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⬅️ Previous capture (2023-09-08)
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August 12th, 2023
I finished a couple of good books in the last week, and I figured I would write about them here. Not so much of a review but more of a ramble. Towards the end I'll mention what I'm reading right now and what's next on my list. Thrilling, right?
I'm pretty sure that I've mentioned this one previously on here, but I finally finished it and so here I can give a full overview. This is a history book about the rise of text-based games. There are 50 chapters, one for each year between 1970-2020, featuring a single game which was the author's opinion of the best representative of that year. There is also a chapter at the beginning of each decade which does a more general overview and mentions other games. At 10-20 pages per chapter, this is a beefy book and took me a while to get through!
I found it interesting to think that text-based games were not truly the first games, as rendering text on a screen is actually a more complex task than just rending a dot or a cube flying around. They came a few years later, but made a big impact from the start. Most people think of text-based games being primitive, but to look at them in a different way, they were the graphical powerhouses of their times, limited only by the rendering capabilities of a player's imagination.
This book was well-written and interesting throughout, with a modern perspective which was not dismissive of some of the older technologies which were discussed. It also gave me some ideas for a few games to try out, as a lot of the older titles are available for free on archive.org while the newer titles are commonly for sale on Steam or free on the web directly from the authors. I would recommend this title for anyone with an interest in history, gaming, or storytelling techniques in general.
This book was written by Tom Hanks and so has entered the public space with a slightly higher visibility than my previous title. I was able to check this ebook out of the library after a couple of months' wait, which was great.
Obviously, Tom Hanks has a lot of knowledge about what goes on in a movie production. This novel is a fictional account with some really diverse characterization and also differing internal voices, especially as some of the story takes place in earlier time periods.
Although this novel probably doesn't need my help making any sales, I'd say it was an enjoyable read. If you're looking for something light and fun to flip through to relax, it's worth picking up, especially if you can get it from a library. It was of about average length, and I finished it in a few days of moderate reading pace.
At first, I wasn't all that gripped by this book, but as I push further into the text I'm getting a bit more attached. Dheghom is a sci-fi story where it seems some visitors from another dimensions are entering our world occasionally and displaying some god-like/matrixy powers. I look forward to seeing where it's going from here.
Every single chapter (so far as I've read) is from a different character's perspective, with no repeats or overlap. This is an interesting way to go about writing a novel, but it seems to be working. I actually picked up this book because it's written by Richard Bartle, the creator of the first MUD, who I read about in the history of text games.
I'm getting ready to go on a week long camping and bouldering trip next week, and so I've stocked up on a few books to read in the tent when it's raining or when we're recovering in the evenings.
I have a few other books floating on the horizon, but those are probably what's on the schedule for the next few weeks at least! Maybe I'll write about some of these a little more when I'm finished with them.