🎲📐Marcus Ross ⚡️🚗

I actually got undenied on appeal, so it’s all good.

I think they just approved my appeal

I just got turned down by registration. 😕

Questionable decision making confirmed, I've just applied to go to NY Toy Fair this weekend. Let's get this game signed!

A copy of Jingle Bell Roll assembled into a collage for display in a shadow box picture frame.

A collection of five games presented in shadow boxes. They’re all unplayable now as they’re incomplete copies hot-glued into fixed positions for display. The titles top to bottom, left to right are: -The Lord of the Rings Adventure Book Game -Jingle Bell Roll -Discount Salmon -Letter GO! -BEEEEES!

Got my designer copies in, so now I’ve added Jingle Bell Roll to the published game shadow box collection.

Project Hail Mary 11389 | LEGO® Icons | Buy online at the Official LEGO® Shop US LEGO® Icons Project Hail Mary spaceship model for adults

Meanwhile the LEGO group stays collecting my checks.

www.lego.com/en-us/produc...

A Dove brand chocolate bar alongside a Dove brand soap bar. The Dove logos share a curvy general wordmark style, but are clearly not identical.

I thought these were from the same Dove, which is almost as confusing as the fact these products coexist and they are not.

Project Hail Mary’s Rocky inside his geodesic spaceball from a fan made poster on Etsy.

🎶 Cannot find what I want. Cannot make by myself.
🎵 Need small Rocky figure suspended in a clear d12.
🎶 Then label sides with Eridian base-6 numbers two times.
🎵 Who can make what I need, question?
www.etsy.com/listing/1835...
Eridian numbers:
projectamaze.com/number-conve...

Worker Replacement in action. This white robot is posed as a bullfighter.

The old scoretrack with the pictures and names of two dozen actual robotics projects and their (ir)responsible development companies.

The new scoretrack numbered 1-40 with several seemingly random boxes highlighted in green.

The nightmare fueled scoretrack I’ve been using for Worker Replacement has been deemed too difficult to read by testers, so I made a new one loosely based on a code contribution tracker.

…what?

It is 100% worth your time. He breaks it down to simple terms anyone can follow and goes step by step through the explanation with effective visuals and real world figures.

Me with a silver robot doing… something

A green robot possibly playing Third Base somewhere

Purple robot posed on an armature

Green robot pointing at something in a walking motion while suspended in air by an armature

I’m actively in pursuit of finding a mass market publisher for my robot-posing charades game.
Strongly considering a trip to NY toy fair in a couple weeks, but I’m unsure if that will be the best use of my time since I’m planning it so late with no meetings lined up.

toyfairny.com/tf/toyfair/h...

In case I haven’t been clear:
ABOLISH ICE is the floor.
PROSECUTE THE PERPE-TRAITORS is where I’m at and I don’t think I’d find much disagreement in Minnesota.

It was outrageously cold and people took the day to march in the streets by the thousands. I don’t know where else we’ll get that.
The people inside that arena rally I attended were absolutely not exclusively leftists, simply a bunch of Minnesotans tired of being fed lies and victimized.

I felt conflicted about attending at all. My chosen art felt quite frivolous to bring into that place at that time. To grossly understate it, things definitely escalated during the con. I’m still not sure it was the right thing to do.
But I’m heartened by the resolve in the people there.

My vantage point from the ICE Out rally from last Friday

Me with a friend attending this rally

Banner at the rally that reads WE LOVE OUR NEIGHBORS

And finally, this playtesting event was in Minnesota last weekend. The vibes were tense.
No matter where I went the people felt under siege, but the refrain I heard most often was “Stay Warm.”
I don’t think it was entirely about the temperature.

Two robots getting ready for that photoshoot.

Two robots below a title that says Worker Replacement in a very retro electronic font. Yes, they’re shamelessly stealing the poses and aesthetic of the Codenames box. Get used to it. 🥸🤣

Less urgently the game does need a new name that conveys the core concept in a snappier, less ambiguous way.
Worker Replacement is clever, but misleading.
Best idea I’ve heard so far is “Robot Poseurs” which might be too punny for the general audience, but makes me laugh.

patrick star from spongebob is holding a bunch of money in his hand and says i have $ 3.00 ALT: patrick star from spongebob is holding a bunch of money in his hand and says i have $ 3.00

I’ve been quoted $40-50k for the design and production of a custom mold that would meet my needs.
Yeah, I’ll need a pretty sizable publisher to do that.
I can edit the content for mass (and move some spicier content to an NSFW expansion if necessary).
But it’s good enough to make the effort.

Head in a box. Don’t remember why

That score board always got a second look when I told people what was going on with it.

This is Lead Guitarist. Just because you can’t use that leg for a leg this round doesn’t mean it’s not a good prop.

My *best* versions of these robots were *completely trashed* after one weekend of plays. The joints no longer hold position nearly as well as they did. A lot of the game requires frequent removal of limbs and the parts are just not durable enough.

Robot model cut in pieces and half assembled from the visible plastic injection molded sprues

Six fully assembled robots in cellophane packaging

Several robots from the retail packaging showing they come fully disassembled.

Biggest issue?
To go mass I need a custom robot.
This model was made available for free on the Internet and the Chinese manufacturers wasted no time making their own versions.
I tried several of them:
- on sprues
- prepackaged in parts
- fully assembled
In all cases it’s unsuitable for mass market

Other observations:
- I had testers as young as 9 beat their parents in a fair game
- These kids told me it was fun (and they do not lie about that and they’d just check out if it wasn’t)
- I had to selectively edit out a few cards to play with them, but not many
- the mass appeal really is there

Apple Farmer I’m pretty sure

I think this was Barista

Superhero AND… Baggage Handler?

Taking a well earned break

Gameplay notes:
- The satire is fine. I don’t need special rules for it. A grown man posing a robot as its own Dentist is absurd on its face (literally).
- limited props are good: players used the storage crates and armatures to stand in for all kinds of things
- The 2 jobs at once round is perfect

I don’t remember the prompt here except that it wasn’t Marathoner and multiple people guessed that

This might have been Car Salesman, but I don’t remember for sure

Protospiel MN report: the game tested amazing.
People were requesting to play it unprompted. Others told me they were referred to my table to play “the robot game”. At one point I had to refuse a playtest just to get a break (sorry JT!). I had to leave a copy with a friend who “needed to have it.”

In the first half I’m grateful to hear someone plainly state/refute all the BS surrounding solar energy.
TLDW: The sun is free and batteries are worth it.
By the end of the second half I’m in tears and want this man in Congress (but I like him and that’s a terrible thing to wish upon someone).

YouTube video by Technology Connections You are being misled about renewable energy technology.

Let's do this.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtQ9...

A selection of Ruben’s mini-chips (rails flavor) in seven denominations pictured next to a standard sized poker chip, an American quarter and a golden dollar coin for size reference. The mini chips are much smaller than the poker chip and almost exactly the size of the golden dollar

I have these and they get my highest recommendation. Awesome product.

Trying to charge up my car at a 250 kW supercharger. It’s so cold it’s going to take 100 minutes to do it. I’m gonna watch Star Trek on the center console.

Cripes Minnesota.
Do y’all really live like ❄️THIS❄️?
I’ve ❄️never❄️ had to spend ❄️more than an hour❄️ at a supercharger before

Weather for Minneapolis today: -17° F

Y’all.

Ninja Crispi. Easy to use, easy to clean. Decent price at Costco.

I’m at the game design conference.
I’m at the protest.
I’m at the combination game design/protest event.