Whew…ChiTAG is over and I’m exhausted!  I will freely admit that between T&GCon, the TAGIEs and ChiTAG it’s my favorite 4 days in the game industry calendar because it feels like everyone is in town and it’s not quite as crazy as New York Toy Fair – although that’s debatable.  During those 4 days I tackled: speaking at T&GCon on the “Packaging and Design” panel, I attended the Toy and Game Inventor Awards (and lost), was interviewed by a newspaper and a radio station, met with (what feels like) a …

First, thanks to all of you who voted for me – it just wasn’t my year.  I will say, I’m okay losing to Susan McKinley Ross; she’s a great inventor and her game Qwirkle won the Spiel des Jahres, so it only seems fitting that she took home the trophy!  Congratulations Susan!
Despite my loss, the evening was quite a success!  Again it was held at Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry and this year the museum is hosting a Dr. Seuss exhibit which was quite cool!  Dinner even had a …

Before all the craziness last week (Toy Hall of Fame Induction, Neighborhood Toy Store Day, National Gaming Day) I wrote about Befuzzled, one of the many games you’ll see at the Chicago Toy and Game Fair which is happening THIS weekend at Navy Pier.  You can get all of the info HERE and you can get a coupon for $2 off admission HERE.  And now I’m going to give you a little preview of what kind of games you’ll be able to try before you buy at the fair this …

If you recall, last year was a big year for games in regards to the National Toy Hall of Fame.  Why? Because TWO “games” were selected out of the 12 nominees: The Game of Life and generic playing cards.  This brought the total to 10 games (if you count marbles and jacks as “games”) out of 46 total Hall of Fame items.  You can read more about that in last year’s article: HERE.

This year there out of the 12 finalists: Dollhouse, Dungeons & Dragons, Hot Wheels, Jenga, Pogo Stick, Puppets, …

Whether you’ve heard of it or not, this Saturday is Neighborhood Toy Store Day!  This is the day were small independent stores across the country do something special to celebrated being apart of your community.  Pretty cool huh?  Okay, maybe it doesn’t sound that cool — but once you look into what some of the stores in your area are doing to celebrate I think you’ll see what I’m trying to say.
In my neighborhood in Chicago, there are THREE small local toy and game stores that are joining together to celebrate.  *Play …