Brandon Boyer

Oh, Mother: Fangamer release PDF, web-browsable versions of Earthbound 3 guidebook

For the (hopefully) few of you that haven't taken the leap for the physical version itself: fashion/culture/merch shop Fangamer, in a move making them the new Andersons of the game world, have made the entirety of their entirely fan-written/illustrated guidebook to unofficially localized GBA RPG Mother 3 browsable online.

As I mentioned back in March it's both a gorgeously designed tribute to The Game Nintendo Won't Let Us Have, and indispensable as a guidebook should be. The free version is actually fairly legible, save for some of the charts in the index: for the rest of you that need those yet still want to keep this transaction paper free, Fangamer's also just released this hi-res $6 PDF version.

But really, there are few even professionally produced guidebooks on the market these days that warrant flipping through when you're not absolutely in need of it: the Mother guide is an exception to that and probably needs to be held in the hand to be best appreciated.

Brandon Boyer

The Book Lovers: "Well Played 1.0", 22 essays on Bioshock, Ico, Mario, Portal, Zelda

Just published by Carnegie Mellon University professor Drew Davidson, and perfect for a long-weekend read (while we all wait for the Infinite Summer to arrive): Well Played 1.0, a collection of 22 essays from developers, scholars, reviewers and bloggers that investigate both the experience of playing particular games, as well as how well the game itself is designed and developed.

The games included in the 1.0 version:

Advance Wars, Bioshock, Bully, Civilization 4, Europa Universalis, Guitar Hero, Half-Life 2, Ico, Kingdom of Loathing, Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Metal Gear Solid 4, Mines of Minos, Parappa the Rappa, Passage, Phoenix Wright, Portal, Secret of Monkey Island, Shadow of the Colossus, Silent Hill 2, Super Mario Bros., Tempest, Ultima Underworld, World of Goo, and Zork

From the following contributors:

Kirk Battle (L.B. Jeffries), Mia Consalvo, Greg Costikyan, Patrick Curry, Drew Davidson, Corvus Elrod, Noah Falstein, Clara Fernandez-Vara, Mary Flanagan, Nick Fortugno, James Paul Gee, Charles Herold, Clint Hocking, Katherine Isbister, Nick Montfort, Doris Rusch, Jesse Schell, Brett Shelton, Mark Sivak, Seth Sivak, Kurt Squire, Jason Vandenberghe

The book is available for free as an HTML text dump via the book's official site or as a free PDF download from Lulu; a print version can be ordered via Lulu as well.

Well Played 1.0: Video Game, Value and Meaning [ETC-Press, thanks Drew!]

Brandon Boyer

Read/watch/listen: Romanian mag Otaku Play includes indie/chiptune DVD, eBoy poster

Spotted by the TIGSource crowd earlier in the weekend and quickly ordered before its minuscule run of 350 copies ran dry is Okatu Play, the latest issue of a chapbook style magazine put out, as it happens, by the same Romanian organization that put together the Otaku festival Mike noted a week or two back.

The table of contents is a laundry list of unfamiliar or only hazily recognized names, but it's the included DVD that is more overtly the draw: in addition to a lineup of 2007 BlipFest videos (all taken, it would seem, from the earlier mentioned Vimeo uploads that included 6955 and Virt), the disc also features music by Nullsleep, Kaseo and she, trailers and info on a number of Offworld-regular indie games, and, to top it off, comes with a foldout poster by iso-pixel artists eBoy.

The magazine ran me just over $20, and still looks to be available as of now: see also some previews of their earlier issues via issuu.

OTAKU PLAY [via TIGSource]

Brandon Boyer

Beam racer: MIT previews Bogost/Montfort Atari 2600 book

In other un-related Ian Bogost news, MIT Press has opened a Google Preview of the opening chapters of Bogost and MIT assistant professor Nick Montfort's forthcoming book Racing the Beam, chronicling the life and times of the Atari 2600, and how the development pioneers at the time created "new techniques, mechanics, and even entire genres."

Interestingly, the book takes the form of following the console's lifespan through six key carts: Combat, Adventure, Pac-Man, Yars' Revenge, Pitfall!, and Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back and what each would mean to games now.

Bogost is a consistently interesting voice -- academic but highly approachable -- in his columns for Gamasutra: very much looking forward to seeing what the two of them make of this under-explored chunk of the past.

Racing the Beam [MIT Press, Google Preview, via 8bitrocket, via GameSetWatch]

Previously:
Touch me I'm slick: Persuasive Games' experimental Jetset - Offworld
Passage's Jason Rohrer and emotional game experiences - Offworld
BAFTA to honor Pong/Atari head Nolan Bushnell - Offworld
Pixel porn: the brilliantly honest Yar's Revenge, Asteroids, Star ...
What Does Your Soul Look Like (Part 2600) - Offworld

John Brownlee

ebooks come to the Nintendo DS

Nintendo and HarperCollins are teaming up to turn the Nintendo DS into an eBook reader with their obviously titled 100 Classic Books Collection.

Essentially, twenty quid gets you 100 Project Gutenberg books dumped on a cart and wrapped with a remedial text reading program.

This isn't such a bad idea, but it depends on how well done they make the text reading program wrapper. Something as elegant and flexible as uBook for the Pocket PC would be great, but most of the text reading programs I've seen for the DS in the homebrew scene have had a real hard time displaying text attractively.

Really, I think the DS has promise as an ebook reader: it has the advantage of two screens, after all. But I'd prefer to see it as built-in functionality... perhaps a firmware update to the DSi.

Mario makes way for Shakespeare on Nintendo DS in HarperCollins deal [Times Online]

Brandon Boyer

Chronicle holding LucasArts book signing

Via BigDownload we note that Chronicle Books will be holding a San Francisco signing on December 4th for Rogue Leaders, its upcoming visual history of the golden age of Lucasarts adventures.

Chronicle says the book is "a deluxe compilation that traces its history through never-before-published interviews," with "more than 300 pieces of concept art, character development sketches, and storyboards have been lavishly reproduced to showcase the creative talent behind such videogame classics as The Secret of Monkey Island, Grim Fandango, and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic."

Cartoon Brew ran a scan of the one-sheet several weeks back with a selection of the images inside. The signing will be this Thursday, December 4th at Chronicle's 680 Second Street outlet, and the book itself will be released more widely in mid-December.

Rogue Leaders signing [Chronicle Books]