The Expanded CRPG Book is out!

[felipepepe]

New to the forums here. Just found about this wonderful book.

felipepepe: First of all, it was a nice surprise to see that this project was headed by a fellow brazilian, even more so that it has social impact! I'm definetly buying the physical book.

Now, may I ask, is there still time to make changes to the print version? 'Cause I just skimmed through the 3.6a PDF and have a few suggestions:

- Some grey boxes in the Reviews section are titled in a different format than the rest. I noticed some titles are followed by colon (e.g. in Phantasie, in most games that feature a Mods list), while others don't (e.g. in Eye of the Beholder, in Jagged Alliance 2). It is a very minor thing, but shouldn't be much work and will definetly give the book a more polished look.
- The cover gallery at the end deserves a redesign that enphasizes the artwork. It feels weird to see so much wasted space, mainly as one of the book's only full art pages feature... French RPG games, of all things.

Opa, thanks for the message & support!

The book is now finishing proofreading, we got a really good professional this time, she's picking up all these little details, found another reviewer I forgot to credit and even made me write a proper glossary. So these things should be solved.

But I cannot change the layout anymore, and I couldn't come up with a better way to show the boxart gallery at the end. Not only they have very different formats, but some of them we don't even have high-res artwork, either because they're too old and obscure, or because they're indie online games with no boxart at all.

 

[Dave the Druid]

Hey Felipe, just to add to the choir, fantastic work well done. However I did notice one slight error in your screenshots for Wizardry. Right here:

The text isn't supposed to look like that. I think you've got your Apple ][ emulator set up wrong, it's supposed to be an Apple ][+ not an Apple //e. This is what the font's supposed to look like:

It's a really minor, insignificant point but considering the quality of everything else I thought you should know. Other than that, fucking incredible work mate.

 

[felipepepe]

The text isn't supposed to look like that. I think you've got your Apple ][ emulator set up wrong, it's supposed to be an Apple ][+ not an Apple //e.

Oh, that's a really great catch! Been there for like 5 years, even on the previous printed version, and you're the first one to mention it, thanks! I already sent the final copy for printing, will check if I can sneak this change in.

 

[LukePCS]

Any updates on the release date for the print version?

 

[felipepepe]

Any updates on the release date for the print version?

Should be mid-August! The publisher is just waiting for the books to arrive from the printer to start a release campaign, he wants to have it in hand before accepting orders.

Last time he noticed a print error as soon as they arrived, so all the pre-orders had to wait two extra months to get their books. I'm really happy I don't have to handle any logistics.

 

[Jack Of Owls]

Nice to see this still being fairly regularly updated. Just downloaded the latest version (some of those contributing author bios are hilarious... who writes them?). Every now and then I check out this girl-gooner on YT who does reviews of games. Once, she was showing off one of her gaming hauls and she bought a hard copy of the book. She looked happy having something so thick to hold in her hands that seemed so useful (shut up!), being such a comprehensive volume on the genre. I only get the free online version though because I'm a poor cunt. I'm disappointed that my FoxIt PDF reader doesn't display this encyclopedia with the nice green text-on-black scheme (it's grey on black) but you can't have everything.

 

[felipepepe]

I'm disappointed that my FoxIt PDF reader doesn't display this encyclopedia with the nice green text-on-black scheme (it's grey on black) but you can't have everything.

That's my fault, the book uses 95% black text instead of 100% so it's easier on the eyes... but people have now told me doing that screws over accessibility options like high-contrast text.

I didn't add yet the professionally proofread text into the PDF, for now it's only in the printed book. Once I do it, I'll also fix the text color thing and try to make a decent EPUB version (it's really hard because of the book's layout).

 

[Jack Of Owls]

I'm disappointed that my FoxIt PDF reader doesn't display this encyclopedia with the nice green text-on-black scheme (it's grey on black) but you can't have everything.

That's my fault, the book uses 95% black text instead of 100% so it's easier on the eyes... but people have now told me doing that screws over accessibility options like high-contrast text.

I didn't add yet the professionally proofread text into the PDF, for now it's only in the printed book. Once I do it, I'll also fix the text color thing and try to make a decent EPUB version (it's really hard because of the book's layout).

Well, I do love my high contrast text enabled green-on-black-background in FoxIt. If it's too much trouble creating an EPUB version, I'd be perfectly content with you keeping the pdf format and just changing the 95% to 100% in future versions. In fact, I'd probably prefer it.

 

[Konjad]

Can't wait to buy this shit :excited:

 

[Konjad]

felipepepe I've just noticed that the PtD entry mostly talks how much it crashes. This seems a bit unfair because it makes it sound like the game is (almost) unplayable, but many people completed it more than once even with crashes (including me), and even more so after the new version was released that doesn't crash (it is mentioned on the book's page that new version was released that runs on modern OS... but old version also run on them, it's just that the new version removed crashes which is not mentioned).

 

[Grauken]

felipepepe I've just noticed that the PtD entry mostly talks how much it crashes. This seems a bit unfair because it makes it sound like the game is (almost) unplayable, but many people completed it more than once even with crashes (including me), and even more so after the new version was released that doesn't crash (it is mentioned on the book's page that new version was released that runs on modern OS... but old version also run on them, it's just that the new version removed crashes which is not mentioned).

Felipe is limited to people who actually write decent reviews. You can try it yourself and while its too late for the print version, he could theoretically add it to the PDF

 

[Konjad]

felipepepe I've just noticed that the PtD entry mostly talks how much it crashes. This seems a bit unfair because it makes it sound like the game is (almost) unplayable, but many people completed it more than once even with crashes (including me), and even more so after the new version was released that doesn't crash (it is mentioned on the book's page that new version was released that runs on modern OS... but old version also run on them, it's just that the new version removed crashes which is not mentioned).

Felipe is limited to people who actually write decent reviews. You can try it yourself and while its too late for the print version, he could theoretically add it to the PDF

I offered multiple times for PtD, he wasn't interested and chose someone else, perhaps my writing is not up to par, but I just thought it's a bit unfair to the game. That said, it's his book and his choice, but I had to say it out considering it's one of my favorite games.

 

[Grauken]

Fair enough

 

[felipepepe]

felipepepe I've just noticed that the PtD entry mostly talks how much it crashes. This seems a bit unfair because it makes it sound like the game is (almost) unplayable, but many people completed it more than once even with crashes (including me), and even more so after the new version was released that doesn't crash (it is mentioned on the book's page that new version was released that runs on modern OS... but old version also run on them, it's just that the new version removed crashes which is not mentioned).

Felipe is limited to people who actually write decent reviews. You can try it yourself and while its too late for the print version, he could theoretically add it to the PDF

I offered multiple times for PtD, he wasn't interested and chose someone else, perhaps my writing is not up to par, but I just thought it's a bit unfair to the game. That said, it's his book and his choice, but I had to say it out considering it's one of my favorite games.

The review was done by former Codexer Ludo Lense, a friend who did several of the reviews in the book, I think he's a great reviewer and he really likes the game, so I wanted his take.

And I think he was fair with the game pre-patch. As he says, this game is "a connoisseurs’ item of worship", not something to be carelessly recommended to any random normie who wants an RPG. Unfortunately, we didn't have time to update the review once the patch was released, that side-note on the patch was something I squeezed in before sending it to be proofread.

Still, most of the review is very positive - "Beyond all the technical dross lies one of the most ambitious RPGs ever attempted." I think that's enough for any CRPG fanatic to get interested and give it a try

 

[Grunker]

order when

 

[Konjad]

order when

It's on the page, 14 Aug

 

[Grunker]

dope

 

[Jedi Master Radek]

former Codexer Ludo Lense

I forgot he existed. I liked him. Now I am sad and I have a Brazilian to blame.

Cool people who leave always make me sad and nostalgic

 

[felipepepe]

former Codexer Ludo Lense

I forgot he existed. I liked him. Now I am sad and I have a Brazilian to blame.

Cool people who leave always make me sad and nostalgic

If it makes you feel better, he's doing well and is working as designer on a really cool game

 

[Jedi Master Radek]

former Codexer Ludo Lense

I forgot he existed. I liked him. Now I am sad and I have a Brazilian to blame.

Cool people who leave always make me sad and nostalgic

If it makes you feel better, he's doing well and is working as designer on a really cool game

It does. Give him my regards. I see he stopped his yt channel.

 

[ropetight]

former Codexer Ludo Lense

I forgot he existed. I liked him. Now I am sad and I have a Brazilian to blame.

Cool people who leave always make me sad and nostalgic

If it makes you feel better, he's doing well and is working as designer on a really cool game

It does. Give him my regards. I see he stopped his yt channel.

That is unfortunate, I liked his Focus video series, one about Pillars of Eternity especially stayed in my memory.
I too realized combat in PoE was shitty, but I was not so analytical about it.

 

[Abu Antar]

Prepare your butts eyes. I will be a published writer. (lol)

 

[Grunker]

 

[felipepepe]

Here we go, the hardcover edition is on sale! https://www.bitmapbooks.com/products/the-crpg-book-a-guide-to-computer-role-playing-games

Feels like a good release window, the internet is taken by talk about RPGs because of Baldur's Gate, hopefully it will get more people interested

 

[Abu Antar]

That was a pricey shipping fee, but I've ordered anyway.