Twenty-five years after Doom's landmark release in 1993, lead designer John Romero returned to his most iconic game with the release of SIGIL, a brand-new episode spanning nine levels of intricate maps and grueling battles. In 2023, Romero celebrated Doom's thirtieth anniversary by unleashing SIGIL II, the game's sixth episode--and its most challenging to date.Bestselling author David L. Craddock plunges readers into the darkest pits of Hell to reveal the design proces...

"[David is] the foremost chronicler of FPS history." –John Romero"The premier FPS historian working today." –Dave OshryBased on over 50 interviews and written by bestselling author David L. Craddock, Knee-Deep in the '90s: The First-Person Shooters That Defined a Decade takes you behind the scenes of one of the most creative periods in gaming history. Discover the origin stories of over 20 genre-defining hits—from Doom and Duke Nukem 3D to System Shock and Tom Clan...

"An entertaining, race-against-time narrative."—Kobo review"A fast-paced look into seven-day roguelikes, something so niche most people wouldn't have heard about, but the book is well written and shows how important it is to get your thoughts down so you can sort out your ideas."—Goodreads reviewEleven game designers. Eight grand ideas. Seven days to will them into reality.Every year, programmers around the world compete in the 7-da...

A colorful history of visual signalling methods used at sea, from AD 900 to today.What Ship, Where Bound? takes its title from the familiar opening exchange of signals between passing ships, and celebrates the long history of visual communications at sea. It traces the visual language of signalling from the earliest naval banners or streamers used by the Byzantines in AD 900 through to morse signalling still used at sea today.The three sections, Flag...

Two companies. Two opposing cultures. One multi-billion-dollar video-game empire.Stay Awhile and Listen: How Two Blizzards Unleashed Diablo and Forged a Video-Game Empire - Book 1 invites readers to discover the origin of Blizzard North, a studio built by gamers, for gamers, and Blizzard Entertainment, a convergence of designers driven to rule their industry.Composed from exhaustive research and hundreds of personal interviews, the Stay Awhile and Listen series divulges the...

Game Dev Stories: Interviews About Game Development and Culture Volumes 1 and 2 are a collection of interviews from renowned author David L. Craddock as he explores all corners of the video game industry. Collected from the author's archives, Game Dev Stories gathers conversations with individuals from all corners of the industry: Who they are, the paths they paved, and their contributions to this multibillion-dollar industry. This text of...

U.S. Navy Supply Corps Ensign Ross Hofmann had no idea what was in store for him when he arrived at Cavite Naval Base in October 1941. Two months later, Japanese forces struck the Philippines, destroying the base and forcing U.S. personnel to retreat to Bataan. There, Hofmann joined a makeshift unit of Army Aircorps ground personnel, U.S. Marines, U.S. sailors, U.S. Naval ground battalions and Filipinos to fight a Japanese force that landed nearby.In March 1942, with the fall of Ba...

Studies have shown that the average North American family will spend more than a quarter of a million dollars on energy in a lifetime. What many other countries, including Germany, Spain, France, Denmark, China, Brazil, and even Iceland have realized is that they can no longer depend on fossil fuels. Recently, the United States has begun to understand the importance of reducing its reliance on coal, natural gas, nuclear power, and hydropower plants, which comprise the majority of the nation s...

To politicians and parents, Mortal Kombat was a menace to society. To gamers, it was a way of life. From dedicated hustlers who put thousands of miles on their odometers driving coast to coast to challenge the top players in arcades, to fans who devote their free time to collecting action figures, setting world records, and plumbing the depths of its lore, the Mortal Kombat franchise has topped sales charts for thirty years, and its popularity shows no signs of waning.

In 2014, Yacht Club Games released its very first game, Shovel Knight, a joyful 2D platformer that wears its NES influences on its sleeve. This unlikely pastiche of 8-bit inspirations manages to emulate the look, feel, and even the technical limitations of nostalgic titles like Mega Man, Zelda II, and Castlevania III—imbued with a contemporary sense of humor and self-awareness. But how is a fundamentally retro game created in the modern era? And what do the games of the past have to teach ...

In 1980, computers were instruments of science and mathematics, military secrets and academia. Stern administrators lorded over sterile university laboratories and stressed one point to the wide-eyed students privileged enough to set foot within them: Computers were not toys.Defying authority, hackers seized control of monolithic mainframes to create a new breed of computer game: the roguelike, cryptic and tough-as-nails adventures drawn from text-based symbols instead of state-of-...

Game Dev Stories: Interviews About Game Development and Culture Volumes 1 and 2 are a collection of interviews from renowned author David L. Craddock as he explores all corners of the video game industry. Collected from the author's archives, Game Dev Stories gathers conversations with individuals from all corners of the industry: Who they are, the paths they paved, and their contributions to this multibillion-dollar industry. This text of...