Hey, I made this thing about Crackdown, and it turned out pretty well. I think you should watch it.
Videos, it turns out, are weirdly addictive to make.
Anyway… I think I have finally recovered from E3. And the USgamer relaunch. And the massive change in editorial style we’ve taken on. And all the other things we foolishly decided to do concurrently with E3. A decade after 1UP’s disastrous E3 2004 failure to relaunch, I still don’t understand how major publishing projects like this always coincide with the show… but despite our best intentions, they do. Alas.
I did make an effort last week to get back up to speed on Anatomy of Games, making some pretty hefty progress into The Anatomy of Mega Man 2. I’ll be a little sad when this one’s over, because breaking apart such a great game is a true pleasure. I also recorded a completely playthrough of the game for an upcoming USgamer feature, but doing so filled me with a burning desire to make a full Anatomy feature of it. Actually, I’d really like to go back and add a video component to Anatomy of Games….
Speaking of video, I expect to get back on track with Game Boy World this week. I’ve taken some time away from posting game retrospectives so I could flesh out the database, and also because of all the massive responsibilities that have eaten my time for the past month or two USgamer, but I’m working on the next video now. It is admittedly a pretty intimidating piece — it’s about the Game Boy hardware itself, and I feel like doing it proper justice is a bit beyond my current video editing capabilities. But you learn by doing, right? Every video I make, I get a little more comfortable and a little more adventurous.
Which brings me to the clichéd part of this evening’s program. You see, I have launched a Patreon campaign to help fund Game Boy World, as well as to help me flesh out Anatomy of Games with videos, and begin developing Metroidvania.com in earnest. I’m currently about $1,000 out of pocket for GBW and, honestly, I really can’t afford to keep doing that. Similarly, I want to record actual games from actual hardware for Metroidvania.com, and that’s going to add up, too. As for Anatomy of Games videos… well, actually, I don’t really need any additional resources for that. They’d just be a bonus.
Like I’ve mentioned, I learned my lesson on fundraisers after the Talking Time and Retronauts things from last year: Namely, don’t overcommit to extras. They eat up time and money that could be used more productively. I’m still plugging away steadily at those commitments. So, as incentives for this Patreon thing, I’m keeping it simple: Support these sites and you’ll get free copies of the books I’m going to produce anyway. I’ll compile Mega Man and Mega Man 2 into a volume within a month or two, and I also intend to turn Game Boy World and Metroidvania.com into printed chronological encyclopedias as I go along — one every 40-50 entries or so, I estimate. Supporters will get those books the day they’re published, either as PDFs or as printed books. Possibly DVDs compilations of the videos, too, if I can figure out how to get those to work (the Retronauts DVDs, which I have been working on, will be the litmus test there). With all I have going on, I’ll only ever be able to post 15 updates combined across GBW/Anatomy/Metroidvania at the absolute most in a given month, so if you support at the basic $1 per entry level, you’ll never be out for more than $15 per month.
I’m not looking to make a huge amount of money off this — I mean, it would be nice, but as long as I hit the basic funding goal, I’ll be happy. I’m not sure that there are a few dozen people in the world who care about what I’m doing with the sites enough to want to help, but I’ll be grateful for any help defraying the costs of materials and supplies. So, if you aren’t already tapped out from the thousand or so other nerd Patreons and Kickstarters out there, I hope you will consider pitching in for mine. Thanks!
Cool. Glad you have something set up to keep things going. I actually put my name on the reservation list last month to buy a GB Everdrive. And was gonna donate it to you. So you wouldn’t have to, you know, buy every single Gameboy game.
I appreciate it! That’s really generous. But please don’t. At the end of this, I’d like to be able to say I did the whole thing without any piracy, through buying and borrowing games. Also, when it’s all over, I’d like to be able to donate the entire lot of games I buy for this project to someplace like the Strong Museum. It seems like the idea capstone.
I did read that was your goal and it is quite admirable. I was thinking if you still wanted to spend all that money, you could stil use one to supplement your playing as it does work with a Super Gameboy, and you could have the modern convieniece of carrying around a lot of games(or all) in one cartridge without sacrificing authenticity because it wouldn’t be emulated. And you could still buy all the games for reference, cover art, instructions etc. It would be an awesome tool for what you are doing.
It’s not entirely about authenticity — it’s also about theft. I’d really like to do this project without making use of piracy. Unfortunately, as cool as the Everdrive is, it relies on stolen software.
Fair enough. I can respect that. In any case I donated for the Patreon. It really threw me off at first on the per article pledge. I wanted to throw on 50 one time but soon realized how it really worked and changed my donation. That was almost a VERY costly mistake.
It is a little confusing, yeah. Don’t worry, I’ve been contacting people who over-donate to let them know what happened. I don’t want any nasty surprises for anyone.
Will the books produced from this be offered from the Blurb store afterwards? I can spare $10-15/mo, but not enough to get the hardcover books, which I’d gladly pay for individually.
Oh, yeah, of course. PDFs and Blurb books will still be available for sale for those who would like them.