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Daily Illuminator Archive for December 2025
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December 1, 2025:
It's that time of year again – time to start preparing for holiday gifting! Instead of braving long lines and crowded stores, you can shop from the comfort of your couch with seasonal savings from Steve Jackson Games . . .
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December 2, 2025:
GURPS prides itself on its realism for those who want to make that part of their games, and our beloved historical gear books – such as GURPS High-Tech and its spin-offs – have used untold actual weapon info and turned it into logical, consistent armament data for the gaming table. But what if you want details on a firearm that hasn't been converted into GURPS terms? . . .
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December 3, 2025:
The New York Times has reported that Burt Meyer – collaborative developer of Mouse Trap, Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots, and Lite-Brite (among many other games and toys) – passed away on October 30, at the age of 99. Mr . . .
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December 4, 2025:
Industry luminary, former Pyramid contributor, and general all-around cool guy Owen K.C. Stephens reposted something from his BlueSky account a while back that I'm delighted to share . . .
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December 5, 2025:
Leslie Fish, multiple-award-winning singer, songwriter, author, and gadfly, passed away last week. Leslie and I were friends from conventions decades ago . . .
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December 6, 2025:
Following in the footsteps of a story from October about how a black neon tetra had committed credit card fraud, I share the bittersweet news of another amazing fish . . .
The Escapist reports news of the death of Tortellini, a goldfish who had achieved some degree of boss-killing success in the notoriously difficult video game Elden Rings. Until his obituary, I was unaware of Tortellini's accomplishments . . .
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December 7, 2025:
Have you ever come across a site which you just know will be useful someday, even if you don't have any clue when or how? Folks, I present . . . itiner-e.org, a digital atlas of all roads in the Roman Empire . . .
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December 8, 2025:
As I mentioned back in May, one of my hobbies is fiddling with constructed fictional languages. All this month, r/conlangs, a subreddit focused on "constructed languages for language geeks," is hosting a language-expansion challenge . . .
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December 9, 2025:
Here's a fun article about reindeer roaming the busy streets of downtown Rovaniemi, Finland – a rarity – complete with pictures. Now, I could take the opportunity to plug some of our holiday offerings to tie into the . . . um . . . reindeer games . . .
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December 10, 2025:
Munchkin Digital – Pathfinder from Dire Wolf Digital is now available for download on Steam! Based on Paizo's Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, this stand-alone DCL with 168 cards brings your favorite characters and monsters to Munchkin.
Your character can be one of two unique classes – Witch or Alchemist – then join the Red Mantis Assassin faction . . .
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December 11, 2025:
A second edition of Toon: The Cartoon Roleplaying Game will be crowdfunded beginning on December 17!
Toon, designed by Greg Costikyan and developed by Warren Spector, is a family-friendly RPG that debuted in 1984. Since then, roleplayers have come to love the zany hilarity of a game inspired by the nostalgia of classic Saturday morning cartoons . . .
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December 12, 2025:
According to an article on SFGATE, scientists are getting closer to figuring out the language of whales. It's a fun read on its own . . . and the ideas and methodology might give more realistic space-faring RPG games ideas for how sci-fi scientists communicate with unusual life forms . . .
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December 13, 2025:
You're a musician. You and your three best friends made a deal with the Devil . . .
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December 14, 2025:
Our friend Tom Vasel and the team at The Dice Tower were the very first to play Munchkin Second Edition online! . . .
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December 15, 2025:
Just before Thanksgiving we loaded up the car and took a road trip up to BoardGameGeek Con in Dallas to show off some of this year's new games. (Stopping in West on the way for some kolaches, of course).
If you've never been to BoardGameGeek Con, it has many of the things you expect from a board game convention: events, tournaments, panels, and a dealer's room, but the biggest feature for this show is the huge amount of open-play tables and the library of over 8,000 board games that you can check out and play . . .
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December 16, 2025:
If you're the sort who likes to wait for the last minute to do your Christmas shopping, then – depending on when you read this – tomorrow may be that last day . . . if you're ordering from Warehouse 23, that is. Taking the USPS's and other major shipper's guidelines into account, we now recommend ordering by 9 am CST tomorrow (Wednesday) morning to have the best chance of goodies arriving in time for the Christmas holiday . . .
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December 17, 2025:
The holiday shopping rush is getting even wilder! While Black Friday may be the busiest day of the year, Super Saturday – the Saturday before Christmas – is in the top five and just a few short days away . . .
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December 18, 2025:
The Digital Delights sale on Warehouse23.com has begun! If you're looking for some extra fun this holiday season, you can score big savings on hundreds of digital games . . .
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December 19, 2025:
In an Illuminator here, I wrote about Holotype, a game which I enjoyed very much. Long story short, it's a worker-placement game about digging fossils and doing dinosaur science . . .
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December 20, 2025:
The Saturday before Thanksgiving was supposed to feature relaxing fun and games at a small party. That did happen; it was fun, great people, great food, and the attendees got to see something very, very unusual: me in a skirt . . .
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December 21, 2025:
We at Steve Jackson Games are honored to have the opportunity to partner with several great organizations who are using gaming for good.
Desert Bus for Hope is an annual livestream event which raises money for Child's Play. This year, Desert Bus streamed around the clock for just under seven full days . . .
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December 22, 2025:
For tabletop gamers in a mystery-type campaign, here's a simple and probably cheap way to add some tactile and visual pizzazz to your game: common locks. If you've lived as long as I have, you've quite possibly acquired a drawer of various locking-type mechanisms over the years . . . hopefully with the appropriate keys or combinations . . .
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December 23, 2025:
Being the editor of game material can be tricky. Not only do I need to confirm that sentences are grammatical, but I also need to ensure they make sense in the larger context . . .
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December 24, 2025:
The following seems like an idea that might have been done before (after all, the Daily Illuminator's been around 31 years), but I'm not finding any evidence (although, if I'm wrong, feel free to let me know!). So, I present for your contemplation, some life lessons one can take away from Munchkin . . .
• There are few obstacles that aren't made easier with more Treasure.
• You can always choose not to honor your deals, but don't be surprised if folks remember that.
• If someone starts paying close attention to what, exactly, you have, that's a good time to be concerned.
• Sometimes you laugh hardest when you're most in trouble.
• Always wait at least 2.6 seconds before finalizing any big decisions . . .
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December 25, 2025:
We're on our break now. Wishes are allowed . . .
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December 26, 2025:
I recently learned that Boxing Day isn't widely observed in the U.S.A.! For a Canadian, that's wild . . .
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December 27, 2025:
We think Frag is a pretty great game, with a straightforward design full of depth and plenty of room for exploration. Nick LaLone, who teaches a course on Game Design and Development (GDD1) at Rochester Institute of Technology, sees it as a great tool to equip the next generation of video game designers.
Having worked for Blizzard Entertainment for a number of years, I was excited to have the chance to chat with Nick in more detail about exactly how Frag is being used in his course . . .
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December 28, 2025:
If you're looking for a cool adventure idea for your recent-era tabletop game – complete with a few neat pictures – I present to you an article about the rediscovery of a lost temple to Zeus. It was found in Limyra, Turkey, and the story of how it was tracked down from "epigraphic sources" is pretty cool . . .
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December 29, 2025:
I amused myself recently by coming up with "Life Lessons From Munchkin." I realize that I spend too much time thinking about games, so I turned the same chin-stroking consideration to another fine game: Illuminati.
• The ways everything is really connected in the world are sometimes pretty funny.
• You can never be assured of success, but you can always be assured of failure.
• When you leave the room, it's safest to assume others are plotting against you.
• The media is quite good at destroying the media.
• What you consider "winning" may not mean anything to anyone else. That's what sprang to mind . . . or perhaps what was beamed there by the Orbital Mind Control Lasers . . .
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December 30, 2025:
It's been a stressful time for a lot of folks lately. So, I offer something that – depending on your outlook – may lower your blood pressure and bring a dash of happiness to you: I humbly present an article from NPR about Jeff de Boer, who makes tiny suits of armor for mice . . .
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December 31, 2025:
The forthcoming end of the year also means the end of the live crowdfunding effort for books 6-10 of Fighting Fantasy's triumphant return to the United States. If you're a fan of the Fighting Fantasy gamebooks and are one of those folks who likes waiting until the last minute, then consider this your last-minute warning, because we're in the final few hours of the Kickstarter for the second set! . . .
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