I'm surprised that this hasn't got a mention anywhere in the forum before now, but fans (or past fans) of text adventures may like to check out Mark Hardisty's The Classic Adventurer Bookazine at...
http://classicadventurer.co.uk/
Currently running to four issues, with a potential fifth on the way, this is a well-produced colour magazine featuring interviews with professional and amateur adventure writers, both from back in the day and also those working on new modern games for old platforms.
Those interviewed included Trevor Hall (Twin Kingdom Valley), Veronika Megler (The Hobbit), Fergus McNeill (Delta 4), Tim Gilberts (Gilsoft), Anita Sinclair (Magnetic Scrolls), John Wilson (Zenobi) and Charles Cecil (Artic).
Available in either glossy (and not so glossy) printed editions or as FREE PDFs, the magazine is well worth picking up for the loving recreated illustrations alone.
Ah yes, the design is excellent in these!
Came across these not too long ago myself, really well put together with some great interviews and features as well. I found the style of the interviews a bit odd at first, as it's not a straight Q&A but instead goes through their history with the person interviewed commenting on it, but once you're used to it it actually works really well and is good to get across information that you might not get with just questions and answers.
I've always been a fan of the genre, pretty much since my first experience with them as a kid (Kentilla was the first one I played), so it's great reading about some of the classics and hearing info from behind the scenes, and also discovering ones I'd either missed back in the day, or even new games coming out now. It was in The Classic Adventurer where I came across Doomsday Lost Echoes for example, for the CPC which came out not too long ago and is one I've been playing very recently, an excellent game.
Issue 5 is now available!
Again as a free download or paid-for printed softback magazine.
See http://classicadventurer.co.uk for details.
Mark has also posted the full interview he did with artist Teoman Irmak here, which discusses the novel way he built up images for the Adventure International UK games, such as Gremlins...
https://markhardisty.wordpress.com/2019/05/19/the-classic-adventurer-full-interview-with-teoman-irmak
Issue 6 of the magazine has been published an includes an interview with Colin Jordan (The Famous Five) as well as a feature on the Mystery of Arkham Manor.
http://classicadventurer.co.uk/ (http://classicadventurer.co.uk/)
Thanks for the update! :) They look great! :)
Quote from: Strident on 14:17, 20 October 19
Issue 6 of the magazine has been published an includes an interview with Colin Jordan (The Famous Five) as well as a feature on the Mystery of Arkham Manor.
http://classicadventurer.co.uk/ (http://classicadventurer.co.uk/)
Will Mark Hardisty ever stop? :laugh: I'm fairly sure I recall that he once said that issue 4 would be the last one! It seems the revival of 'old school' text adventures continues to grow.
Quote from: Nich on 21:09, 23 October 19
Will Mark Hardisty ever stop? :laugh: I'm fairly sure I recall that he once said that issue 4 would be the last one! It seems the revival of 'old school' text adventures continues to grow.
...once you go retro, you'll never go back to the
future present. :)
Quote from: Nich on 21:09, 23 October 19
Will Mark Hardisty ever stop? :laugh: I'm fairly sure I recall that he once said that issue 4 would be the last one! It seems the revival of 'old school' text adventures continues to grow.
We had to really push him to go beyond the first three. :)
His main issue, at the moment, is getting enough people to respond to interview requests. I think there may be another issue at some point, but that may well be it.
Interview requests? Guess this forum is full or sources. Even for Adventures. :)
Issue 7 is now out...
http://classicadventurer.co.uk/ (http://classicadventurer.co.uk/)
Sadly, nothing Amstrad-specific this time, but still a good read.
The final issue of Classic Adventurer (issue 8) is now out, and includes a huge interview with Magnetic Scrolls' Hugh Steers...
http://classicadventurer.co.uk/ (http://classicadventurer.co.uk/)
I really really wish this was also offered as a simple-layout magazine I could get on my Kindle... I'd pay for that :(
Quote from: Gryzor on 09:55, 10 April 20
I really really wish this was also offered as a simple-layout magazine I could get on my Kindle... I'd pay for that :(
I've told Mark that there would be interest in the content presented in the form of a book, but a lot of his interest in creating the magazine in the first place was driven by all the artwork.
Yeah, guess so... it'd be nice though because it'd allow more people to access it. There's no way I can read such a pdf on my laptop...
I'm wondering, whether it would be worth approaching someone like Bitmap Books and seeing if they'd be interested in publishing all eight issues in a single volume. They've published Mark Hardisty's "A Gremlin In The Works", they also published a fair few other books including The CRPG Book which was first available online as a free downloadable PDF, the quality is really good too. This seems ideal for that tbh, especially since I'm guessing there's no more to come after Issue 8, so a complete collection in physical form now the series is finished could be a good move. For the record, I'd pre-order that now were it available, especially if somebody like Bitmap Books was behind it and was able to produce a quality physical edition. I know you can get each issue from Blurb but £16 each plus whatever shipping ends up costing is a bit out of my price range for all 8.
At the moment I'm reading it on my Android tablet with a PDF reader app, I've no idea how you'd go about getting onto a Kindle as I've never owned one and don't know much about them. It does work in the Kindle app on my tablet though but I'm not sure how well PDF files display on an actual Kindle. If you have an Android device though, that's probably the best way, also comes in handy with PDF game manuals, if I need them to hand while playing games :)
It's too niche a product for someone like Bitmap, I think. Text adventures don't have the same appeal as point-and-click and RPGs... particularly British text adventures.
Reading on a Kindle device:
Reading PDFs is atrocious. Kindle doesn't do any reflowing, so you just see the whole page and you can zoom in or out - slowly. But especially with something like this, consider that e-readers are still greyscale, so it'll be a mess. Not to mention these are rather heavy files so it'd be pretty slow to render... So the short answer is: cannot.
Never say never... Mark has just released a brand new "special edition" of the Classic Adventurer...
http://classicadventurer.co.uk/
The contents include interviews with...
Garry Cappuccini, author of ZX Spectrum game Crack City;
the early microcomputing pioneer, Trevor Toms of Ramjam and the ZX80/81 books;
the prolific book author Clive Gifford;
Tony Barber, the man behind cult favourite Valkyrie 17
...and more.
The cover feature is a look at the making of the Lord of the Rings trilogy of adventure games... with comments from the, usually uncredited talent who worked on them.
This is always such a gorgeous production!
I just spent my lunch break having a quick read through, so much content as well....