July 24, 2011: 10 Years Of Munchkin

It's hard to believe that it's been a decade since we released Munchkin at GenCon 2001. (That was in Milwaukee, for you kids who didn't know that GenCon wasn't always in Indianapolis.) We shipped about 200 copies from Austin to our hotel as soon as they came in, figuring that we'd never sell 50 copies a day. Riiiiight . . .

Early Friday afternoon we had to make an emergency call to Austin to have them overnight us as many more as they could spare. We got them Saturday morning and they were gone Saturday afternoon. That was our first clue that maybe we'd grabbed hold of a tiger by the tail . . . and shortly after we were all back from the convention we started discussing whether we could write a sequel, or maybe even a sci-fi Munchkin game. "This game should do OK for us for a couple of years," I said at the time. "I just hope we don't run out of ideas before then."

(Trivia note: At GenCon 2001, we also released the first version of Frag. I went on record at the time as saying that Frag was going to be a breakout hit, one of the games that people were still talking about and playing 10 years later. "Oh, and we have this funny little card game, too," I said. Frag is still doing nicely for us . . . but I don't think anyone could disagree that I backed the wrong horse. Let this be a lesson to anyone who thinks I'm a prophet.)

Obviously, running out of ideas hasn't been a problem for us yet! We have several core sets and expansions planned for the next couple of years . . . and in a meeting yesterday Steve asked Phil and me, "Is this something we think we can do in 2013, or should we add it to the 2014 schedule?" The fact that we're even TALKING about 2014 releases boggles me. I've been really lucky to get to ride this tiger for the last two and a half years, and even to do some design work during that time <plug>watch for Munchkin 8 next spring</plug>. And, of course, I love going to game conventions again and meeting all the folks who've made the last 10 years possible . . . and give us hope for the next 10.

It's been great. Thanks, y'all.

-- Andrew Hackard

Rush Finds Government Conspiracy In Heat Wave Reporting

If I were working on a new edition of INWO . . . and maybe I am, and maybe I'm not . . . that gentleman would be good for a couple of dozen cards all by himself. Just saying.

-- Steve Jackson