Cover art for The Game of Authors

The Game of Authors

1861 · BGG
Avg rating
4.52
Bayes rating
5.39
Weight
1.03 (Light)
Players
2-6
Playtime
15 min
Ratings count
268

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Description

Authors - One of the earliest versions of the family of Go Fish games, in which players call on each other to give up a named card, attempting to meld sets for points, based on which set of the game it is (e.g. the first melded set gets 10 points, the second gets 5 points). When all sets have been melded, most points wins.

From The Card Games Website
This is Go Fish without the stock pile. All the cards are dealt out as equally as possible to the players. A turn consists of asking a player for a rank (or a specific card if you play that version). If they have it your turn continues; if not the turn passes to the player you asked. As in Go Fish, you must have a card of the rank you asked for. Books of 4 cards are discarded. The game continues until all the cards are formed into books, and whoever gets most books wins - or you can score one point per book and play to a target score.

This game is often paired in the same deck with Top Trumps

Happy Families - An even earlier (1851), British version with the educational theme centered on family members and their occupations.

Quartett - This is the German equivalent of Happy Families or Authors. Many different designs of cards were made for this game in the late nineteenth and throughout the twentieth century, with various educational or other themes.



Mechanics

Hand Management Memory Set Collection

Themes

American West Animals Movies / TV / Radio theme Music Novel-based Theme Airships / Blimps / Dirigibles / Zeppelins Trivia

Publishers

(Public Domain) (Unknown) AMIGO ASS Altenburger Spielkarten Adolf Sala Bevink Edities Bielefelder Spielkarten Birkel Teigwaren GmbH Carl Werner Carlit Cartamundi Catullus Cincinnati Game Co. Djeco E. E. Fairchild Corporation Erhard Neubert KG Eurofranchising B.V. F.X. Schmid Fireside Game Co. Franz Schmidt G.M. Whipple General Mills Glücksklee Granna Great American Game Company Grimaud Groneweg & Meintrup Gustav Weise Verlag H. P. Gibson & Sons Helingsche Verlagsanstalt Humanus-Spiele I.C.C. Product J. Bünting & Co. Jos. Scholz Jumbo KOSMOS Kaba Kasco Mills Klee Klipps Kaffee Kultquartett Lederbogen Karl-Marx-Stadt Leipziger Kinderbuchverlag Lookout Games M. Dittert & Co MIKA McLoughlin Brothers Merrimack Publishing Corp. Milton Bradley Mulder Multicolor N.W. Damm & Søn (Damm) Nathan National Game Company Noris Spiele ONKEL & ONKEL Otto Maier Verlag Parker Brothers Peliko Oy Piatnik Review and Herald Publishing Richard Hauenstein Rudolf Forkel KG Russell Manufacturing Company Sage, Sons & Co. Sala Schmidt Spiele SchneiderBuch Schwager & Steinlein Schüle-Hohenlohe Selecta Spel en Hobby Selecta Spielzeug Spear's Games St. Benno-Verlag GmbH St. Briktius Tactic The United States Playing Card Company U.S. Games Systems, Inc. VEB (Volkseigener Betrieb) Spielkartenfabrik Altenburg Verlag Bing Werke AG Verlag für Lehrmittel Pössneck Volkswagen/Audi Walter Flechsig Warren Built Rite Games Weltquartett Whitman Wilder Manufacturing Co

Designers

Anne W. Abbott