Harnessing the collective powers of Wikipedia, the cunning and adventure-loving Philipp Lenssen created a lovely and extensive book covering point-and-click and parser-based adventure games. It's none other than the aptly named Graphic Adventures - Being a Mostly Correct History Of the Adventure Game Classics By Lucasfilm, Sierra and Others, From the Pages Of Wikipedia. The book covers all major adventures from Loom, Maniac Mansion and Labyrinth to Space Quest, Leisure Suit Larry and Myst in more than 500 pages of edited, updated and enriched Wikipedia content.
Shockingly, the official word is most enlightening:
Did you love to play graphic adventures as much as I did, and want to learn more about them? The book Graphic Adventures is the mostly correct history of the adventure game classics by Lucasfilm, Sierra and others, from the pages of Wikipedia. The book features the tales behind games like Loom, Labyrinth, Mystery House, Maniac Mansion, Space Quest, The Secret of Monkey Island, King's Quest, Myst, Zork Nemesis and Leisure Suit Larry. The book was based on the pages of Wikipedia articles, which were edited and added to. Many game creators, like Al Lowe, David Fox and Peter Langston, are interviewed and provide further historical background on these games.
You can easily download yourselves a free digital copy here or -better yet- purchase a proper printed one, either via Amazon or via Lulu.
Related @ Gnome's Lair:
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ReplyDeleteDownloading now, looking forward to reading it! Is the cost of printing really $29?
ReplyDeleteWell, lulu.com being a print-on-demand service does tend to be a bit more expensive, but, trust me, this is a ridiculously cheap book by Greek standards.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the mention! I would've liked to make this cheaper but Amazon adds their own markup on top of Lulu's markup and base price for the page count, and then Lulu has this rule to not compete with Amazon's pricing, so you're forced to make the Lulu pricing like the Amazon one. Some years ago, you could make the Lulu book much cheaper, but not anymore...
ReplyDeleteI know dear Philipp. Still, the book is both excellent and very well priced. Hope it does well for you. And you are very welcome of course.
ReplyDeleteI'm confused - the way it's blurbed makes it sound like the author collated, copied, and pasted info from Wikipedia.
ReplyDeleteDid I read it wrong?
Well, only a bit wrong dear Bill. Actually, it's edited and enriched content from Wikipedia, sporting interviews and insight from more than a few game designers. Oh, and it's quite a read let me tell you.
ReplyDeleteWell! The subject matter's right up my alley, that's for darn sure. I guess I'm just a little weirded out by the idea of appropriating from an online encyclopedia and profiting from it.
ReplyDeleteI guess - morally - it all depends on how much "enrichment" really happened.
On the other hand, we need more books about some of the greatest games ever made. So... yeah.
Oh, and you can follow my example and grab the 100% freeware downloadable version of the book; it's in Wikipedia's spirit too. :)
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