December 13, 2016: Munchkin Musings: December 2016

It's our Year In Review edition!

2016 was, as we may have mentioned once or twice, the 15th anniversary of the debut of Munchkin, at Gen Con 2001, in Milwaukee. (Fun fact: Gen Con used to be in Milwaukee . . . and before that, Lake Geneva, which is where the "Gen" in "Gen Con" comes from.) We've been celebrating all year, including the return of the Munchkin Tavern to Gen Con this year, and we aren't done yet!

Of course, one of the ways we're commemorating this year is with the Guest Artist Editions. It has been a whole lot of fun to see new artists' takes on classic Munchkin cards. The artists themselves have told us how much they've enjoyed this series, and our sales have told us how much you fans are enjoying these sets. We have a couple more Guest Artist games planned for 2017, extending the anniversary celebration, because no true munchkin wants a party to end!

We made several accessories that fans have been requesting for a long time. You wanted storage solutions: we gave you Munchkin Monster Boxes! You wanted playmats: we gave you Munchkin Playmats! You wanted card sleeves: we gave you three different sizes of Munchkin sleeves! We've already made second waves of Monster Boxes and Playmats (some of which should be showing up in your Friendly Local Game Store very soon), and we're watching the sales of the card sleeves to see what we should do next.

You may have also noticed a few new Munchkin games this year. We published the standard-sized Munchkin Steampunk, made a companion to one of our most popular expansions with Munchkin 6.5 – Terrible Tombs, and introduced a new character to the Munchkin universe in Moop's Monster Mashup. Our latest new game, Munchkin Grimm Tidings, is the start of a partnership with Walgreens, putting Munchkin into thousands of stores across the United States. USAopoly contributed Munchkin: Marvel Edition and two expansions, which we hear have been pretty popular.

All that still leaves out a lot of cool stuff from 2016 – go back and look at the combined releases from this year to see if you missed something!

Looking forward, our biggest news is of course the upcoming Munchkin Collectible Card Game. Work is moving fast and we're very excited to show it to you at our conventions in 2017. On the regular Munchkin front, we have a number of new releases planned, many of which are already at print. USAopoly has announced Munchkin: X-Men Edition, a stand-alone game for 3 or 4 players that also works well with the Marvel Edition, and has a couple more releases planned that I reeeeeeeeeally want to tell you about, but can't quite yet.

I'm starting work on plans for 2018 and beyond, so it feels like 2016 is already over, even though (at this writing) December has just started. I'm very excited about what's coming up and I know you all will be as well. See you right here next year!

-- Andrew Hackard