In the game Authorials, you use special Ebooks to battle your friends and make them get to the end of their story first. We have just added books 9 and 10 to the Authorials line of books you can use to battle people with. Use either the Alphatiev Gazetteer - volume II to crush your opponents with the secrets of the fantastical world of Alphatiev, or the children's book of Up, Up White Balloon to lull them into a false sense of supremacy.

Enjoy both books now at DriveThruRPG.com.

The (possibly) secret conceit as an artist is that you want someone to enjoy and spend time with your creation. When someone does, and tells you they enjoyed it, it makes you happy. Sarah and Mike did just that. Check out their semi-review of -U- the Game of Stories at www.lazy-bunny.com. 

Link: http://www.lazy-bunny.com/tag/u-the-game-of-stories/

Thanks, Sarah and Mike for enjoying the game.

Aaron from A'n'SR here. When I think of games, I think of cards, and dice, and boards, and books, and all sorts of little bits. I think of mechanics, and turns, and theme, and pricing. Today I was re-schooled by my 3 and a half year old. 

The Friday before Father's Day, I take the day off, keep the kiddo out of school, and we go to the St. Louis Science Center. This is the second year we have done this, and he loves it. 


As we were leaving the Science Center, we stopped by the gift shop, which includes tons of really cool science games, smooth rocks, dinosaurs, books, clothes, and candy. My son wanted rocks. We bought some. Then I saw Rubik's 2x2 Cube. It was the little brother to the Rubik's Cube. I knew he would like it, so I bought that for him, too.


On the way home, I let him have the Rubik's Cube so that he would be sure to stay awake in the car-ride home. It was about half-way home when he told me he liked his new game. He called it a game. I mean, sure it was sold around some of the other games, but it was more of a puzzle, thing, right? Not to him. He lumped it together with the dice games and Candyland, and Mad Rush Rally we played. It was a game. 


To him, it was not a toy he could make talk, or a book he could read, or a movie to watch. To him, it was an entertainment. To him, it was a fun way to spend his time and use his brain. It was a game. And he played his game of moving colored squares around he cube to make different color combinations all the way home. 

Thanks, son, for reminding me what a game is; that was a very nice Father's Day gift.

Game ideas come from the strangest places. Take Emperor of the World, for instance. It started out as a simple game that we made up when one of our friends asked "what do I do with this funny (12-sided) die you gave me from your trip to GenCon"? We had some pennies lying around from the spare change on Aaron's side of the dresser. They had a heads and tails. The die had evens and odds. Surely there was a game there. There was. After we replied to the e-mail, we started thinking of a theme, and some run effects, and, before we knew it, we had a humorous Illuminati-themed game.

Not a lot of people have time, inclination, or desire to make card layouts for their card games. We understand. While trying to make our own card layouts, we've cobbled together a few simple templates. Now they can be yours for your own games. 

Introducing A'n'SR's Card Backgrounds: http://www.drivethrucards.com/index.php?manufacturers_id=2564&affiliate_id=229603


Compatible with TheGameCrafter.com (and DriveThruCards.com), these backgrounds have a layer that you can "paint bucket" into any color you need, a "hole" to put your card art in, and a choice of black or white borders. For only $5.00, you can save hours off of your game design time. 

Let us know about a background you'd like to see at AnSR.entertainments(at)gmail.com. 
-Enjoy.

Once upon a time dragons ruled the Earth. Then, those pesky humans did something and they didn't. But the dragons get the last laugh. See, their scales lived on past their mortality, and humans have found ways to use them to become more draconic. Now, a secret world of dragon-like humans walk among us doing dragony things and fighting among each other. 

All of this is detailed in our new book -U- Settings: Dragon'skin. It has a full Setting for use with any -U- game and a special copy of -U- Essentials inside. In fact, really, it is a full game in a book. And it can be yours for only $1.99. Go get it. Be a dragon. Enjoy.

Link: 

http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/115356/-U--Settings%3A-Dragon%27skin?affiliate_id=229603

It seems every game company (established and not) are going to Kickstarter and other crowd-funding sites to fund their latest projects. We're no different. There's a lot of draw to a purely capitalistic venture like that. We love the idea that if a game speaks to people, it will be successful.

If/When we do a Kickstarter game, we have a few requirements we want to do based on out own experiences as a backer.

1. Make the game come out as soon as the Kickstarter is over. No, really, a year is too long to wait.
2. Have the game mostly done, if not all the way done. Worst case scenario, we just publish the game as Print on Demand.
3. Make sure the game has a support system afterwards. We don't want people to have to come back to Kickstarter to fund the next expansion for the game.
4. Use theGameCrafter.com. It is one of the best game communities around, and we want to be able to give back to them.
5. Custom dice. We love games with special dice. We gotta figure a way to do that.
6. Make the campaign stick to the goal. If the goal is "make lots of copies of the game" then offering t-shirts is kind of a distraction. Especially if the T-shirt is not needed to play the game. That is probably very anti-marketing of us.

-Aaron from A'n'SR.