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Daily Illuminator Archive for January 2025
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January 1, 2025:
I discovered an interesting article on Ars Technica that talked about how some names seem to have been hard-coded to lock up the ChatGPT system. I'll leave it to you to read the full explanation as to what's happening, but – as a gamer – one element that caught my eye was how someone triggered this by including one of the "forbidden" names in a light, barely legible font on an image upload . . .
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January 2, 2025:
Note: The following article comes to us courtesy of guest contributor Jay Dragon.
Hi everyone, my name's Jay Dragon! I'm a tabletop RPG designer (author of Wanderhome and co-creator of Yazeba's Bed & Breakfast), editorial director at Possum Creek Games, and friend of Steve . . .
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January 3, 2025:
Welcome, traveler, to the strange future of . . . 2025! If you're reading this, it may not be too late – to pick up the Transhuman Space Bundle of Holding! . . .
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January 4, 2025:
I suspect most of us have heard of "FOMO" – "Fear of Missing Out."
I have Fear of Missing Pieces. I generally buy games because I love them . . .
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January 5, 2025:
If this is you, send a wave my way!
-- Steve Jackson
. . .
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January 6, 2025:
It would appear that Meta knows I'm a gamer. While I've been intrigued by Puy du Fou for a while now (more on that later), this morning Instagram let me know about an attraction that seems tailor made for a TTRPG fan like myself . . .
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January 7, 2025:
One neat aspect about working at Steve Jackson Games is that it's home to a tremendous number of creative individuals – with too many ideas to be contained by just one beloved hobby. To that end, I've embarked on a personal project in my downtime: Feature of Habit . . .
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January 8, 2025:
I have no idea why Facebook decided to start showing me videos of French theme park Puy du Fou one day, but I'm glad it did. While I'm generally not a theme park aficionado, I've been entranced by footage of knights fighting next to rotating castles and gladiators duking it out in a full-scale replica of a Roman circus ever since joining one of the park's fan groups . . .
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January 9, 2025:
I'm always amused by the way boardgames determine who goes first. Often it's left to the dice ("roll to see who goes first") . . .
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January 10, 2025:
Our household has a game collection that goes back decades (and encompasses a before-times era when we were two households). It's always an interesting time-capsule treat to open a boxed game from bygone years and discover something else in there: promo pieces from past Gen Cons, bits of ephemera, scraps of house rules or clarifications . . . every so often, we come across dot-matrix printouts of errata or homemade record sheets . . .
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January 11, 2025:
When I was a schoolboy – last millennium – I remember being somewhat enthralled with book covers. These were either "official" store-bought covers, or homemade ones crafted from paper grocery bags . . .
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January 12, 2025:
Electronics company Casio has apparently tapped into desires I didn't even realize and made available a line of affordable calculator watches. Sporting a look and feel that evokes their 1970s and 1980s brethren, these watches are available in a few different colors and styles . . .
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January 13, 2025:
One of the fun things about being married to a European is that you learn about elements of nerd culture you never knew existed. My husband first introduced me to the British show Knightmare many years ago, back when we were having a moment of television nostalgia . . .
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January 14, 2025:
Hello, Car Wars fans! Do you have opinions about Car Wars Sixth Edition? . . .
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January 15, 2025:
One site I find myself visiting more often than I'd expect is PrintableRulers.net. It does what it says in the URL, providing a variety of ready-to-print rulers for various needs . . .
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January 16, 2025:
Every third Monday, after the sun goes down, the Red Light Cafe in Atlanta, GA comes alive with a primal howl. This is the traditional opening of Monster Show for Monsters, the world's only variety show exclusively by and for monsters! . . .
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January 17, 2025:
The first 3D printer I ever saw in action was one of the early MakerBot filament (FDM) printers. It was for sale in a Sam's Club . . .
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January 18, 2025:
The Saturn is also self-leveling and self-adjusting. This is truly a plug-and-play printer . . .
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January 19, 2025:
I recently posted about how games determine who goes first. Of course, this doesn't account for the myriad ways that players can decide that all-important question . . .
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January 20, 2025:
As a secret agent, you've been part of some history . . .
March 11, 1985: Mikhail Gorbachev becomes the General Secretary of the Communist Party and leader of the USSR.
June 12, 1987: In a speech at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, United States President Ronald Reagan exhorts Gorbachev to "tear down this wall!"
November 9, 1989: The Berlin Wall falls, reuniting the city for the first time since 1961. While preceded by the fall of communism in Poland and Hungary, it is a potent symbol of the collapse of the Soviet Union.
December 25, 1991: The Soviet Union formally dissolves, bringing an end to the Cold War.
Or does it? Your handler has just let you know that you need to tie up loose ends – and avoid becoming one yourself . . .
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January 21, 2025:
For decades, the Internet Archive has performed a valuable service by preserving our history. Recently, SJ Games ran into a situation where we could have had beef with the IA . . .
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January 22, 2025:
A new year always means new games, but it isn't usually this literal. If you missed it, on January 6th Bandai announced a new miniatures game . . .
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January 23, 2025:
David Lynch passed away on January 16. His work was surreal, often challenging, and deeply influential . . .
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January 24, 2025:
As I was speaking with company cohort Irene Zielinski recently, she revealed that a number she uses was actually devised from a word that's meaningful to her, tapped out as digits on a telephone keypad. It's a cool idea, but – as she explained it – I realized that it took a few moments to realize what she was talking about, because it'd been so long since I'd looked at a telephone keypad . . .
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January 25, 2025:
Rodger B. MacGowan is one of the most skilled and prolific cover artists that the boardgaming hobby has ever seen . . .
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January 26, 2025:
When I was a child, I always assumed that video games came from either Japan or the United States. I had no idea that there was a huge video game industry across the pond, ranging from bedroom coders to major players . . .
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January 27, 2025:
Have you ever thought about how many different talents go into making your favorite games? The skillset that can devise and develop different gameplay options is subtly different from the skills that go into writing or editing them . . .
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January 28, 2025:
Several of you have asked whether SJ Games was impacted when Diamond Comics filed for bankruptcy. The short answer is no . . .
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January 29, 2025:
Pix or it didn't happen!"
It happened. Here are our shiny new copies of the Japanese editions of INWO and The INWO Book.
This edition was published by Asukashinsha, with rights arranged through Japan Uni Agency . . .
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January 30, 2025:
Winter is prime cookie baking season. And when people like us get together, gaming happens . . .
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January 31, 2025:
Herrerasaurus is a lesbian folk-pop duo – two moonlighting science communicators, characterized by tight vocal harmonies and a quirky-yet-sentimental songwriting style. In addition to their growing catalog of originals, they've got an eclectic cover repertoire; you're equally likely to hear them play the Everly Brothers or a Scottish folk ballad . . .
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