Games for Atari: 1977 to 1995 Book Project on Kickstarter

[Marc Oberhäuser]

Hello everybody,

This week my Kickstarter book project "Games for Atari: 1977 to 1995" has started.

As some of you already knew I have been working on a book project about Atari games since 02/2015 with the help of Al/AA. It’s focused on in-game graphics, presenting the best/iconic and - sometimes not so good looking - games.

It is comparable to the popular books like “Visual Compendium of C64/ZX Spectrum/NES” and “ZX Spectrum/C64 in Pixels” but with more focus on screenshots. There is editorial content in my book, but no large interviews or "making ofs".

It should have been a small book with about 200 pages, focusing on the 2600 only. As time went by I thought it would be a good idea to add another Atari system – the Atari 7800 ProSystem - since the game library is rather small and could be added in full. As soon I was done with the 7800 I looked at my completed 5200 SuperSystem collection and again, I went on and added all games for the system to my book project.

At that point I was already at 500+ pages. Playing all those 5200 games again after quite some time I went another step further, adding the – from my perspective – best or interesting games for the 8-bit computer family. Knowing that there is no chance of adding all good 8-bit games I aimed for an easier prey with a finite goal: The Lynx library, it’s just 74 games, can’t be that hard to add them and it’s an 8-bit system anyway…

So now I am at 704 pages and this without even covering prototypes, homebrews and aftermarket releases. At one point I have to draw a line if I ever want to publish the book.
And here we are. The book is close to be done. I have to unify the positions of the CIB, streamline the information content and change some shadows for the sprites. It’s a routine task and doesn’t involve time-consuming researches.

But why a Kickstarter project if everything is close to be done? And why so much? Creating a book is one thing; actually get it printed is a bit different. It’s expensive. You have a minimum number, and a quality printing costs extra money, it’s not just some random internet printer.

If you are interested in such a book give it a look on Kickstarter right here:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects...i-1977-to-1995

Many thanks for reading,
Marc.