Do you have too much free time? Do you gape in awe at the glittering piles of treasure surrounding the famous authors of our time, and think, ‘That could be me!’ It’s definitely NOT going to be you, but the boffins at Intersect have the next best thing: Author Simulator 2014! A whiz-bang PC game with modern 3D graphics and all the bells and whistles of last year’s Ben Murphy Simulator!

Customize every aspect of your author’s personality! Balance amazing writing talent with crippling disadvantages!

Author Talents
Grammar Guru––knows where a transitive verb goes
Punctuation Perspicacity––speaks for itself
Spelling Saint––doesn’t need spell check
Sally Sitwell––can write forty-eight hours without stopping
Cover Designer––book cover looks like a human made it
Non-hermit––Ability to Speak to Other Humans
Tee-Totaler––writes without the aid of coffee, tea, alcohol, and illegal drugs
T-1000 Cyborg––uses the power of the Interweb to market books successfully
Pretty Paul––takes good author photos
Sugar Daddy––a spouse who supports your failed writing career and pays the bills

Author Disadvantages: Must choose one for each talent you’ve chosen above!
Purple Prose Perpetrator––never met an adjective or adverb you didn’t like
Grammar Blockhead––Nothing is true, everything is permitted
Front-Matter Felon––foreword, acknowledgements, author’s note, prologue … bored already. BORED!
Cover Criminal––book cover looks like your cat was sick on a newspaper someone left outside in the rain
Nervous Nelly––can’t write five minutes without checking FB LOL
Stan the Coffee Author––can’t write without the aid of coffee, tea, alcohol, and illegal drugs, preferably all of them
Recluse––collects cats, not friendship
Twit the E-Blaster––only markets to other authors who also only market to other authors who also only market to other authors
Robert Denby––unfortunate skin disease
Basement Dweller––Mom and Dad want you to get a job

Choose your author’s sex and skin color! Pick a genre for your first book! Smash the keyboard furiously and in time with the music to finish your first book, and another, and another! Done? Not quite––you have to give those books away for free because everyone else is! Keep writing another series! Use more exclamation marks than recommended!

To reach the end of the game and the piles of treasure, acclaim, and constant adoration of Macy’s catalog models, you’ll need to do more than write. You’ll need to fight through a slush pile taller than Everest and a series of deadly bosses.

Boss Fight!
Mary the Local Writing Group Maven
Billy the Beta Reader
Diabolical Dave, the Literary Agent
CreateSpace

And the final boss––yourself! There’s no person out there who has more power to stop your writing career, than you. Awww.