The Secret History of Mac Gaming: Expanded Edition
In stock
Description
The Macintosh changed video games. It challenged the medium to be more than child’s play and quick reflexes. It made human-computer interaction friendly, inviting, and intuitive. Mac gaming led to much that is now taken for granted by PC gamers and spawned some of the biggest franchises in video game history — including Myst, Halo, and SimCity. It allowed anyone to create games and playful software with ease, and gave indie developers a home for their products.
It welcomed strange ideas and encouraged experimentation. It fostered passionate and creative communities who inspired and challenged developers to do better and to follow the Mac mantra: ‘think different’.
Written by award-winning journalist and game historian Richard Moss, The Secret History of Mac Gaming draws on a combination of archive material and around 80 interviews with key figures from the era to tell the story of those communities and the game developers who survived and thrived in an ecosystem that was serially ignored by the outside world. It’s a book about people who followed their hearts first and market trends second, showing how clever, quirky, and downright wonderful video games could be.
The Secret History of Mac Gaming also features guest chapters from Craig Fryar, Apple’s first Mac games evangelist and the co-creator of hit game Spectre, as well as specially-created divider illustrations and cover art by graphic designer and pixel artist JJ Signal, all styled in the gorgeous 1-bit aesthetics of early Macintosh games. At 480 pages long, The Secret History of Mac Gaming features eye-catching coloured page edges, a hardback cover printed with pantone inks and a colour-coded bookmark ribbon. As with all our books, we use thread sewn binding for extra durability and print lithographically on high-quality paper to showcase the gorgeous visuals as they deserve.
This newly-expanded edition adds around 70 pages of extra content, including a foreword by The 7th Guest co-creator and id Software and Apple alum Graeme Devine, plus an annotated timeline, over 60 extra images, an icon gallery, and more than 6,000 extra words added to the chapter narratives — on top of the 115,000 words from the 1st edition — covering a variety of additional game and developer stories, including the tales behind Snood, Chaos Overlords, The Dungeon of Doom, and more. It also revises and updates the design, based on reader feedback, to provide a better reading experience.
Includes contributions from:
Robyn and Rand Miller, Patrick Buckland, John Calhoun (Glider), Andrew Welch, Ben Spees, Matt Burch, Ian and Colin Lynch Smith, Steven Tze, Mark Stephen Pierce, Jonathan Gay, Bill Appleton, Steve Capps, Charlie Jackson, Peter Cohen, Trey Smith, Dave Marsh, Joe Williams, Brian Greenstone, Craig Erickson, Rick Holzgrafe, Chris De Salvo, Ray Dunakin, Cliff Johnson, Glenda Adams, Rebecca Heineman, Eric Klein, Marc Vose, Yoot Saito, Alex Seropian (Bungie).
Book Specifications
Games featured
Shipping
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Reprint Updates
- AVAbel V.Verified Buyer1 year agoRated 5 out of 5 starsGreat book for vintage Mac lovers
The Book is beautiful, its a real collection piece. The packaging is 10/10.
- WBWilliam B.Verified Buyer1 year agoRated 5 out of 5 starsAnother winner
I’ve purchased at least five or six Bitmap books for myself or as gifts for friends. Each time I’m amazed at the quality of the books and the remarkable value relative to the cost. You can feel the love and passion that went into making each of them. I wasn’t even a Mac user in the 80s but I still enjoyed this particular book immensely. A great inspiration for a designer or creative person in your life.
- AFAndrew F.Verified Buyer2 years agoRated 5 out of 5 starsA superb follow-up to the original editon
I love how this expanded and enhanced edition has built on the Unbound original. The extra material is worth reading, and the icon galleries at the front and back add a nice touch. It fits well into the ever-expanding Bitmap Books library and is joining the long list of other titles I have enjoyed. It's also great to capture the memories of the people involved and shed some light on aspects of Mac gaming that had a wider impact on the gaming industry.
- AYAliaksandr Y.2 years agoRated 5 out of 5 starsAmazing book
Bring back some childhood memories :)
- MLMichael L.Verified Buyer2 years agoRated 5 out of 5 starsA Nice Book of Video Game Fans Who is Not Familiar with MAC Games
Just have interest in knowing MAC games and then buy this book, which is high quality and plentiful stories.
