History of Mac gaming book

mossy_11

So I've been hinting at this for years, and finally I'm in a position to actually share it. I'm writing a book about the history of Mac gaming. It's been my pet project for the past few years and is on track for a finished manuscript later this year and publication sometime around mid-2017.

You can find out more about it on the publisher's website at unbound.co.uk/books/macgaming, where we're trying to raise money to cover production costs (roughly 500-600 backers should get us there). But the short version is that it's more of my usual kind of narrative-style history — stories not just of games but also of people and ideas, only now tweaked to fit a book format.

I'd really appreciate it if you could all take a look and pledge if it's of interest. I need all the help I can get to push this over the line and make sure the book gets the kind of high-quality, loving design and printing job it deserves.

And then please help spread the word on social media and other Mac/gaming/retro computing forums. I'm only a member at a few of them.

menace690

Bought the hard back. Hurry up, I'm excited to dig in!

WatchSmart

I'm in!

mossy_11

Thanks guys! I appreciate the support. Getting some great feedback and amazing interviews, too, which is encouraging.

I should also note, since they don't have a countdown timer on the page, that the funding campaign runs for three months — so unless we cancel early or agree to extend it a little longer, it'll end on July 26.

And if you know anyone with lots of money, please bug them to make a large pledge. We need more backers at the mid and upper tiers (to pull the average pledge amount up). I can arrange to have new tiers added if somebody wants some combination of rewards not on offer there (or some entirely new reward, like I give a talk at some event/place or I give them specific interview transcripts or whatever).

jetboy

Awesome idea mate... a book about an era of gaming that is full of nostalgia in my eyes. The video brings back lots of memories of the good old days, hunched over my Mac Plus, that had a trusty double case of floppies next to it (mostly shareware and pirated games.) I wish I had some photos of those days...

Look forward to meeting you in Melbourne. Which cafe? ;) I proposed to my wife at Il Tempo (Degraves Street) so it's always a lovely city to visit. You've given me a reason to take a week off work and relax in Melbourne once I finish College of Law.

Edit:
Special request... can you do an interview with Adam Hinkley for a bonus chapter seeing as he developed the tool that we all used when obtaining these games? Hotline was vastly different from what people use today... rather than grabbing a 2TB hard disk and downloading EVERYTHING 'just because'... I had a 33.6k modem and an 800MB h/d (plus a few Zip disks.) Also, you needed to negotiate permission to download. It was sorta like visiting a flea market while on vacation. You'd need to wheel and deal... you'd often get ripped off (e.g. by uploading then not getting access) and storage was limited, so you just took the stuff you REALLY wanted.

It was funny doing cybercrime last semester because all the wide-eyed kids were all excited about modern software for distributing warez (as if they invented it) while I quietly thought to myself... 'this has existed forever.'

MetalDragon

I would love to read from AmbrosiaSW, about their games like Barrack and Harry the Handsome Executive and unreleased games like Manse.

What happens if the goal won't be reached? Any chance to get that book printed nonetheless?

mossy_11

jetboy wrote:
Look forward to meeting you in Melbourne. Which cafe? ;) I proposed to my wife at Il Tempo (Degraves Street) so it's always a lovely city to visit. You've given me a reason to take a week off work and relax in Melbourne once I finish College of Law.

My girlfriend's the foodie and café lover, so I'll defer to her when the time comes.

Special request... can you do an interview with Adam Hinkley for a bonus chapter seeing as he developed the tool that we all used when obtaining these games? Hotline was vastly different from what people use today... rather than grabbing a 2TB hard disk and downloading EVERYTHING 'just because'...

I'll think about this. My original proposal had a bonus chapter that I was calling A People's History of Mac Gaming, which would have gone into stuff like this. But then I had to cut the planned book length from 120,000 words to 100,000 to trim the crowdfunding target (which is still higher than I'd like but is unfortunately what it costs to produce a high-quality book of this nature). Now I don't know if there'll be room to delve into it much beyond two or three paragraphs.

I have thought it'd be nice to put together a pay-what-you-want ebook along the "people's history" lines after this book comes out. That'd have some bonus material in more of an oral history format and lots of memories from ordinary (i.e., non-developer, not individually-significant to the history of Mac gaming) folks. But I need to finish the main book before I make a decision on that.

MetalDragon wrote:
What happens if the goal won't be reached? Any chance to get that book printed nonetheless?

My contract with Unbound will become void and I'll be free to find another way to release the book (and all backers will get their money back). It will definitely come out as an ebook no matter what. I'm way too deep into this to not finish writing the book, and ebook self-publishing is easy.

As for getting it printed, I'm not sure. Unbound is my best option for that, but if we don't reach the goal then I'll look into the cost and quality of self-publishing options such as Amazon's CreateSpace.

mossy_11

Made an audio documentary about how Robyn and Rand Miller (the Myst guys) got started in game development and in particular how they designed The Manhole.

http://ludiphilia.net/podcast/6-the-manhole

MetalDragon

Only 16 Days to go and still 437 more pledges needed. ;(

mossy_11

Actually, it's 45 days to go. Campaign ends July 26.

MetalDragon

oh yay, I thought it was 26 of june. Now I have new hope to get the printed book. :)

mossy_11

I'll be doing a Twitch.tv livestream of Escape Velocity with Matt Burch this Thursday (June 23) at 8pm Pacific Time.
https://www.twitch.tv/mossrc

I hope to see some familiar names from here hanging out in the chat.

mossy_11

Those of you who've backed already know this, but for anyone else coming by: This has been successfully funded.

We're talking about having a stretch goal or two and keeping the rewards open for a while longer. But regardless, around the middle of next year you'll (probably) be able to read all about the history of the Mac games scene.

jetboy

mossy_11 wrote:
Those of you who've backed already know this, but for anyone else coming by: This has been successfully funded.

We're talking about having a stretch goal or two and keeping the rewards open for a while longer. But regardless, around the middle of next year you'll (probably) be able to read all about the history of the Mac games scene.

Hey Mossy I'm thinking about writing a book about a totally unrelated topic. Any chance we could have a chat about the process of getting from idea to a fully funded book?

mossy_11

Sure. I'm gonna be flat-out with work until mid-November, but happy to chat by whatever method you prefer anytime after that.

_Em

That last 20% is always the hardest in a book -- because it usually involves re-thinking the entire rest of the book a few times before you get it right. Good luck!

jetboy

FWIW I received my copy yesterday :D

IMO it's a very thorough tome. As I was hoping... a really cool 'coffee table' book. Fortunately I've got just the right 'coffee table' (a pac-man tabletop arcade machine) to store it on for guests (mostly my wife's friends - she's the social one) to thumb through while pretending to enjoy my dry humour.

LOTS of conversation starters in there!!!!! What I enjoy the most is that it's got such good coverage of such a long, formative era, so I'm sure everybody within my age bracket (give or take 15 years either side) will find SOMETHING they can relate to.

mossy_11

That sounds like the perfect life for the book (once you've finished reading it!), and is exactly the role I hope the book can play.

Besides the obvious motivations — as someone who grew up playing Mac games and wanting to learn the stories behind them — I wanted to document this forgotten area of pop culture history, and to create something that starts conversations. So mission accomplished, I guess.

I hope you get a lot of enjoyment and value out of the book. (And make sure you tell anyone who seems interested in reading the whole thing that they can visit secrethistoryofmacgaming.com to find more info and links to buy a copy.)

Richard Bannister

I'm about half way through it at the moment – it's a good read. Well done.

Niemann

Just started reading and it's been a great read so far. Mossy, excellent work and congratulations.