I’ve been teasing it for a few months as it’s taken form, but at long last Good Nintentions 1985 is complete and up for purchase at Amazon and CreateSpace. As usual, you can buy it in a full color edition (a bit expensive at $35, because that’s the unavoidable reality of a full-color, 182-page, 8×10″, print-on-demand book) or black-and-white (more reasonable at $15). Amazon frequently does its price-fluctuation thing, so the cost may drop there at some point; or, you can buy now from CreateSpace and use one of these coupon codes for a discount (the bonus being that I make a larger commission on CreateSpace direct sales):

• Full-color edition at Amazon ($35)
• B&W edition at Amazon ($15)
• Full-color edition at CreateSpace ($30 with coupon code LXFL8AHK)
• B&W edition at CreateSpace ($12 with coupon code T8ENBVYN)

I kinda recommend the color edition, not because I make more money off of it — I get about the same cut from both editions — but because I poured a lot of effort and cash into the visuals of this thing. I mean, there are the color-matching layouts, but those are just dressing; the meat of the book is in (1) the text and (2) the extensive packaging photography and direct-feed screen captures.

Here, have some sample layouts:

I adapted the book text from Good Nintentions video scripts, with fairly substantial rewrites and refinements (and like three rounds of copy editing, so I hope to god I caught most of the typos). As you can see from the last spread sample above, I included a bunch of new sidebars as well to expand on relevant ephemera like cartridge designs, the Vs. Unisystem, those hidden region adapters inside some carts, and more.

Finally, In addition to the full NES 1985 library roundup and articles on the hardware and peripherals, I also included smaller spreads on the Famicom’s 1983 library by way of contrast and comparison:

There’s no shortage of NES retrospective books these days — several have gone to print since I put together the Good Nintentions overview book less than a year ago! — but I really and truly feel this one stands apart. It’s not a comprehensive survey of the system, it doesn’t attempt to encompass everything about the NES, it contains a huge amount of text rather than  full-page screen shots; and I’ve gone to a lot of trouble and expense to buy or borrow complete packaged games and hardware. It’s simply an in-depth look at the NES’s launch games, with each title presented in a standalone essay that explores its development, historical context, and impact… at least, to the best of my ability in my meager free time.

So anyway, I’m proud of this book, even if I can see many ways to make future volumes even better, and I hope you’ll consider picking up a copy and spreading the word if you like it. (If you don’t like it, well… I’m very sorry, and I ask that you please don’t start a smear campaign against it.)

Next up, I think, will be a Mode Seven book that, as with last year’s Good Nintentions book, adapts an old issue of GameSpite Quarterly and greatly expands on the contents to function as a huge, comprehensive system overview.