copies were waiting for me when I got home from Guatemala and I’m so happy with how it turned out!
One player (the Pixie) makes up a secret rule about what they like to eat. The other players offer flower cards to the Pixie, who tells them whether each group of flowers meets their rule. Can the players guess the rule before the deck runs out?
Picky Pixie is available from Button Shy for $12. You can also check with your local game store about whether they carry Button Shy games: more of them should!
Undergrove
Undergrove wrapped up its Kickstarter in early December. If you missed it, you can make a “late pledge” to order directly from the publisher. Estimated delivery is November 2024. I can’t wait!
Upcoming Events
Places I’ll be in the next several months:
February 17, Glen Burnie MD: Grand opening of Games and Stuff, starting at 10 AM.
March 9, Washington DC: a signing/meet and greet in the boardgames space at Awesome Con, from 1 to 3 PM.
March 13, Washington DC: a birds-and-Wingspan themed event at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, details TBA
March 15-17, Towson MD: Unpub, a playtesting convention for unpublished games. TBD whether I will have something there to test, or I’ll just be playtesting other people’s games. But you should come play either way — it’s free!
June 1-23, Columbus OH: I’m a special guest at Origins Game Fair and will also be doing things for their teacher day.
Miscellaneous media
Stonemaier created a bird request form for Wingspan. I made a Bluesky thread of some of the requests that amused me.
Orion Magazine published a piece called “The Unlikely Success of Wingspan”
Sen-Foong Lim and I did an interview on Dungeon Master of None about our effort (with Geoff Engelstein) to start a professional organization, the Tabletop Game Designers Association.
Critter of the month: Leafcutter ants
In many of the places I’ve visited in Central America, long lines of ants string out along tree trunks and across the forest floor, carrying chunks of leaves several times their body size. I love to watch them. Did you know that they’re taking the leaf material back to their nest not to eat it, but to farm fungus to feed to their babies? Smithsonian researchers think this form of mutualism (some say domestication) took about 30 million years to evolve. (Yes, there’s got to be a game in there…)
May you find the thing that nourishes you —
❤️
Elizabeth