The Bitmap Brothers: Universe - legendary developer history gets a Kickstarter

[Neil79]

A Kickstarter campaign has just launched for a unique and lavishly produced history book of the visionary British software house 'The Bitmap Brothers', created by videogame history publisher Read-Only Memory. Titled 'The Bitmap Brothers Universe'

Indie Retro News: The latest free games, indie games and retro news: The Bitmap

[qbert]

I do not want a book about games : I just want a new Bitmap Brothers game in 2015 !!!!
Oh, ... and just make it the way that Richard Joseph 'll compose the soundtrack !  (R. I. P. Richard)

[MacDeath]

I remember when I erradicated the whole revolver team (and replacement players) while playing Speedball 2 (on 286 AT 12mhz EGA PC...)

12 "killed"... lulz were had.

[Gryzor]

I'm a bit torn about this one... On one hand I want the book, on the other hand I found their previous book about Sensible Software mediocre at best. Here's my review from Goodreads:

Another retro book that fell below my expectations, sadly...

To begin with, at least, the physical book itself is very nicely done for a change. Great quality paper and lovely fonts, colours and layout are a departure from the usual self-published, MS Word-set fare. That, however, is not without its problems. Footnotes are bizarrely and stupidly written sideways so that you have to tilt your head or the book sideways to read them (seriously, WHO THOUGHT OF THAT??!), and the fact that the screenshots are bundled together on different paper stock at the back of the book not only takes away lots of the fun but also forces you to continuously turn to the end to look at them. It doesn't work (and the fact that lots of pages don't have numbers on them so that you can find them easily makes it even worse). Screenshots, by the way, take up a LOT of space - text accounts for roughly half the book only.

So, content. It's not a traditional history book. It's all a collection of interviews with Sensible and other devs. While interviews are nice the outcome is a far cry from what a complete history should be, since it utterly lacks the outside critical view. Great source material, but interviews should be just that - source material.

These interviews are very interesting and you get to learn a lot, however Penn's writing style is... ugh. Penn is a veteran games journalist but he lets his ego shine through. His comments and notes are so pretentious and the way he sometimes speaks to the devs so patronizing that it's a bit obvious that he's trying to pass as knowledgeable insider instead of taking the back seat as he should. And some of his more 'poetic' flourishes made me roll my eyes.

All in all a worthwhile book for your collection, but it's a pity it didn't turn out much, much better as it could and should.