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30 WEDNESDAY - JANUARY 1974
30TH DAY - 335 DAYS TO COME

Bob Champer here testing MACARTHUR. My "Batman" scenario worked well. Then played "New Guinea" and "Korea" both of
which were a little one-sided, but the luck of the reserves
had a lot to do with that. Bob will call next Weds. to set a
date to try and finalize the 3 games.

Call from Bob Abbott. He saw MATH, WRITING, AND GAMES IN THE OPEN CLASSROOM (see 1/9) which he says is a lousy book with a good mention of me.
Bob contacted Felicia about handling EPAMINONDAS. She said there is no market for pure strategy games. She might be interested in WHAT'S THAT ON MY HEAD? but he doesn't know where his rights are.
Told him of the NYGA meeting on 2/8. Bob would like to attend.

Alan Newman and his wife Ali here with Felicia.
Felicia brought along a game by a new client that she calls
NAME DROPPERS. On a sheet of paper the alphabet is listed in rows one beneath the other. The foirst 26 letters are taken from any written material and added either before or after -
at the players' collective choice - the printed letters. Player try
to fill in known names using the initials. Can also fill in a
name using the initials in reverse, and score more for this. Score
less if two or more players have used same initials and even less
if the same name. We both agree it is too much like games in books.
Alan brought along his new version of FERRET (see 1/14). The board is now 9 x 9 with 4 spaces to be left blank at the
start - as shown in sketch.

[Small diagram of a 3 x 3 grid with the bottom right square starred.]

There are 77 white letter tiles including (I believe) 2 "wild". There are also 4 sets of differently colored tiles - 44 each - allowing from
2 to 4 to play. When a player makes a word he removes the tiles except "wild" -and replaces them with tiles from his own color set.
White tiles he keeps. Tiles belonging to an opponent are returned to him. Players score the length of the word squared. There is a penalty for moving a tile that puts empty spaces next to each other : 2 - 10 pts., 3 - 25 pts., 4 - 50 pts. Only white tiles can be
moved to an empty space. If a player doesn't have a letter of
his color after he forms a word he can use a white letter which
he almost always will have. After ten rounds each player scores
additional 5 points for each tile of his color on board.
Played about half a game and liked it. Told Alan and Felicia
that I liked it and that there is a little of the flavor of
RED LETTER about it. Felicia may try to find someone to show it to,
but not Hallmark.
Alan bought a copy of HIJACKED at a discount store in Brooklyn. They
say it stinks and he'll give me his copy.
Alan told me about a game popular in Florida with a name
something like COCKABOLLY. 2 (and probably up to 4) can play.
Use 2 decks of cards and deal 10 to each. First player must
make a meld of at least 3 cards, and draws 1 card at a time
until can. After this players in turn must meld at least one
additional card to table and draws until able. Melds
(cont. on 1/26)

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