May 2021 Update: Tussie Mussie expansion this week!
Greetings from cicada-land! In this email:
Game updates
Recent talks and interviews
Bird of the Month: Grasshopper Sparrow
Game Updates
Tussie Mussie
A set of Tussie Mussie expansions will go live on Kickstarter this Tuesday. They include:
Orange flowers -- including the Nasturtium, which lets you rearrange your cards
Greenery -- a little greenery in your arrangement is good, but too much scores negative points
Ribbons -- shared goals for the player(s) that can achieve them over the course of the game
Customers -- a set of new cards for solo play
All for just $10! To be notified when it launches, sign up here.
Wingspan
Stonemaier Games is working on a big box that should hold all existing and future expansions. Check it out and give some feedback!
Natalia and Ana's art book is now available! It's gorgeous, and includes new text for each bird from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.
Also:
The Oceania Expansion won the Golden Geek Award for Best Expansion.
Talks, Interviews, etc.
I played Ghost Writer with Mary Flanagan, Naomi Clark, and Spring Yu. It was a cool game, and we talked about being women in game design too.
I asked for suggestions of things people can do to make the board gaming hobby more welcoming and inclusive, and got a LONG list. Hoping to make this into a blog post at some point, somewhere.
I did some other cool interviews that aren't up yet -- stay tuned for a Design Notes interview on the Dice Tower and more. And I'm working on a talk for the GENeration Analog digital conference, which will be August 4-5.
Bird of the Month: Grasshopper Sparrow
One of the joys of birding is that there is so much room to keep learning and seeing new things. At the beginning of May my spouse and I were out on the Blue Ridge Parkway and saw a bird we had never seen before -- the Grasshopper Sparrow. And one of the joys of using eBird is that I can tell you that it's species #754 on our life list. Here's my blurry picture:
The flavor text on the Grasshopper Sparrow's card in Wingspan says its call is easily mistaken for an insect -- you can listen here and see if you agree!
May your world continue to open and grow,
❤️
Elizabeth