Hi everyone

Just wanted to share with you a new kickstarter put up. It's to deliver a book that covers loads of insider history from the UK (and wider) home computer scene for the 80s and 90s. From the kickstarter:



Link!--------> Hints and Tips for Videogame Pioneers

Hints & Tips for Videogame Pioneers is a new book by Andrew Hewson, founder of Hewson Consultants, 21st Century Entertainment and the founding Chairman of UK videogames trade body ELSPA (now UKIE).

If you were a Spectrum, Commodore 64, Amstrad, Atari ST or Amiga gamer, then the chances are you played games published by Andrew's companies:

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The book will give Andrew's personal view on the scene at the time with loads of information and facts from some of the titans of the industry in the UK, and Andrew's guide in how to be a video-game pioneer.

Some of the Hewson Consultants/21CE games:



Some of the contributiors to the book:

We are delighted and humbled to have many of these brilliant people on board to contribute to the book and with your help we will continue to seek out more special guests. The confirmed list so far includes:

Steve Turner (Graftgold)
Mike Male (Night Flight 1 & 2, Heathrow Air Traffic Controller, Southern Belle)
Nick Jones (Co-developer of Exolon & Cybernoid)
Andreas Axelsson (Co-founder of DICE)
Fredrik Liljegren (Co-founder of DICE)
Barry Simpson (Software Manager at 21st CE)
Stewart Gilray (Assistant Producer at 21st CE, now CEO of Just Add Water)
Paul Chamberlain (Software & Operations Manager at Hewson, now Executive Producer at Sumo Digital)
Oliver Frey (Illustrator for Zzap 64 and CRASH)
Roger Kean (Zzap 64 and CRASH)
Ben Daglish (Composer - Firelord)
Jeroen Tell (Composer - Eliminator, Cybernoid 2, Stormlord)

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With more to be announced.

The reward tiers start at a very reasonable level and there's some great things in there:

Pledge £10 or more - DIGITAL BOOK: Support Andrew's story and receive a digital copy of the book.
Pledge £15 or more - DIGITAL + SOUNDTRACK: Get a digital copy of the book plus a world exclusive digital soundtrack album featuring tracks from top Hewson and 21st Century Enterainment games. The album combines original tracks from the likes of Steve Turner (Graftgold), and Ben Daglish (Firelord) with remixed tracks created exclusively for the album, such as a never-before-heard remix of Nick Jones Exolon music!
Pledge £20 or more - PHYSICAL BOOK: Get a physical, printed copy of the book, perfect bound in paperback form.
Pledge £20 or more - DIGITAL + POSTER: Get a digital copy of the book plus an A2 poster of Oliver Frey's Paradroid artwork as featured on the cover of Zzap 64 No. 7 (November 1985).
Pledge £25 or more - DIGITAL + POSTER + SOUNDTRACK: Get everything from the Digital + Poster and Digital + Soundtrack tiers.
Pledge £25 or more - PHYSICAL BOOK + SOUNDTRACK: Get a physical, printed copy of the book, perfect bound in paperback form. You also get the world exclusive digital soundtrack album featuring tracks from top Hewson and 21st Century Enterainment games. The album combines original tracks from the likes of Steve Turner (Graftgold), and Ben Daglish (Firelord) with remixed tracks created exclusively for the album, such as a never-before-heard remix of Nick Jones Exolon music!
Pledge £30 or more - DIGITAL + PHYSICAL BOOK: Get everything from the Digital Book and Physical Book tiers.
Pledge £30 or more - PHYSICAL BOOK + POSTER: Get a physical, printed copy of the book, perfect bound in paperback form. You also get an A2 poster of Oliver Frey's Paradroid artwork as featured on the cover of Zzap 64 No. 7 (November 1985).
Pledge £35 or more - DIGITAL + PHYSICAL + SOUNDTRACK: Get everything from the Digital Book and Physical Book + Soundtrack tiers.
Pledge £35 or more - PHYSICAL BOOK + POSTER + SOUNDTRACK: Get everything from the Physical Book + Poster and the Physical Book + Soundtrack tiers.
Pledge £40 or more - DIGITAL + PHYSICAL + POSTER: Get everything from the Digital Book and Physical Book + Poster tiers.
Pledge £45 or more - DIGITAL + PHYSICAL + POSTER + SOUNDTRACK: Get everything from the Digital + Poster and Physical + Soundtrack tiers.
Pledge £60 or more - SPECIAL EDITION: Get a Special Edition hardback copy of the book with exclusive, original cover artwork by Oliver Frey, perfect bound. You also get an A2 poster of Oliver Frey's Paradroid artwork as featured on the cover of Zzap 64 No. 7 (November 1985) and the world exclusive digital soundtrack album featuring tracks from top Hewson and 21st Century Enterainment games. The album combines original tracks from the likes of Steve Turner (Graftgold), and Ben Daglish (Firelord) with remixed tracks created exclusively for the album, such as a never-before-heard remix of Nick Jones Exolon music!
Pledge £85 or more - COLLECTORS EDITION: Get everything from the Special Edition tier plus your book personally signed by Andrew Hewson and the poster personally signed by Steve Turner of Graftgold.
Pledge £100 or more - BENEFACTOR: Get everything from the Collectors Edition tier plus become a Benefactor with your name printed in the Special Thanks section. You also get to pick your favourite game and write a 140 character comment about it to be printed in the book.
Pledge £150 or more - INTERVIEWER: Get everything from the Collectors Edition tier plus become an interviewer in the book. You get to ask 5 questions for Andrew or any of the other contributors to answer in print. Your name will also be listed in the book as an official contributor alongside legends like Steve Turner and Oliver Frey.
Pledge £200 or more - SIGNED SINCLAIR USER: Get everything from the Collectors Edition tier plus issue an issue of Sinclair User magazine, featuring the Hewson's Helpline column, personally signed by Andrew Hewson. You'll also receive a personal letter of thanks from Andrew Hewson explaining the story of how he came to be a columnist for the magazine.
Pledge £500 or more - SIGNED C+VG: Get everything from the Collectors Edition tier plus the March 1986 issue of C+VG featuring Uridium on the cover personally signed by both Andrew Hewson and Steve Turner of Graftgold. You'll also receive a personal letter of thanks from Andrew Hewson telling the story of how the Uridium artwork came to be used for the cover.
Pledge £500 or more - SIGNED ZZAP64: Get everything from the Collectors Edition tier plus the No. 7 issue of ZZAP64 (November 1985) featuring Oliver Frey's Paradroid artwork on the cover personally signed by both Andrew Hewson and Steve Turner of Graftgold. You'll also receive a personal letter of thanks from Andrew Hewson telling the story of how the Paradroid diaries came to be featured in the magazine as one of the first ever (if not THE first) developer diary in the history of the industry.

So have a look at the kickstarter, read through the plan and the updates and if you love this really fruitful time period in the UK industry please support this.



If you have any questions ask! And I'll see if I can get answers.

Thanks!

Pledge £500 or more - SIGNED ZZAP64: Get everything from the Collectors Edition tier plus the No. 7 issue of ZZAP64 (November 1985) featuring Oliver Frey's Paradroid artwork on the cover personally signed by both Andrew Hewson and Steve Turner of Graftgold.

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Wrong Andrew

Interested. Hewson was one of the more interesting companies of the era, I felt.

Mildly surprised at no Raf Cecco, he's one of the people I'd expect to contribute to this. He's still around, if not directly linked to the games industry any more - he wrote an O'Reilly book.

(Also, of course: Oli Frey art is always worth having!)

Edit: Oh, Raf Cecco's mentioned in the KS pitch. Doesn't seem to be in by default, though. Given the mention in the pitch, I suspect he's possible but unconfirmed currently.

I used to work for Hewson/21st Century Ent back in the day, and am involved with the book as a contributor

can't wait

GoldenHelmet said:

I used to work for Hewson/21st Century Ent back in the day, and am involved with the book as a contributor

can't wait

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Awesome news! I know there's going to be much more on the kickstarter over the entire length of the campaign. Can't wait to see more!

Update 8

New reward tiers added. A chance to win some prime memorabilia, signed, from the 80s!

Update 10

A new update from the project.

We are delighted to announce that we have confirmed another new contributor for the book – Gari Biasillo. Gary developed Slayer, Steel and Future Basketball for Hewson and also composed the music for a number of other Hewson games

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As we come off the first week of the kickstarter things are moving apace. If you enjoyed 80s 8-bit gaming and want to know more do support the campaign!

Dr Frasier Crane said:

Some of the Hewson Consultants/21CE games:

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the A500 age produced some badass videogame cover art

Might back, have to look the pitch video atleast. Just got the Sensible Software book that i kickstarted too.

Noisepurge said:

the A500 age produced some badass videogame cover art

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It should be possible to make a quiz of "Videogame cover or prog rock / metal album cover?"

Update 11

Raffaele Cecco & Dominic Robinson Confirmed!

Big Mid-week Update!

We've got a big update with some brilliant news for you today, so let's get straight to it!

More Legendary Developers Confirmed

We've been working on this for a while and we are extremely excited to confirm that legendary developers Raffaele Cecco (Cybernoid, Exolon, Stormlord) and Dominic Robinson (Zynaps, Uridium / Uridium+ ZX Spectrum conversions) have been added to the official list of contributors for the book!

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As I said upthread, I was expecting Cecco to appear at some point. Loved Cecco's Log.

Update 12

Retro Hewson T-Shirts

To celebrate passing the 50% milestone we have added a brand new reward to the campaign with our exclusive T-Shirts! Now there's retro and then there's retro, so we've decided to feature the very first Hewson logo on the shirts, as seen on the earliest Hewson games back in the early 1980s and we hope you'll agree they look pretty cool:

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You got me at 80s UK gaming.
Oh the memories, and so many legends in that special guests list!
That's an ugly t-shirt, though.

Update 13

Mid-week Update - Meet Steve Turner & Andrew Hewson

We've passed the half way point of the campaign now but we've got lots of great rewards and announcements still to come.

This week we have added a whole host of signed games for the collectors out there. We've got Uridium, Zynaps, Evening Star, a Pinball pack, Marvin's Marvellous Adventure, a Hewson Smash Hits collection (Zynaps, Exolon, Ranarama and Uridium Plus) and a Jukka Tapanimäki bundle of Netherworld and Zamzara. We'll be bringing more great signed games and bundles to the campaign shortly

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Finally we have also added a very exclusive reward - the chance to meet the legendary Steve Turner of Graftgold and the books author Andrew Hewson in person. The claimer of this reward will enjoy lunch with the pair and will receive a signed Sinclair User with the Quazatron cover as well as getting a special thanks in the book itself.

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Hmmm, I think I can afford to raise my pledge to one of the game tiers, but which? Pinball or Smash Hits?

I think I'll go Pinball. Pinball Dreams was *completely* iconic.


Hope this makes it. It's been very slow for a week or two. That said, the final bump *should* be enough, but it might be very tight.

Update 14

Weekend Update: PRESS PLAY ON TAPE confirmed for Soundtrack Album

We are delighted to confirm that Commodore 64 revival band PRESS PLAY ON TAPE will be recording a cover of Steve Turner's brilliant Uridium music for the Exclusive Soundtrack Album reward.

PRESS PLAY ON TAPE are famous for their Commodore 64 music covers
Their cover of Uridium joins Steve Turner's own remixes of his Avalon and Ranarama music and Ben Daglish's Firelord track, with more to be confirmed.


You in the book - now with your photo

There are two tiers where you can become a very real part of the book's content; the Benefactor Tier and the Interviewer tier. We are pleased to confirm that these will now include not just your name and comment/interview questions, but also your photo alongside. For example, Benefactors will receive their name in the Special Thanks section and their photo, name and comment at the appropriate place in the book like this (final design may vary):

More Games Rewards

We have been busy adding a whole host of new signed game rewards, including:

The Steve Turner signed pack (Avalon, Four Smash Hits compilation, Uridium CPC)
The Mike Male Pack (Heathrow Air Traffic Control, Evening Star)
The Spectrum Pack (Eliminator, Gunrunner, 4th Dimension compilation & A2 poster)
The 4th Dimension Pack (4th Dimension compilation for C64 and signed Sinclair user with Insects in Space cover)
The SEALED US Pinball Dreams in it's original shrink wrap

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http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/robhwson/hints-and-tips-for-videogame-pioneers/posts/659957

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/robhwson/hints-and-tips-for-videogame-pioneers/posts/662506

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/robhwson/hints-and-tips-for-videogame-pioneers/posts/664330

Also I'm happy to say that this is now 100% funded. Get in there for some awesome stretch goals!

Thanks for bumping! Almost missed this. Rana Rama, Quazatron, Paradroid and the Pinball games were my teenage crack, looking forward to the book.

Played several of these games, but Exolon particularly was one of my favorite Spectrum games ever. I played a ton of Nebulus too. Hewson Consultants was pretty big back in the day indeed.

Edit: Oh, Ranarama is theirs, too. What's with their fixation with frogs?

Thanks for the comments guys. I was a bit more lofi in the 80s rocking Southern Belle on the Dragon 32 and Electron and Fantasia Diamond on the Electron. Good times.