blog: stuff I made

Here you can see the 10 brand-new pin designs I’m offering in my Pintopia crowdfunding campaign, which launches THURSDAY, MARCH 28!

Here are a few things I’d like to highlight:

Before & after the launch time (which is 10AM Pacific time on Thursday), I’ll be livestreaming with my Pin Partner™ Peter™ over on his campaign page:

What will we be talking about? Maybe pins??

I imagine the topic will come up!!

What is “Pintopia,” anyway?

Wait, what is this whole project about? The sponsoring organization (BackerKit) describes it this way:

🎉 Welcome to Pintopia — a celebration of creativity and collaboration from a diverse group of artists collectively running enamel pin crowdfunding projects from March 28th – April 18th.

The more Pintopia pins you back, the more FREE pins you can earn ✨ 

⚔️ 2 FREE Cross Collaborative Pins if you back both pins from a cross collab project pair

💯 1 FREE Full-Color Pintopia 2024 Pin once ALL projects are 100% funded 

🏆 1 FREE Gold Pintopia 2024 Pin if you back 5 projects or more

So, in other words, it’s a ton of different artists – over 125 of us! – all launching collections of enamel pins, all at the same time.

The variety is really stunning to see! There’s a ton to look at.

BackerKit is really pushing the cross-promotion angle, so I hope it works out for us all!

Early bird bonus gifts

One of BackerKit’s features is to automatically assign bonus gifts to certain backers.

For example, I have it set so all backers (at any level) in the first 48 hours will get a free postcard set added to their order!

Returning backers (anyone who’s participated in one of my crowdfunding campaigns before, such as on Kickstarter) will get ANOTHER bonus gift, a free Wondermark sticker set!

This is all tracked in the backend if you have a BackerKit account.

The old pins are showin’ up too

My existing pin designs are available anytime from my online store. But, sometimes a campaign like this will nudge someone off the fence into participating!

So, all of my existing designs will ALSO be available, as add-ons to any order of the new pins.

The campaign runs from THURSDAY MARCH 28 through APRIL 18!

After April 18th, I’m sending the pins to print, and then I’ll be doing a bunch of shipping (hopefully)!!

Please check out the campaign or tune into the livestream if you can!!

I’ll leave you with the “flair board” that shows one design from each participating creator:

My friends at TopatoCo (who make my T-shirts and lots of other fine things) are making an “Everything is Exhausting” bag!

This slogan is one of my faux-warning-labels, which have proved to be very popular as stickers.

There’s a wee li’l preorder running right now where you can claim one of the new bags:

[ Lemme see that bag ]

It’s a smallish bag about the size of an iPad, with some hidden pockets and other cool stuff. They call it a “Tech Bag,” which sounds very futuristic.

You can also bundle the bag (optionally) with an enamel pin of the same design!

Or, I do already make this design as a pin and a sticker that are available by themselves (no bag necessary).

[ Here’s that bag link a second time ]

Note: If you are an enamel pin fan, do stay tuned for another big announcement later this month. (Tease tease!)

UPDATED TO ADD: I forgot there’s an extra day in February this year! So I will leave the claim form open through FEBRUARY 29 and then close it down.

Thanks to those of you who have submitted your information to get free bonus game cards!

I figured I would wait a beat (until the holiday frenzy had passed) to give folks one final chance to submit, and then I’ll get the cards printed and sent out.

That final chance has come!

Claim your exclusive bonus cards now:

As I mentioned in my previous blog post, I would really like you to get copies of two of my recent tabletop games: Keep it 100 and Humblebrag.

Both are party games:

• Keep it 100 is a slightly adult-themed (but clean-up-able) survey-results guessing and betting game, similar to Family Feud meets Timeline.

• Humblebrag is a Scattergories-type quick-thinking game with a B.S. bluffing element.

If you already have (or choose to obtain) either game, just send me your receipt or a photo of your game — and I will mail you a free pack of 10 bonus cards for either game (or both)!

The Humblebrag bonus cards are just some fun new categories I thought up.

The Keep it 100 bonus cards feature 10 new survey questions. These are the same survey questions I asked you a few months ago! We’ve had about 500 responses to the surveys so far.

If you haven’t taken the surveys yourself, feel free to do so now! (Whether or not you have the game!)

It’ll be the aggregated answers to those specific questions that will feature on the bonus cards, so the larger the sample of respondents, the better they’ll work for the game.

Meaning, if you want to know the final cumulative answers… you’ll have to get the bonus cards!

☑️ I will leave the submission form open for the rest of the month — through February 28 29.

Then I will close the form, compile the survey data, print all the bonus cards, and mail them out to everyone who submitted their information! These cards will not be reprinted after this bonus offer.

To repeat: you just have to submit either your receipt (if you get either game now) or just a photo of your copy (if you already have one) to qualify for the free bonus cards.

Here’s where you can find these games:

• Keep it 100: Target (US) | Amazon (US) | Amazon (UK) | Amazon (Canada) | Rest of World
  
• Humblebrag: Barnes & Noble (US) | Amazon (UK) | Rest of World

Thanks so much and I hope you enjoy the game(s)!!

I used to do this every year, and now, hooray, it’s back for 2024!

I like making and using gapless calendars for planning because they display time as a continuous flow, which is the way we actually experience time.

Because I used to fill my year with weekend events, such as conventions, previously I would start each week on Monday so that Saturday and Sunday would group together.

I know the Sunday-start version is more typical, though (and this year I’m using a Sunday-start one myself, as you can see above).

So, this year I’ve made both versions! Download the printable PDF for whichever one you like:

• 2024 Gapless Calendar – Sunday–Saturday
• 2024 Gapless Calendar – Monday–Sunday

A few notes for those of you who haven’t used this before:

• The PDF prints out as 6 pages. If you want to overlap them into bigger columns, like I’ve done here in the picture, you can trim the top off the second page and line it up with the bottom of the previous page.
• The calendar ends in mid-February 2025, just because that’s how many more days fit on the page after the end of 2024.
• There are no holidays indicated, only days and dates.
• Feel free to modify this however you like.

Enjoy!

My day job these days is making tabletop games!

Over the last few years I have made several games that I am quite proud of, and that I think are fun to play.

It’s hard to even know how to talk about them, because there is SO MUCH I WANT TO SAY.

I want to describe each title in loving detail, explaining precisely what makes each experience fun! These games (and the myriad of work involved in creating, producing, and distributing them) have fully occupied the last several years of my life.

But, that is the kind of overwhelming thinking that gets posts like this never actually written or published. I have been trying to figure out how to approach the topic here on the blog for the last month!! It feels too big!!

So let me start by saying a few things about ALL FIVE GAMES AT ONCE:

• These are all social games about conversation. There is strategy involved to greater or lesser degrees, depending on the game — but the intended experience is always a fun talky time among friends, and each game is designed to provide a scaffolding to have really fun conversations.
  
• These are all limited-run games from a pretty small games team. We launched two of them with Kickstarter, but not the others. Two of the below are in major retailers right now (Keep it 100 is in Target; Humblebrag is in Barnes & Noble) — and to be real for a second, those are REALLY RARE OPPORTUNITIES for us where sales performance, especially during the holidays, will really heavily affect our long-term prospects for these and other titles. So I encourage you to patronize those stores, if you can!

Here is some more about each title! You can also watch videos about all of them here, or, embedded below. I am in some of those videos…but which ones???

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Keep it 100 is a game for 3-8 players, about trying to predict how people answered our unusual survey questions – like a mix of Family Feud and Timeline.

We conducted hundreds of surveys to make this game, and the results are really fascinating!

• It features guessing, wagering, and it can be played either competitively or co-op.
• You can read much more about the game here, including a special free bonus cards offer!
• You can take a final set of game surveys here! (Even if you don’t get the game itself, I would love if you would weigh in!)
• There is some adult content in the game, which can be removed if desired.
• This game is only TEN DOLLARS at Target right now, folks.
• Outside the U.S., use this link instead.

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Humblebrag is a game for 2+ players that plays like Scattergories meets the card game B.S.

• It’s a trivia game that’s not just about what you know… it’s about what you can convince the other players you might know.
• Crafted with the help of a several-time Jeopardy! champion!
• This game also has a free bonus cards offer! See more info about it here!
• Humblebrag is exclusive to Barnes & Noble in the US this season, but you can also get it in the UK.

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TBH is a game for 3-8 players that, if you are anything like me, quickly moves from being a standard party game into something akin to a light roleplaying game or quirky storytelling game.

• The game provides dilemmas that players can use to develop outrageous scenarios.
• The object of the game is to correctly predict how the other players will respond to each dilemma… but the written scenario is just the starting point.
• Players can flesh out each scenario in a “followup questions” round that can be as straightforward or as wild as your group wants to make it.
• This is my favorite of all the games I’ve made. If you like my sense of humor, you might like TBH.
• The base game is suitable for teens and up, but an optional NSFW expansion deck is also available. (The expansion deck does fit in the main game box for storage.)
• It’s available at many game shops and online (including outside the U.S.), but I now also have stock in the Wondermark store on TopatoCo!

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On the Rocks is nominally a drinking game, but it’s really an icebreaker/conversation-starter game.

• It’s the simplest game on this list: Draw a card with a question on it. Ask one, two, or all the other players to answer (depending on the card type). Award the card to your favorite answer. Players can also choose to drink to avoid having to answer at all!
• There is a whole line of Truth or Drink games, some of them more adult — but this one is the “safe for work” edition that works well for families, acquaintances, co-workers, and other less racy environments.
• I led the writer’s room that wrote all the questions, and I also designed the box!
• This game is also now available at TopatoCo. (And outside the U.S.)

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Lineup is a game for 3-8 players that’s kind of a mix of Keep it 100 and TBH. Players are asked a series of questions about themselves to answer secretly, always with a number. You score points by guessing whose answers (among the other players) will end up being lowest or highest in the group.

• There are a lot of fun topics covered in the game, from personal beliefs, experiences, habits, and hypotheticals.
• The base game is suitable for teens and up, but again, an optional NSFW expansion is available too.
• This game comes with dry erase components, so you also get sweet markers in the deal!
• The easiest place to get Lineup right now is on Amazon in the US and UK.

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Of course I’ve got all my usual stuff in my own online store and my TopatoCo store too!! What a world we live in, what a world indeed.