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28 TUESDAY-AUGUST 1973
240TH SAY-125 DAYS TO COME

Rcd. [received] a letter from Graeme Levin asking me to do a brief Gamesview of SLEUTH prior to the feature article.

Called Phil Orbanes (at home in evening). Asked if "Mag-Nif" had definitely bought Stor-M "Skor-Mor." Yes. I won't review ARCHIEBALL then.
Phil still hasn't been able to set up a date with Carl to show him the new batch of p&p games.
He has seen the figures on sales of CHINESECHEK, DAM-IT!, NINETACTOE, VEGAS 13, and WORDPLAY and it looks as if we'll each get about $650 for the second third. The third third should do from 5 to 10 times better that the second (which actually was $650 + $250 for the advance for each of us
He rcd. [received] a copy of THE CAPITALIST REPORTER which has an article on selling games. A lot of the info [illegible strikeout] in it is from Gini Scott.
Phil is going to do some tentative work on premiums. At present it is just a trickle. If this works out, there should be a lot of work and I will get into it.

Finished the model of THE 31ST HEX and played around with more solutions.
Played the game with BB And tried having each player have 3 goals but only having to reach one space in each. There was a snag with the pcs. that could go in the goal spaces going into the interior and then not being available except after having them removed, placed in the discard, and then drawn again by luck when the discards were returned.
Later though of having all the pcs. turned face up. Players in turn choose one until 24 have been taken. The other 7 are not used. Pcs. [pieces] are placed as before. When on a player's turn there is no space he can place a new pc. [piece] (if there is-he must use it) he can do one of the following: 1) Move a pc. [piece] from one place on the board to another. 2) Replace a pc. [piece] on the board with one from the "hand," taking the board pc. [piece] into the "hand." In either case all paths must remain connected to the center and, of course, no path may run into a dead end.

Two calls from Claude. He has two puzzle-game ideas.
1) A GAME based on a combination of THE QUEEN'S PUZZLE and
LOA. Use a 9x9 array and peg pcs. Players in turn
place pcs. but each has his own color. Cannot place two in
the same row, column, or diagonal except that if an enemy
pc. is between them. After each has placed as many as pos-
sible, play as in LOA. Tell Claude that there might be
too much rules.
2) DIABOLIQUE, named after a type of magic square with
nxn, with n being even. The pcs. have different numbers on
them, including minus numbers. The field is 4x4. Players in
(cont. on 8/27)