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Hi Reader who is also a reader and welcome to booked for the week – our normal Sunday chat with a selection of fantastic book industry! I am still making my way through the Blood Meridian, both incredibly vivid prose alchemy and of the deep and heartbreaking trivial, and also a bit as if a Bible ate a pocket pulp and then sided a second more stupid bible with at least twice the people who were cut the dicks cut in the mouth. I love literature so much.
This week is civilization, Offworld Trading Company, Old WorldAND Notes of designerSoren Johnson! Greetings Soren! Do you mind if we have a nose in your library?
What are you currently reading?
I have a stack of history books next to my desk in a certain part of the world during a specific period of time, which are now full of notes and phrases underlined. Unfortunately, I really can’t say anything about them without making it very obvious what our next game will be. Excuse me!
What did you read the last time?
In the last decade, I have been a faithful reader of the Jimmy Maher’s History Blog blog, The digital antiquarianWhich is the attempt of a writer to tell the entire story of computer -based video games. In 2011, he started with the games of the 70s such as Hunt the Wumpus, Adventure and Oregon Trail, and in 2025 he had reached 1998 – which means Baldur’s Gate, Starcraft and Half -life made all the recent apparitions. (For those who keep the score at home, this means that it covers approximately two historical years by civil year.) Frankly, there is nothing out there – physical or digital – with this combination of width and depth. When you cover the games – many of whom have never had anyone who wrote serious – returns to contemporary articles and other sources to place the works in their appropriate context and to actually check the stories that have been told (and have grown) over the years. Not to appoint any name, but not all games developers have shown that they are an accurate source on, for example, on how many copy their game sold or on those who had to blame the mistakes of a project, and Jimmy makes the best to make the record clear.
If a reader is not sure where to start with his work, I would recommend starting with a fall of fall, the Third article In his series on Tetris, who launches the reader on non -plausible and so true history of how Tetris escaped the Soviet Union and conquered the world, looking for the globe and passing through many hands along the way, some of which belonged to, we should say, very colorful characters. While his work affects the predictable high points of computer games (the consoles only make short appearances: an allowance necessary for such a non -plausible project), some of his best works involve the discovery of the forgotten alleys, such as the turf of interplay Kingdoms of the obsessiveand pursue bribes too well to let themselves fall, like the many (failed) attempts to lay The first transatlantic telegraph cable (as a prelude to the history of the Internet).
While the choice of a blog might seem like a cheater for a column on my library, the existence of digital antiques as a living document online makes it much higher than the static books on the history of the game that are frozen over time as soon as they are printed. His articles accumulate on each other, often connecting to past themes of the time he was not even aware, and the section of the comments is often visited by the same games developers, who help him make corrections and give an extra context to the decisions they have made at that moment. These developers do not always agree with each other, which will actually be indispensable for the historical future who will not have the opportunity to speak with them while they are still alive. The impulse to break down history now, while we can still, is the same reason why I started the podcast of designer notes in 2014, and I must admit that it was a strange feeling when Jimmy started using my interviews as a material of primary origin. In fact, I would like to have chosen my subjects better to combine his program. I just interviewed Charles Cecil (under a steel sky and the series of broken swords), and had some record skimming stories to tell how the games business worked in the United Kingdom of the 80s – some of which had already arrived in Jimmy’s articles on Charles and some of which I was listening for the first time.
What book do you find yourself disturbing friends to read?
Staying with the theme of the history of the games, I encouraged many games of games to find a copy of the second edition of the design of the game of Richard Rouse III: theory and practice, which contains extensive interviews with seven of the most important games of the last century – Sid Meier, Will Wright, Chris Crawford, Steve Meretzky, Daugh Church, Jordn Mechner and Logg. Over the years I have read many interviews with the developers, who tend to stick to some marketing beats and to be light on the current introspection, but somehow he had enough time with his subjects to fill 20-30 pages for each, going deep into what motivated their design decisions. I have never found a better collection of interviews.
Which book would you like to see someone adapt to a game?
I would like to see someone turn dunes into a temptular and shift strategy game. I know that Dune has a historical story in games and dunes 2, as the first modern RTS, is one of the most important strategy games of all time. (In fact, the digital antiquarian has widely covered the way Virgin is accidentally finished Two unrelated games on dunes At the same time, which is why Dune 2 is not actually a sequel.) However, Dune’s books have always struck me as fundamentally contemplative works – let alone on the action and reaction than on the forecast and preparation. They are approximately comprehension The world above all and give players the time to think and plan – also to improvise and imagine – is what shift strategy games do better than any other kind. Someone should make it happen! (The recent board game, dunes: imperium, may not be temptular, but its close action economy and its dangerous deck for intrigues do a surprisingly good job in capturing Dune’s paranoid Yomi.)
You will have noticed that Soren has cleverly educated the problem of appointing each book never written by refusing to tell me what is reading and also forgetting to answer two of my questions. Really, the man has three moves in front of the rest of us. A week in front of us is another guest, probably destined for such success in appointing all the books. Book for now!
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