Preview: HG101 Presents: The Guide to Retro Indie Games Vol. 1

So, earlier today I accidentally pocket tweeted out a work-in-progress PDF of one of the books I've been working on. Ooops! Confounded technology! Anyway, since it's out there, I figured I'd officially announce it and give a preview to you guys. 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ff538sm76v682lc/Indie%20Book%20-%20Preview.pdf?dl=0

The title isn't final, but I wanted to create a book that focused on the retro-styled section of indie games. For as much as people bag on AAA games, both this generation and the last have been saved by the extremely high quality of downloadable titles through the XBLA, PSN, and Steam. To get games like this in the past, we had to pay a premium to get our consoles modded, get software delivered from overseas, and dig out a Japanese dictionary just to get through the menus. Now there's an embarassment of riches available almost instantly, for almost trivial amounts of money. It's incredible. So this series of books primarily focuses on games like that, across all genres.

This is actually a different version that the preview I'd erroneously linked before, cutting out the stuff that wasn't done and adding in some other things (that file was over a month old). There's not much here that isn't already on the site, but there are a few new and updated articles - Kathy Rain, Dust, and Hyper Light Drifter, the latter of which I just finished earlier today. It's still very rough and unedited, some pieces still have blank space at the end, which I need to clean up, but should give you an idea of what it'll be. I haven't decided on the complete title list either, since I'm still finishing some things up.

Anyway, this wasn't announced yet because I usually like to hold off making things public until I've got a cover ready. I've contracted one but it'll still be at least a few months off before it's ready to show. There are actually a few more books intended before the release of this one. Here's the intended schedule for this year:

Soon-ish: Retro Game Super Translation Selection (translation is mostly done, just needs editing)

June (hopefully before Too Many Games):  Konami Special: Contra, Mystical Ninja and others

Summer?: Guide to Indie Retro Games  

Fall?: The Complete Guide to the Famicom Disk System

Fall?: The Obscure Nintendo Entertainment System

Sometime 2017: Wrestling with Pixels

This is super ambitious but I'm working like heck to get everything in order. It may shift around too, depending on how quickly we can complete the FDS book. In the meantime, enjoy this sample! I'll probably be getting samples together of some of the above books too!