The CRPG Book Project – COMPLETE!
Posted by Rampant Coyote on February 6, 2018
Technically, I guess this counts as another release. 🙂 I’m really excited to read this one… at least what I haven’t read already.
The CRPG Book project is now complete.
Over 500 pages of retro-reviews of classic computer role-playing games, and essays about them. It took four years and a whole lotta people. Felipe Pepe kept at it, through a major relocation and changes in his own life, and the result looks pretty good. There may still be tweaks to fix typos and so forth, but this is otherwise the “final” version.
“The goal of this book is not only to gather, preserve and share the history of CRPGs, but also to help people find hidden gems or experience classic titles for the first time.” Games should be played, and even the older, difficult-to-play gems of yesteryear may be a lot of fun, though it might take a little bit of effort to get it to run and to allow yourself to enjoy something with clunkier graphics and interface. Not to mention, old-school designs. But if you have never enjoyed Ultima 7: The Black Gate, or the first “real” D&D CRPG, The Pool of Radiance and its sequels, dug into the original Fallout or Fallout 2, clashed lightsabers in Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II, charged forward to the cry of “Go for the eyes, Boo!” in the Baldur’s Gate series, or experienced some of the fantastic moments in any number of other RPGs… this book may help you learn what you are missing, and provide a gateway to some great, classic fun!
Contributors include game journalists, academics, game designers, writers, bloggers, and many more. My own contributions include an essay (a cleaned-up blog post from a few years back, explaining how I don’t know what I’m talking about when I talk about “old school” RPGs), and a review of one of my favorite CRPG series… Ultima Underworld. It’s a tough one to play nowadays, because it offered a real “3D” first-person-perspective adventure at the same time as Wolfenstein 3D came out (with far more limited – but faster – 3D).
I’m also very pleased that the book contains a review of my game, Frayed Knights: The Skull of S’makh-Daon. I rated!
The best part about this book release? It is absolutely free.
Anyway, the book is out. It’s in PDF format. It’s free. Grab it if you haven’t already. If you are at all interested in computer role-playing games, you owe it to yourself to browse through and revisit some old favorites as well as discover some gems you may never have heard of. I consider myself something of an enthusiast, especially for older RPGs, yet there are a handful that were new to me in this tome. You can find it here:
Filed Under: Books - Comments: 2 Comments to Read
lakerz said,
Ultima Underworld is/was one of the great CRPG series I’ve experienced. Very good memories playing both games and figuring out all of the secrets. I will have to check out this PDF, as I am a fan of the classic RPG genre. Thanks for the mention.
Rampant Coyote said,
There have been previous “preview” releases that were pretty complete, but this is the big one. I still haven’t had a chance to read much of it, but I am thoroughly enjoying what I have read so far. Enjoy!