Hello, mortals. I am pleased to announce today that GameSpite Quarterly 3 is now live. You can read the intro and the table of contents and buy a physical copy right this very moment. Perhaps it will bring a flicker of cheer to your brief existence here on this planet!
If I were to describe this issue in a singly pithy phrase, I would call it “the one that got away.” Although it’s only going live a week later than its quarterly schedule would dictate, it feels like we’ve been working on this book for a lifetime. It has fought and resisted my efforts to wrangle it under control since the beginning. The original intent for this issue was to publish a fairly straightforward compendium of 8-bit characters, a straightforward reference work. The issue’s contributors, however, had very different ideas and really didn’t want to do anything so mundane. So the tone isn’t quite what I had expected going into the issue — which isn’t to say it’s bad! It’s quite entertaining, in fact. The countless brief bits of content included here make this pretty much definitive bathroom reading, and every entry is a little different than the last.
Which brings us to the other way in which this one got away: It suffered a fair amount of scope creep, ultimately boasting twice as much material as the GameSpite Quarterly platonic ideal of 120-160 pages would advocate. Which means this thing took forever to put together, and copy edit, and proof, and so on. It also begged the question of how to keep it affordable, since Blurb charges by page count; ultimately I decided on making an extra edition of the book available, an inexpensive entry-level version that upholds our commitment to affordable game-related reading material without doing something more mercenary, like breaking the book into two volumes that everyone would have to buy separately. For those who want the full content, the larger and necessarily more expensive editions are available, of course, but the budget book is also there so’s you don’t feel like you’re being gouged.
And even as the book grew whenever we thought, “Hey, we need to include this character,” there are still plenty of 8-bit heroes we’ve left behind, from Bentley Bear to Wonder Momo to the nameless humanoid of Berzerk. But we had to draw the line somewhere or this thing never would have gone live.
Anyway, as usual, the contents of this issue will be posted over the coming months alongside the usual blog nonsense. And GameSpite Quarterly 4 will be… less excessive. I promise.
Evil Otto is way more interesting than the Berzerk guy anyway.
Excellent! Just put in an order for the hardcover edition.
Percy? Really? Isn’t it bad enough that that creepy little hellspawn has infested Talking Time?
Aaaaaaand ordered. Congrats Jeremy and all the contributors. Cannot wait for it to arrive.
Evil Otto is a villain! Villains will be in a later issue, probably.
I’ve been waiting, thanks for putting these together. Now I face the arduous task of deciding if I should get the hardcover or stick with the paperback like I did for the first two.
It’ll be the perfect Christmas present for myself!
It’ll just be a matter of not reading through this one in a week, so that the gap between this and the next one doesn’t seem so long.
Woo! bought!
Do we know which cover goes for which issue?
Each cover is associated with its own image on the Blurb store, but the breakdown (by popular demand) is: Deluxe/Dragon Quest; Standard/Mega Man; Budget/Mario.
I always thought the articles were a bit short, until I realized that yes… this really is perfect bathroom reading. like, perfect.
A lot of this stuff sounds great, but I’m not sure I would get all the 8-bit references. I imagine some of that stuff is pretty obscure. Maybe I’ll go with the truncated edition.
Oh, but the really obscure ones are the best! Those are the ones written by total obsessive weirdos who have a lot of pent up humor to get out!
Thanks for using the DQ cover on the deluxe edition!
Okay, we’ve gotta know if there’s a method to which characters showed up on the cover of the different versions of the book. Budget = blue-collar Mario?
So I’m not sure if it bites into the profit margin on the book (if it does, I wouldn’t be offended if this post is deleted), but I figured I’d share a Blurb coupon code good for everyone wanting the deluxe edition (or a lower edition with an additional Gamespite book).
Blurb 20% off coupon. Ends December 1st 11:59 PM PST
US $ promo code: BLURBJOY (minimum purchase of $39.95)
UK £ promo code: BLURBJOY2 (minimum purchase of £21.95)
EUR € promo code: BLURBJOY3 (minimum purchase of €31.95)
AUD $ promo code: BLURBJOY4 (minimum purchase of AUD $49.95)
Arrrrgh, just ordered multiple books a few minutes before you posted that coupon. Ah well, them’s the breaks. Really looking forward to this one.
My original bright idea was to order these when there were two or three out, to save on shipping. Now I realise just how much money that adds up to, I might have to wait ’till after Festival-of-money-receiving.
But I like the way the covers-to-editions panned out. I think it works.
I’m so excited! Josh, is there a coupon for someone buying in Canada? (Or maybe the US one works for us too?)
Sorry for the misleading earlier post about the coupon. It apparently only work on that you personally authored. So Parish would get the discount, but not us.
On further reading of the fine print, I guess it does say 20% off any “books you make.” I guess my brain glossed over the finer details of what that actually meant. I originally guessed that was just their way of saying “purchased” since each book is made on demand, but was so very wrong. Oh well. I’m still going to put in my order for the the deluxe volumes of 2 and 3, as soon as I get my Christmas gift budget worked out.
Is that hp free shipping coupon still good? yay/nay
Do a search for blurb promo code 2009 or similar and eventually you’ll stumble across a code that works. You can try coupon codes for as long as you like, so it’s really just a matter of how much cash you wanna save.
Oh right, heroes. Maybe I’ll learn how to read in time for GSQ#5!
Oh hey, this is apparently my GSQ standard edition debut.
Man, I’m sorry in advance, you guys.
Blurb has re-vamped its coupon codes recently and pretty much made the program useless. No they all only apply to books that you make yourself…so they are mostly useless.
On the plus side, they now offer flat rate shipping on up to about 6 books. If cost is a concern, I recommend waiting until there are a few books you want and getting them all at once.
“Is that hp free shipping coupon still good? yay/nay”
BLURBSHIP (all caps) gives you free ground shipping but it’s only good until Dec. 8