In May, we are Kickstarting our best game ever, Angels - Michael's War. Before we do, though, wanted to release the first game we ever made: Faith Hope Love (the card game). 

Faith Hope Love was made before there was an A'n'SR -entertainments. It was one of 3 Angels games we made when we thought we wanted to make a game company. We shelved it for a few years, but now it is back. 

Faith Hope Love has been updated, had some scratch art drawn, and generally made a better game. If you want to see the DNA of Angels - Michael's War before it comes out, then get Faith Hope Love (the card game).

In May, we are launching our first game on Kickstarter.com: Angels - Michael's War. Go check out our Kickstarter page, leave us a note, and subscribe to it, so that you can be there on day one when we launch!

We just released a new product on TheGamCrafter.com. It is our Card Game Inspired By... game kit. Basically, for $9.99, you get:

• 1 fully customizable PSD file with 4 poker card backgrounds.
• 4 unique "suit" symbols for any card game.
• 12 original pieces of stock art drawn by Aaron Richardson

The goal is for folks to be able to use this kit to help them get their next card game off the ground quicker. We're hoping to do more great "Games Inspired By..." in the future.

Aaron here. Just for fun, I am working on a new print2play game about my favorite comic book ever, the Suicide Squad (don't judge). Just play tested it as a solo game, and the game ended with a sharpshooter on the team making a last shot at a super hero that had gone crazy. In the end, only a demoinicly possessed guy survived the game with 1 health left.

We may add this to the 2014 releases. It is very fun... at least I think so.

Every year, A'n'SR -entertainments sets out a list of goals to get done before the end of the year. Here is our 2014 list.

1. Have a successful Kickstarter campaign for Angels - Michael's War card game. We launch in May with a goal of $2,000. I think we can do this.
2. Launch 2 other card games through TheGameCrafter.com
3. Start releasing our RPGs on TheGameCrafter.com in the 2nd half of the year.
4. Write a new RPG game line for 2015 release.
5. Get an Angels Dice Game ready for 2015 release.
6. Get an Angels board game ready for 2015 release.
7. Update DiColumns or release a deluxe version of the game (optional goal)
8. Get our RPGs as Print on Demand games (optional)

That's a lot, but I think we can do it. 2014 is going to be a great year for A'n'SR and games. Thanks for joining us for the ride!

Well, we have finally decided on a release schedule for 2014. It is pretty simple. 3 games, with the biggest one in June after a Kickstarter campaign. Here is a look at all the great games we have lined up for 2014.

Faith Hope Love 
(the card game). 
(Releasing in: January 2014.)

This great little card game is an updated version of the very first card game we thought of before we even started our company. overcome the challenges of the world we live in by playing Angel cards and Blessing cards from your hand. But be sure at least 1 player can overcome the challenge, because if you can't, the Devil's Advocate will. First person (including the Devil's Advocate) with 15 points wins the game.

Pyramids of Mars
(Release date: March 2014.)

You are trying to be the next great pyramid builder on Mars. to do this, you must send a courier to the depot to get your materials. Problem is, you are not too sure which depot the goods will be delivered to. Take a bet, influence the outcome, and try to be the first player with 6 building blocks to make your pyramid. 

Angels - Michael's War
(Release date: June 2014.)

In May, we are launching a Kickstarter campaign to get our best game ever onto lots of game tables across the land. If we can raise $2,000 by the end of May, we will proudly release Angels - Michael's War. Angels is for 2 to 4 players and let's you take the role of commanding Angels defeating Demons and claiming victories for Heaven. Light enough for casual players, with some special abilities and expansions planned that make it a good fit into hard core card gamers' collections. You will be hearing a whole lot more about this as we get to it... trust me.

Next... we will list out the official 2014 goals for our company... you know, the boring stuff.

Every year, A'n'SR -entertainments sets goals and tries to meet them. This year, we did pretty good (see our part 1 post for how we did). We also like to take time to tell the story of the year, and why some things happened and others did not. It is a way for us to get some lessons learned out of our heads, and hopefully as bits of wisdom for others.

This year, we had a few really big goals: 21 new books, getting on Amazon and Nook book stores, and launching a new line of games. Below is a more wordy version of how we did on all of them.

Honestly, we bit off more than we could chew on this one. We had 13 Authorials books, 5 Setting books, and an unfinished Angels... from Hell book sitting in our back pockets. We started off really good, sticking to our schedule of releases and everything, but about mid-way through the year, we started slipping on deadlines. We missed getting books out on time. Heck, we forgot the Angels book wasn't finished. 

Lesson Learned:  It felt terrible missing the deadlines we had set, and we never want tot do that again. So, we definitely bit of more than we could chew with such a release schedule, and we are going back to a 5-games/books per year schedule, even if it means less money.

We did the -U- + Options bundle pretty much for fun. Its purpose was to get people a chance to catch-up on all th-U- books while we released the -U- Settings books. While we sold some -U- Settings books, we sold a whole lot more bundles. In fact, it gave us our best month ever, which was great to see. 

Lesson Learned:  We need to do more bundles when it makes sense. We may do a U- Setting bundle next year, just to see how it does. The key is, though, that they are not great for supporting other books, but as sand-alone product pairings.

In September, TheGameCrafter.com held a micro-game contests. This really got our creative juices flowing, and we ended up diving in. Everything went on hold until the game was done. This was a good thing, since we generally like to make and play smaller games. We dusted off our first game ever, Faith Hope Love, made a new minis line of games (ZipWarZ), and dabbled into the world of Mars for the first time (Pyramids of Mars). Problem is, it totally sidelined us from everything else. We did not win the contest, but it was worth it.

Lesson Learned:  Stick to one game in a contest, and make it awesome. Also, don't be afraid of doing a contest, lots of great things come out of it.

As we plan for 2014, we are taking all these things into consideration. This probably means less games released, but more focus on what works well. Look for our 2014 schedule of games coming early 2014 or late 2013 (whenever it is we finalize it.

Every year, we set goals for ourselves as a company (small as we are), and then see if we can make those goals happen. 2013 was no different. in fact, 2013 had our biggest goal ever: Publish 26 books in one year. That was more books that we have done since we started this little company back in 2009 altogether. So how did we do? Let's see.

Below are the goals we set for 2013, and how we did on them.

1. Make $15.00 to keep the site running (always the top goal)
   UPDATE: Completed. In fact, we did this near the first of the year which was really nice.
   
   
2. Become a Limited Liability Corporation 
   UPDATE: Completed. Took less time than we thought it would.
   
   
3. Release 1 new game line on Amazon and Barnes & Noble e-reader devices.
   UPDATE: Completed... but barely. Our new game line was Authorials, an e-book battling game. We didn't get the games on the Nook Press store until late November, so, we'll call it a win, but, not enough of one to see the benefits.
   
   
4. Release 1 new game on TheGameCrafter.com
   UPDATE: Completed +. Thanks to the Micro Game contest, this year, we made 3 new games for the TheGameCrafter.com. 1 got released already: ZipWarZ. Two more are slated for 2014 releases (Faith Hope Love, and Pyramids of Mars).
   
   
5. Release 5 books to support games Powered by -U- the Game of Stories
   UPDATE: Completed. We released a new line of -U- books this year: our Settings books. We got E.M.P., Dragon'skin, Morris High, Monstera Ball, and Epitomes. We have one more done, and ready to go for 2014.
   
   
6. Release 1 new Angels - the Game of Divine Stories book.
   UPDATE: Not So Much. This was a case of us biting off more than we could chew this year, and this book completely fell off the schedule. More on biting part  the year, later, though.
   
   
7. Improve the number of likes we have on Facebook by giving away a free game book.
   UPDATE: Uh... nothing. We absolutely abandoned this idea shortly after the new year. Why? Another casualty of the high volume of stuff we had going on.
   
   
8. Have all 2014 releases ready for launch by the end of October 2013. This worked really well for us this year.
   UPDATE: Almost completed. We have 1 -U- Book, and 2 card games ready to roll. Most of our efforts, though, are going towards getting our big Kickstarter release ready for May. That is our primary focus for the year, and it is almost ready.
   
   
9. Stretch Goal - have the best sales year ever.
   UPDATE: Completed. We were up 59% in sales from last year, and had our best month ever in April. This was in part due to the -U- + Options bundle we released that did much better than we anticipated. We are thinking about another bundle in 2014.
   
   
10. Stretch Goal - work on a new version of DiColumns for 2014 release.
    UPDATE: Yeah... didn't happen. This is always a goal that we put on the calendar, and again, it did not happen. One day. Really. Promis. No... honest!
    
    
11. Stretch Goal - release Print-on-Demand copies of Angels, WyshMaykers, and -U- the Game of Stories.
    UPDATE: Missed it by a third. The -U- book and the WyshMaykers book are all ready for print release. Sadly, the Angels book is not. There are multiple reasons for this. We are making it a pnt to have it available next year, though, because we have con plans!

Having 5.5 of 7 goals completed and 1 important stretch goal (biggest year of sales ever) met is a pretty good year. 2013 had a lot of expectations, and we met a good portion of them. Look for our more philosophical recap of the year, and our 2014 plans coming soon.

In October, A'n'SR usually stops putting games out. Well... that's not happening this year. More on why to come in a few days. And most importantly, more on how we did on our 2013 Goals set out

A'n'SR -entertainments is proud to announce that a surprise game in our schedule has just been released: ZipWarZ: Elves cs Goblins.

We say it is a surprise because we had no intention of making this game this year. Heck, we didn't even know we wanted to. But when TheGameCrafter.com held its micro-game contest, we couldn't resist but join in and make a new game. And now that we've made it, we are planning at least 3 expansions in 2014, including dwarves, orcs, knights, and more.

ZipWarZ is a micro war game where players build a customized army, and do battle against each other just like the classic war games of yore. With its unique card-based combat system, games go by fast, and combat is unforgivably furious. Pick up your copy today for just $11.99, and have a fun, fast, little war all before lunch is over today!