Announcing... Acquire?

Over the past several weeks I’ve been working on various AI-enabled writing and publishing tools. The first of these tools are CoverFixer and BlurbFixer (they’re free to try, check ‘em out!).

Why did I suddenly pivot from writing to building apps? Mainly because AI models have advanced to the point where—with a little guidance—they can perform a wide variety of publishing tasks extremely well, allowing authors to save money, market their books more effectively, spend more time writing, and produce better books faster.

But the other reason is that AI models like ChatGPT can now write code much faster (and usually better, if given the proper guidance) than a human being. That means that someone with a software background and a clear idea of what the app needs to do can build an app about ten times as fast as they could a few years ago. So fast, in fact, that I’ve started building all sorts of little apps for tasks where in the past I might have had to hunt for an app online or just created yet another Excel spreadsheet.

A few weeks ago, while playing an online version of the classic boardgame Acquire, my friends and I were getting annoyed with some of the quirks of the software. We’ve found a few different versions of the game online, but none of them work particularly well. I joked that I was going to build my own version of Acquire while we were playing the game.

Well, it took me a little longer than the three hours we were online, but I did it.

I used a Ransom’s Law theme because why not?

You can check it Acquire (Ransom’s Law edition) here:

You’ll need to create a SodaBadger account, and since there’s no single-player version yet, you’ll need a friend or two.

It should run pretty smoothly, but if you run into any issues or have suggestions for improvement, let me know! Keep in mind that I built this in my spare time (ha!) in between writing novels, planning a sci-fi con, and building a suite of publishing tools.

(And don’t worry; Ransom’s Law book 4 is nearly complete. I should be able to send it to Kickstarter supporters in about 3 weeks.)