AnSR Games 2017 in Review

Each year, AnSR Games takes a look back at the goals we set and if we met them or not. Here is how we did in 2017.

Goal 1: Make enough money to pay for the various website fees (~$20.00 each year).

Result: Successful! Thanks to various RPG game sales and some sporadic Angels - Michael's War sales, we were able to pay to keep the website up. That's a good thing. We even say a little uptick in Drop Racer sales.

Goal 2: Rebrand the website and marketing we use as AnSR Games.

Result: Successful! We successfully transitioned the site to AnSR Games (with A'n'SR -entertainments in the background), and all new games have the new AnSR Games logo and feel.

Goal 3: Release 1 new card/board game: Siege of Tyler County.

Result: Deferred. The good news is, the game is done... and it plays great. There are even limited edition signed copies in the wild for the person the game was named after. We are going to release it in 2018 after we see if there is a contest or two that it might be a good fit for. Look for the game in May 2018 at the latest.

Goal 4: Release 6 ready-to-play Story books for ConEx RPG.

Result: Not Successful. This is totally a failure on our part. we got side-tracked, looked for ways to do certain things, and just missed this one. A silver-lining on this, though is that we have totally retooled the ConEx game as a card-based RPG with not 6, but 12 stories to play in. The new version has playtested amazingly well. We are just finishing up art and rules editing. Look for this one early next year, if we can help it.

Goal: 5: Release volume 1 of the Details and Dots Rules Compendium line of which all our new RPGs are being based on.

Result: Not Successful. Details and Dots has morphed into a different kind of system. we don;t know that a "core rule book" of any kind is the right way to go with it. The new ConEx is the first game to use this altered system. We are working on others as well. If we can figure a decent way to do it, we'll release a core rule book... but it may not be labeled Details and Dots.

Goal: 6: (Optional) Get work done towards a new Angels RPG using the Details and Dots system.

Result: Successful! This is actually way successful. We actually had the rules of the game 100% completed, and then started rewriting them to accomodate the new format we wanted for our RPGs. We are mid-way through the rewrite and will be adding more art. This will likely be a late-year release.

Goal: 7: (Optional) Make a new version of DiColumns.

Result: Almost Successful. One of the distractions this year was us working on a possible game contest entry. That fell apart. Then, we took the art assets and story and started applying it to DiColumns. The game ended up really good, but we shelved it to concentrate on some core things for 2018. One year... one year this will happen.

Goal: 8: (Optional) Release an Angels version of the Siege of Tyler City about Lucifer taking on the Silver City (because we like Angels).

Result: Not Successful. We may do this at a later time, but we are shelving this version of the game for a while. If the original Siege of Tyler City does well, then we will make this alternate version (if allowed).

Goal 9: (Optional) Work on refreshed versions of Pyramids of Mars, Angels - Michael's War, and ZipWarZ to incorporate new branding and smoother rules.

Result: Partially Successful! We began the process of redoing our box art, labeling, and rules. During the process, we decided that certain games would get the treatment, but others should be retired. So, Angels - Michael's War, Drop Racers, Faith Hope Love all got the new treatment. The rest of our games... we are evaluating.

Other Things Accomplished

As with every year, some other things happened that we did not plan on. Some good. Some bad. Some that changed what we are doing.

• Box Size. We decided this year that all of our games should fit into a certain box size at a $20 - $30 price point. Even our role-playing games. To that end, we have started really looking at how we make the games we make and the components we put into the boxes. this constraint has been really helpful.
  
• RPG Experience. Our favorite game type are role-playing games. To that end, we started really thinking about the experience we wanted players to have playing our RPGs. We kind of came up with this idea: give players a complete package to play in a short time. This has made our RPGs a cross between a card-based campaign game and a RPG. Watch the new ConEx for how this will work. We are pretty happy with it so far.
  
• Birthday Fairy Wish Race. Henry (our son) turned 8 this year. As a gift for his birthday guests he made a game: Birthday Fairy Wish Race. We will totally be releasing this game. It is a cute dexterity game that all the kids liked playing at his party.
  

... In Summary

So, how did we do in 2017? Honestly, we did okay, but really could have done better. If 2016 was the year of experimentation, then 2017 was the year that we set the foundation for the next few years by getting box sizes, a new name set-up, RPG philosophy and parameters figured out.

Be on the lookout for 2018 Goals coming soon.