Shoe

😂

The judging committee's been busy discussing the 2025-2026 American Tabletop Awards and going through more nominees than ever before.

The things we are discussing lately... 🧵

I dunno! Our way works well for us because it keeps all the utensils separated, so the washing gets in between everything.

This blew James’ (@druidcitygames.bsky.social) mind when he saw this at our home, so I figured I’d share in case it’s a useful PSA. If you have this top rack in your dishwasher….

The Story Behind How EGM Spawned That Iconic Final Fantasy Art In 2001 pharmacy shelves were greeted with a gorgeous Amano cover. That wasn’t necessarily the plan.

Amazing how an entire Kotaku article spawned out of a Bluesky (or was it X?) conversation. Kudos for mentioning my upcoming Uematsu biography though! @danshoehsu.bsky.social kotaku.com/final-fantas...

Mainly cause you responded to @funfactorpod.com’s original post then I chimed in haha (all on Bluesky)

Thanks for starting the convo!

I first told @milkman.bsky.social about this idea, and he jumped on it and helped make it happen. I remember him replying something about me going right for the throats of our competitors (it was my first days as EIC of EGM).

Read the original reposted thread to see his perspective! 🧵fin.

But it ended up being one of the best-selling issues of all time for EGM, so the money/circulation people were happy. And they let us do it again for the “Final Fantasy Everything” cover later. 😁
🧵5/

Cost ended up around $12K, which I was sweating a bit cause, per @milkman.bsky.social, I had to convince the money people to just give me the $10K on “trust me, this will kill on sales” faith. Telling them the final bill was $2K more was 😬.

🧵4/

We had to explain to some upset subscribers why they *didn’t* get the Amano cover. And people were also unhappy that the few ones on newsstands got snatched up so quickly. But in the end, the reaction seemed overwhelmingly positive. 🧵3/

But something got miscommunicated along the way and the entire run (newsstands + subs) got 25% Amano. I wondered if some subscribers (those who weren’t into Final Fantasy) would be less happy. And that’s also X more people who wouldn’t buy the Amano issue (this was a sales stunt, after all). 🧵2/

So the original plan was for this cover below to go to subscribers and for the Amano cover (see reposted thread) to go to 25% of newsstands. I wanted it to be very exclusive and rare. And I thought the non-Amano cover would be more mainstream anyways. 🧵1/

Now that I understand how scoring works in curling, I think I’m into…curling.

After watching Fallout season 2, @chrispyha.bsky.social taken to calling me cereals as nicknames (à la “My little Sugar Bomb”).

My faves so far: “My little….” (singular versions of these)

Our (board) games of the year!

Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor is so good now. It’s evolved a lot since its early days, and I thought it was excellent back then, too. I’m very into it.

More great 2-player (and other game) recommendations from @chrispyha.bsky.social, @grantsgamerecs.bsky.social, and myself!

Yeah, sorry we can't make it, but thank you for thinking of us!

Congrats!

Not sure! It’s a nice upgrade, but you’re not being contacted to paint those. So I would guess more than normal (non-painted) prices but less than contracted painted prices.

Watching Pluribus is legit making me hydrate more.

We (@grantsgamerecs.bsky.social @chrispyha.bsky.social) played a ton of new 2P board games and picked out the best for ya.

If your Arc Raiders matches are mostly hostile, it's your own fault Start being friendly and you'll find friendlier players in your lobbies.

Also: www.polygon.com/arc-raiders-...

BLOCK ‘EM

That happened to me about 20 min after I posted the above. 😒

When I first was playing Arc Raiders, I wouldn't go solo. I had no desire to interact with any strangers, so I'd just wait to play with friends.

But now I'm playing solo > multiplayer. The rush of surviving and extracting by yourself is too good. And the community is friendlier than I had expected.

When I first met @chrispyha.bsky.social 15 years ago, she didn’t follow or know anything about college football.

Yesterday after I told her about Notre Dame opting out of a bowl game: “Well, they should’ve joined a conference!” 😍

Come watch @chrispyha.bsky.social and @danshoehsu.bsky.social later this afternoon! We'll be playing games to help the BGG Annual Support Drive.

You are speaking @chrispyha.bsky.social’s love language