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Atari : A Visual History Book is now LIVE on Kickstarter


Greyfox

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Hello everyone,

hope you are all enjoying your Easter weekend and are possible cramping as many easter eggs down your neck as possible :).

I just wanted to let you all know that my very first Kickstarter campaign has been launched and would be truly appreciative if you would check it out and hopefully support the project. A lot of blood, sweat and tears have been put into this publication and a great deal of care for the grammar of the book by a professional technical proofreader as this was a great concern for me that this is paramount to its production values of the reader, so all has been catered for here.
So with that, a little about the book?

Welcome to our very first Kickstarter campaign to create the first unofficially-licensed coffee table book on the Atari® 8bit Home Computer. The book pays a huge tribute to this incredible home computer, its product design and its amazing catalogue of third-party software associated with this iconic 8-bit system. The book is an unofficial publication created by myself Darren Doyle and is my first publishing outing under the Greyfox Books™ label, the book is the very first book of this kind to be released for the Atari 8-bit home computer enthusiast in a visual compendium, ever!

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I have spent many months on its development and acquired some incredible content along the way. The amazing amount of support and contributions I have received from private collectors and review contributors has been fantastic, making the Atari: A Visual History book a reality. I am a self-employed Graphic Designer based in Dublin, Ireland.
Features of the book include:

 162 third-party Atari 8-bit games covered
 Premastered box art only found in this book
 Exclusive and new interviews
 Atari 800 – Atari 800xl and Atari 130xe systems profiled
 A visual compendium presentational coffee book
 Full hardback publication.
And much more…


With the Atari: A Visual History book, the visuals are the main focus, with roughly 210-220 word sound bites of text accompanying each game spread. The review of each game has especially been given a lot of research and thought during the writing process from myself and all contributors involved. Within the book, you'll also find a series of larger features and interviews with developers and software house profiles and much more ensuring a great mix of visuals and words. Overall, the book will contain around 50,000 words and hundreds of iconic images; each one is given its own unique flair in presentation and professional preservation which will make it the perfect coffee-table Atari book.

The premise of the book is to cover a huge majority of classic third-party Atari 8-bit software from such amazing software houses as Datasoft™, Broderbund™, First Star Software™ and the likes. A selection of commercial and non-commercial home-brew games will also be covered in the book, giving these games the exposure in a visual compendium never seen in a format of this type before. The Book will also deliver a selection of interviews with game designers who worked on the Atari 8-bit. Also, the three, and most popular of the Atari 8-bit computer range will receive their very own profile coverage, these are the Atari 800, Atari 800XL and the Atari 130XE home computers, with additional photography of these computers exclusively photographed by Roberto Rogel throughout the book, as well as a choice selection of Atari related peripherals. The Book will measure 170mm x 230mm (6” x 9”) standard book size and will only be available in Hardback for maximum durability and with a whopping 420 pages of content. It will be some tome of a book.

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So please visit here : http://kck.st/2VWXiNo if this is something you guys would love to support.

Thanks, Everyone for the ongoing support and just to mention, if this book is successful then I can announce now that the Coin-Op: Arcade Guide book will follow later on in the year.

Kind regards

Darren

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I have spent many months on its development and acquired some incredible content along the way. The amazing amount of support and contributions I have received from private collectors and review contributors has been fantastic, making the Atari: A Visual History book a reality. I am a self-employed Graphic Designer based in Dublin, Ireland.

I feel I need to share my feelings about this project: I like this idea very much !

First, this is a very professionnal artwork, design, page layout...

It is also a huge work to get to this level of quality.

I like very much the way games are reviewed.

It reminds me a magazine I used to read in the 80'.

It's a mix between colorful leaflet of software vendors and also magazines with some screenshots, a small blurb and a rating.

 

I want one just because it is a perfect match with the spirit of the 80.

 

I really really hope enough people will help this project comes alive.

I fear that the target amount is very high and doing a little math means that at least 600 persons have to contribute before end of May.

I don't know if there are 600 active Atari users ready to pay...

We'll see...

 

Anyway thanks to Darren for this fantastic work.

I wish I have this book in my hands !

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I forgot one point.

Please Darren, if you include home-brew games, do not forget Bosconian. It's just an amazing port of the arcade game and deserves a page in your book !

 

I know there are many other home brew games but this one has a special place in my heart as I played Bosconian in Arcade rooms back in 80.
I spent so much time (and money) on this game and I would have been so happy to have it on Atari computers at that time !

 

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Hello everyone,

 

Just wanted to say many thanks to you all for supporting the Kickstarter of the Atari Visual History book. It has been an absolute labor of love forth mostly during its production and many many hours of designing and remastering the artwork in the book from the box art to games themselves to a standard found nowhere else on the internet guaranteed!

 

So to address and answer some questions here.

 

The target amount set for the project was to cover the costs of the book production shipping and taxes. This is a (hardback only book), there is no softback version of the Atari: a Visual History, it is also 420 pages from the outset, no stretch goals been used as other kick starters do to get people to back it, the perks been designed exclusively for the project are been produced by another vendor who themselves will be handling the shipping of those goods, all of this costs money and the amount needed by the Kickstarter, covers all of this. We do agree, it is a high amount based on the user base support which we hope we are proved to be incorrect about, it is a gamble, as the book is completed and its simply needs the funding to go straight to the printing and shipping process, but the amount needed is unfortunately mandatory to allow it to happen, so the only way we can continue to make this happen is word of mouth and sharing the project anywhere you can, social media? Twitter, snap chat, Instagram, Tumbler and so on.

 

So please please share the project even to those that don't have own Atari as the book covers the history of the machines within the book and main software houses that made the Atari 8-bit sing at its loudest

 

Again many thanks to all that have contributed to the project, I can guarantee you thing? There is nothing like this out there especially for the humble Atari 8-bit machines

Edited by Greyfox
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We are now even getting some of the best Atari 8-bit developers commenting on our twitter page. One such awesome comment from none other than the classic "Bruce Lee" creator Ron Fortier and went on to say.

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we were incredibly humbled to see this first thing this morning :)

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Quick question : does the pledge include shipping? Sorry if I missed this info on the page. Sometimes stuff like this stares at me right in the face and I still miss it. ;)

Yes of course, all pledge when placed will incur shipping on top, due to the nature of the cost from where I live in the world, I have indicated the shipping from the printers directly to the clients home and perks will be shipped from the vendor creating them, it's a double payment from my end, but was the logistical step needed in the method of delivery for this product. but your final cost will include everything even if I am at a loss on the charges to ship it to you.

 

Kind regards

Darren.

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Let me just say that this is one fantastic looking books! The full page box art for the game DARTS transported me back to in time.

I'm not sure of the year, maybe 1983? I think I paid $4 for it at Kay-B-Toys. Remember those guys?

 

Anyways I'm getting off track here.

 

Not sure if I'll back the kickstarter yet. As I've so many interests. Just wanted to pop in an praise your work. Which I can tell is from

a deep passion on the computers.

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Let me just say that this is one fantastic looking books! The full page box art for the game DARTS transported me back to in time.

I'm not sure of the year, maybe 1983? I think I paid $4 for it at Kay-B-Toys. Remember those guys?

 

Anyways I'm getting off track here.

 

Not sure if I'll back the kickstarter yet. As I've so many interests. Just wanted to pop in an praise your work. Which I can tell is from

a deep passion on the computers.

Mate, that fact that you shared your nostalgia with us was good enough for me, if you do decide to change your mind, we love you along for the journey on the book, it truly is a once off book and i can guarantee you , you won't see the content in here anywhere else. But thanks for your shared memories :)

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The description for every game should have more text: a table with statistics: year released, vendor, country, developer, logos, .... Tips per game, techniques to achieve, secrets, unknown passwords, known hacks with improvements, new mods, different versions, ....

 

Already mostly of the target market know what a game is about. It should have more details, something new, a good recompilation.

Edited by tane
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Hi, thanks for your insightful comment, we have covered the year each game was released, who created and distributed on every game in the book, this is a visual history book rather than a game guide publication, at the heart of this project is all about celebration of this 8-bit computers amazing software through that of nostalgic memoirs of those that contributed to the book.

 

So although I appreciate your thoughts on what would you have suggested simply would not have fitted into this criteria of a book of this nature and its not all about the games. The book is a preservation of games presented to those who know them and those that never played them. The book is not a players guide concept.

 

Kind regards

Darren.

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Obviously, I have no idea what’s in the book :) but I always like to read about the historical context of the game. What I mean is how did the game fit into the time and culture when it was written and how did it affect or alter, if at all, the course of game development? There are a lot of games that just came and went. Maybe they have some individual fun factor to them but mostly they will be forgotten. There wasn’t any technological feat or influence from them.

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The book is geared at being fun, lite and something of a vibrant coffee book to which for once covers the underappreciated far too long Atari 8-bit platforms that has been long overdue and officiously before work began on the book we had done a plenty of market research on what people thought and wanted from a book of this nature. We listened and took the essence of their appreciation and poured this into what you see now.

 

This book is a collection of celebrated games both for their technical achievements and nostalgic footprint to which not just many Atari 8-bit fans but commodore fans who shared the same titles from both computers, this book hopefully will appeal to them too.

 

Cheers

Darren

Edited by Greyfox
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So looking forward to this, really hope it reaches the Kickstarter target.

 

Although seeing all the game screenshots and covers is brilliant I think it's the hardware features and stuff like adverts that I'm actually looking forward to most.

One thing for sure, a visual encyclopedia style book like this is long overdue for the A8 and it will have pride of place in my collection :)

 

So come on fellow Atarians, if you haven't already pledged your backing to Darren and are in a position to do so, please get off the fence and help fund the book :-D

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