Visual Display of Radiation Information

When I saw this method of displaying different levels of radiation expsoure from different sources, I thought of Edward Tufte. He's the professor of information display, and you might check out his books if you're not aware of him.

Visual Explanations
The Visual Display of Quantitative Information
Envisioning Information

Anyway, I like that the radiation chart from xkcd.com gives a sense of scale with boxes representing quantity, then showing that the entire collection of blue boxes from the first panel fits inside just a three of the green boxes from the second panel, and so on. It helps build our intuition about just how much radiation is contained in those last few yellow boxes. Tufte would also like that words and images are intermingled, and that the author cites the sources of his data. Great job, xkcd.

Where Did/Would You Buy Sirlin Games?

I'm basically sold out both Yomi and Puzzle Strike, but I did get ahold of a very limited quantity of each at www.sirlingames.com. The next print runs are on their way, and I'm planning to support your local hobby game stores even more from now on. I'd like your help though.

You can help by filling out this survey and letting me know where you bought Yomi and/or Puzzle Strike, and just as importantly, where you'd *like* to buy those or future Sirlin Games. If there's a great local game store near you that you wish carried Yomi or Puzzle Strike then let me know! Maybe you'd like to have a gathering place to play for fun or in tournaments. Or maybe it's just a great game store that you're proud to support.

On the other hand, if you ARE a retail store owner, I'll refer you to Dan Yarrington, CEO of Game Salute. Sirlin Games is now a proud member of Game Salute, and you can contact Dan about purchasing and promoting Sirlin Games for your store, as well as details about becoming a Game Salute Select Store (it's a good thing!). You can e-mail Dan at Salute@GameSalute.com or call at (603) 401-2080.

Don't forget to fill out that survey. Thanks!

Puzzle Strike Reviews

My Puzzle Strike inventory is getting a bit low, and recent reviews are getting people pretty interested, it looks like!

Drake's Flames

First, check out Drake's Flames review of Puzzle Strike. What's notable and kind of mindblowing is that I think it's the most positive review that is even possible for something to get. I thought Ken B. at fortressat.com giving his personal game of the year award in 2010 was about as good as can be hoped for, but somehow Drake's Flames loves the game even more! Ha, thanks!

Wired.com

Next, wired.com liked the game too! Here's GeekDad's review from wired.com.

Drakkenstrike

Drakkenstrike is known in the board game world as having incredibly well produced videos that show the components of games, to go along with his reviews. Here's his spiffy Puzzle Strike video review:

If you're interested in buying Puzzle Strike, remember that you get the print-and-play version for free when you get it from my store. Thanks everyone!

Yomi Is Sold Out!

Last week, I sold out entirely of complete Yomi sets! This really caught me off guard because I was expecting my inventory to last like a year or at least a few months, but it sold out in the very first month of release. Thanks for all your support and I'm glad the game was received so well.

Unfortunately, I won't have a new print run finished and ready to ship for about 3 months. (Like I said, I was caught off guard by this and have been scrambling to get manufacturing going again.) You can still find the game in your local stores for a bit, but it will run out very soon. I'll start taking pre-orders for the next run in a week or so. The next run will be exactly identical to the first run, but customers who order from sirlingames.com will get a little bit of an extra in the form of some "cursed" cards. (They are not part of the real game and are for joke purposes.) That's my thank you for supporting my company rather than supporting online retailers.

I will leave you with Drake's Flames glowing review of Yomi! Thanks everyone for helping make Yomi such a success!

Tech Stuff from Thelo

Thelo is the super tech guy behind www.fantasystrike.com/dev

That's our site that allows you to play Yomi and Puzzle Strike online. (We really need that site to look better. Can anyone help?) Anyway, Thelo spoke at the Unite conference about integrating a game made with the Unity engine with website features such as chat, matchmaking, accounts, leaderboards, and so on. This isn't a design talk, so consider yourself warned if you are afraid of tech talks. Get a sneak peak at what's going on behind the scenes for us tech-wise, and why we dropped Flash.

http://unity3d.com/support/resources/unite-presentations/advanced-web-player-integration

It seems unity3d.com would like to add an extra click to your experience of watching that video because it doesn't seem to have an embed option. (Burn on extra clicks!)