I just clicked the launch button, and am delighted to announce:
50 Years of Text Games: From Oregon Trail to A.I. Dungeon is now live on Kickstarter!!
Launch announcement on Twitter and Facebook: share and spread the word!
If you enjoyed the blog during its run in 2021, nowโs your chance to:
catch up on articles you missed
ensure this amazing history gets saved and remembered
enjoy tons of new material, including 20+ pages on the prehistory of digital text games before the 70s, detailed version histories for each game, hundreds of new sidebars and extra details, and tons of maps, flowcharts, and images
support my two+ years of work researching and writing the free series
have a 650-page bludgeoning weapon handy around the home
tell the world there are people who still care about games made from words!
If youโre planning to back, it would be AMAZING if you could make a pledge by end of day TODAY, of ANY amount. Projects with early backers get boosted in the Kickstarter system.
There are tons more specifics on the project on the crowdfunding page, including on the really cool backer rewards available. Iโll be back with a post later in the week to give you all a more in-depth tour through these, but thereโs some perks I think a lot of you are going to be very into!
How You Can Help
Iโve put together a collection of resources for those of you whoโd like to help spread the word about this project (thank you!) including images to share, 50- and 100-word summaries, social media posts to boost, etc. I think there are a ton of people out there who will flip out when they hear about this book: we just need to reach them!
Thank you all for your support of this project, in whatever form! It means the world to me. Now letโs knock this launch day out of the park!
โAaron
Aaron, thank you so much for this incredible piece of work! I am an Interactive Fiction researcher (working on my PhD) and I can see this project becoming such a valuable resource for so many researchers.
Congratulations and we look forward to your next game.
I just pledged more for this Kickstarter than I have for anything else I've ever bought on there before (I went all in on the Ultimate Collector's Edition). The ability to not only read about these games but also have a portal to experience them put me over the top.
Best wishes. Looks like you have a winner here.