Closing Out the Quarter

This is the last day of the quarter, and since UPS came and went, the books are now closed for first quarter sales.

Last year our first quarter was the best in a very long time: on top of three new RPG books (Living Lore, Love & War and Iron & Silk), we released Lunch Money: Sticks & Stones, which was an enormous success. This year, due to our staff transition issues, we only had one new release...Gloom. Needless to say, I was pretty sure we would miss last year's numbers by a long shot.

Imagine my surprise and delight: We squeaked in with a 1.9% increase in gross revenues over 1st quarter 2004. That's not a huge number on the face of it...but in the circumstances (losing half our staff and the only new release in the quarter being a late card game that had been expected last October; and comparing to an incredibly good quarter last year), I'm pretty amazed. Perhaps even more amazing: I don't normally pay much attention to sequential numbers, given the importance of seasonality in this business, but we actually topped 4th quarter 2004 by 12.4%. Normally the first quarter is the weakest season of the year.

What's the cause of it? The two leading causes are Gloom, of course (our transparent card inventory is rapidly dwindling...another month and a half at the current rate of sales, and we'll be sold out...though it seems more likely to me that the rate of sales will slow down here soon); plus the continuing strength of Ars Magica 5th Edition, which had a great launch in November and has continued to have strong momentum. (In less than two weeks from now we should finally have two new supplements for it, too!)

But at least as important are the continuing sales of our whole stable of evergreen titles we added last year...from expanding the Lunch Money and Once Upon A Time lines with sequels and expansions; to the Origins Award-nominated Cthulhu 500; and of course the healthy and growing crop of Dungeoneer games. (Speaking of which, Michelle is this very moment dropping off an overnight parcel with the materials for the printer for Dungeoneer: Dragons of the Forsaken Desert.)

All in all, this has been a great start to the year!

Tomb Tidings

As part of my efforts to get the reprint of Tomb of the Lich Lord to press, I've put together a new card list for "version 2.1," as we're calling it. You'll notice that a few cards have been replaced with new ones to fix rules imbalances and increase playability.

Freebies for Friendly Local Games Stores

I've just listed a bunch of free promotional items for retailers who carry our products. Check out the retailer page for the full list ... just email us at info@atlas-games.com if you'd like some of these items for your store!

Fans can get these items by joining our Special Ops demo team.

Dragons Galore

We're working hard on getting Dungeoneer: Dragons of the Forsaken Desert ready for press this week, so I thought I'd put up some previews of the game for you. Check out its web page for the cardlist and a sneak peek at four of the new dragon-themed cards!

New on RPGNow: Occult Lore

This morning I uploaded the PDF of Occult Lore, a weighty tome of new d20 magical goodness, to RPGNow. It is available download right now at a price of $12.95 -- quite a deal for 238 pages of digital goodness!

Northern Crown Sketch

The artist for Northern Crown, Aaron Campbell, just turned in his final sketch of the covers for New World Adventures and the Gazetteer. He's designing the covers so that when the two books are placed side by side the image continues from one cover to the next, so the sketch shows the cover for New World Adventures on the right and the Gazetteer on the left, as a continuous painting. We're really happy with the result ... take a look for yourself!

I Scrye with My Little Eye ... Good Reviews!

The folks at Scrye were kind enough to drop off a copy of the April issue to us at GAMA Trade Show, which features a very positive full-page review of Gloom! Their "Final Word" ... "Fun strategy for players with a sense of humor and strong imagination. A solid investment of money and playing time." Yay!

And we got to see an advance of the Ars Magica 5th Edition review coming out in the next issue. You're going to love this ... "Far and away the best RPG ever for experienced gamers. And if you're not careful, you might learn something!" It doesn't get much better than that, guys!

Playmats and Previews

For your downloading enjoyment, I've just put up PDF versions of the playmats we use at our convention booth demo tables. We kept having retailers ask us about them at GAMA Trade Show, so we've finally given in and uploaded the playmats for Gloom, Beer Money, Lunch Money, Once Upon a Time, Dungeoneer, and Cthulhu 500. Just write the PDFs to a disk, take them to your local copy center to be printed and laminated, and your demos will look just like the ones we do at GenCon and Origins. They're available on the Retailer Portal page.

Also, I just put up a preview of the new cover for the upcoming reprint of Dungeoneer: Tomb of the Lich Lord. It'll be available in May, at the same time as Dungeoneer: Dragons of the Forsaken Desert. Enjoy!

Ars Magica Website LIVE

Special Ops demo team member Varius (Ulrich Willmünder) announced the opening of his NEW Ars Magica fan site earlier this week. The site is called "Projekt: Ars-Magica.Net" and can be found at www.ars-magica.net. As well as its official launch, this week marks the site's first contest, with prizes such as a brand new copy of Fifth Edition and a very good first printing of the First Edition. Congratulations, Varius, on the launch of Projekt: Ars-Magica.Net!

Out of Town Again

Michelle and will be leaving the office early today to drive to Fargo for the funeral of my grandfather, who passed away this weekend. We should be back in the office on Thursday.

Back from Vegas

Michelle and I got back from Las Vegas and the GAMA Trade Show very early this morning on the red-eye flight. I'm in the office this afternoon, trying to catch up on some of the work that heaped up in our absence, but I'm sure most of it will not get addressed until next week.

The show was a big success. Besides the excitement that Gloom and Ars Magica 5th Edition had around them, and the very positive reactions we got to the upcoming Northern Crown campaign setting, we were thrilled to receive Origins Award nominations for two of our 2004 releases: Ars Magica 5th Edition and Cthulhu 500!

Web Updates and Warmer Climes

John and I will be in Las Vegas for most of next week, at the GAMA Trade Show. So if you try to get in touch with us and we don't get back to you right away, you'll know it's because we're sitting in the sunshine by the pool at the Riviera. ;)

This week has been a mad dash to get everything ready for the trade show. That means lots of new promotional material, which you now get to reap the benefits from ... I just put up the new Northern Crown page, including a PDF map of the campaign's setting, a link to the designer's web page, and info on the setting itself. We'll have more promos and such in the next few months leading up to its release, but this'll get you started!

I'm also happy to announce that Guardians of the Forest: The Rhine Tribunal and Houses of Hermes: True Lineages are now available for pre-order at Warehouse 23. They should be back from the printer by the end of April.

Dynasties in Mythic Europe

Today's PDF download mixes it up a bit. My intrepid Forgotten Realms GM, João Medieros, got tired of listening to me whine about wanting to use the debate rules from Dynasties and Demagogues in the Ars Magica 5th Edition saga I've got going with some of the guys from Fantasy Flight Games, so he devised this conversion document to do the job. Thanks, João!

I've also put together the Interaction Table from Dynasties as a PDF to make the conversion rules easier to use.

Off to Press!

It's been a very long week, but the end result is good: at long last, both Guardians of the Forests and Houses of Hermes: True Lineages are off to press. Assuming the usual turnaround time, we should have the finished books in our warehouse in about mid-April. This means that HOH:TL is right on time...but GOTF is, sadly, three months late.

Whew! It's really nice to have these things done, and I'm looking forward to a break from the 12-hour workdays for a little while at least.

Those Surly Giraffes ...

As our next release in the continuing effort to put long-ago articles that appeared in magazines onto the website, we present When Giraffes Attack! This adventure for Nyambe by Chris Dolunt appeared in Game Trade Magazine in 2002.

Pretty Pictures

John just put together the cover images for Guardians of the Forests: The Rhine Tribunal and Houses of Hermes: True Lineages ... so enjoy the pretty pictures!

Metacreator: Ars Magica Update

At Con of the North weekend before last, I got a chance to chat a bit with Peggy Kvam of Alter Ego Software, makers of the very excellent Metacreator program for creating and updating characters. Peggy gave me an update on Metacreator and Ars Magica, and the news is all good. First, they've finished some other projects and are about to commence on the 5th Edition update for the Ars Magica Metacreator template. Second, folks who buy the current (4th Edition) incarnation of the Ars Magica metacreator template will get a free upgrade to the 5th edition template when it's available. So if you've been thinking about buying this superb software, there's no reason to delay!

I also learned that Peggy and her Alter Ego co-conspirator, Bruce Kvam, will be running a Metacreator workshop at The Source Comics & Games later this month. It will be on March 19th, between 4:00 and 6:30 PM.