June 2024 Update
Happy summer! I have been enjoying a bounty of serviceberries, raspberries, and sweet cherries from our yard…and just yesterday we started picking the sour cherries on our huge tree. There will be pie, and jam, and smoothies…what else should I do with sour cherries?
In this update:
Game news: Undergrove!
Upcoming events: Origins, Games for Change, Gen Con
Miscellaneous media
Critter of the month: Shark Eye Snail
Game Updates
Undergrove
AEG was extremely kind to send me my author copies of Undergrove direct from the factory. I had no idea they were doing this, so imagine my surprise when I came home to a pile of boxes on my front porch:
When I saw the return address was in China, I got my hopes up…and was not disappointed.
Copies for everyone who backed the Kickstarter are on their way to the distribution center and should deliver later this summer, much earlier than the November date originally promised. Undergrove should also be available at Gen Con, and then from your local game store probably in September.
And it is so beautiful! Getting the finished copy of a game will never get old.
Upcoming Events
I’ve got a summer full of travel coming up, including:
June 27-28: Games for Change. I’m on a panel on Friday afternoon.
August 1-4: Gen Con. Mostly at the AEG booth, and on a panel with Women in Toys on Thursday afternoon.
Miscellaneous Media
I joined Geoff Engelstein on Meeple Syrup to talk about the newly launched Tabletop Game Designers Association.
I spoke at the Smithsonian and posted some pictures on Bluesky.
Connie Vogelmann and I were on the podcast Going Analog, to talk about Wyrmspan.
Wyrmspan was one of the games featured in a piece about boardgames on CNN.
If you didn’t see this Saturday Night Live sketch featuring Ticket to Ride and Jumanji, it’s pretty great.
Critter of the Month: Shark Eye Snail
I’ve been thinking about seashells lately, partly inspired by my dad sending me the book The Sound of the Sea. For a very long time, my favorite shell has been the Shark Eye. But only recently did I actually bother to learn more about the moon snail that makes the shell. They prey on bivalves and on other snails, by drilling a hole into the shell and sucking out the critter inside. Drilling the hole can take days of repeatedly shooting the shell with acid and then scraping at it with a chitinous rasp called a radula. The life of a snail that takes several days to get to its meal sounds sedate, but this video makes it look pretty action-packed. I’ll never look at snails or clams the same way again.
May your summer be as sedate or action-packed as you want it to be —
❤️
Elizabeth