Crowdfunding Campaign For New Hardback Book: Japanese Video Game Obscurities
Added 2017-08-02 17:28:57 +0000 UTCSo I receive a lot of requests to publish hardcover versions of HG101 books, which unfortunately the current print-on-demand publisher does not allow. The only way they would be financially feasible is through crowdfunding since it requires a substantial upfront investment. However, a few months ago, the British publisher Unbound approached me about doing a book on obscure Japanese video games. It sounded like a fun project so I took it up! Plus instead of crowdfunding a previously published book, it will be a brand new one too!
Unbound doesn't usually do video game books, but they did previously publish Stuart Ashen's Terrible Old Games You've Probably Never Heard Of (and its upcoming sequel), which you can check out here (and I recommend if you enjoy old, bad British computer software):
You can check out the project page and the video to get an idea of what I'm planning for it. My goal is to provide a wide view of Japanese video games, ranging from the games that were extremely popular over there (but barely known outside), games that are historically important to the Japanese video game industry, and a whole bunch of other interesting or unusual titles. I'm planning to include 101 games, with each game getting two pages (with a lot of images). So it'll be at least 200 pages, and will make a nice coffee table book if you want to show off weird stuff to your guests.
I didn't want the content to retread too much of what's already published - the material written is all new but it does cover some previously trodden ground - but I also wanted to make at least half of it covering games that aren't currently featured on the site, especially titles that don't have much in the way of English coverage.
Unfortunately, since Unbound is publishing the book rather than myself, I can't offer the usual PDF/physical copies for Patreon donors, since I don't get author copies of them until they're actually published. So it needs to reach that goal before it's feasible. I may be able to negotiate something with the publisher when/if it meets its goals. However, I will be regularly publishing some previews from the book (beyond what's already on the crowdfunding page) for Patreon donors so you can get an idea of what's in it. We've still got the upcoming Complete Guide to the Famicom Disk System book and Retro Indie book on our slate for publication in the next few months, as well as a previously unannounced one on PC adventure games (a bit different than our Guide to Classic Graphic Adventure games book).
The actual writing is already about half done, assuming it's greenlighted then we'll be working to get it out by winter.
I haven't settled on the full list of covered games just yet since I'm always swapping them in and out of my list, based on whatever I dig up during my research. Here's a tentative list of about half of what I have planned:
Arcus (need some Wolfteam representation somewhere)
Boku no Natsuyatsumi
Captain Rainbow
Chaos Seed
Days of Memories
Emerald Dragon
Ever17
Gamera 2000
Ganbare Goemon 4 (SFC)
Garage: Bad Dream Adventure
Hanjuku Hero 2
Holy Umbrella
Linda^3
Live a Live
Newtron (or Door Door)
Ore no Ryouri
Sengoku Turb
Segare Ijiri
Soma Bringer
Venus and Braves
Wonder Project J
Yoake no Mariko (with character designs by John Kricfalusi's studio Spümcø)
Yu-No
Jagur 5
Hybrid Front
Neko Samurai
Bokosuka Wars
Xak
46 Okunen Monogatari
Asuka 120% Burning Fest
Densha de Go
Der Langrisser
Dezeni World
Digan no Maseki
Gekisha Boy
Geppy X
GERMS: Nerawareta Machi
Gimmick!
Kuma Uta
Laplace no Ma
Last Armageddon
Maka Maka
Metal Max 2
Mizzurna Falls
Relics
Square's Tom Sawyer
The Screamer
Star Cruiser
Suzuki Bakuhatsu
Tengai Makyou The Apocalypse IV
Anyway, please check it out, there's no immediate deadline like Kickstarter projects so it'll probably be running for at least a couple of months. Stay tuned to here and the Twitter feed for more updates too. Thanks!
