In this way, strategy guides sold hundreds of thousands or even millions of copies, bolstered by the successes of the games they were tied to. Game publishers at one time worked closely with guide publishers, the former allowing the latter access to prerelease builds of games so that a guide could sit on the shelf next to a hotly anticipated game on release day, ready for a retailer to recommend their combined purchase. Although strategy guides may be unfamiliar both to nongamers and to younger gamers alike, their print production was once a pillar of the gaming industry. There is, as ever, an economic context at work here. As a strategy guide-precisely insofar as it is a strategy guide- Vermis makes good on the promise that such volumes once made to their readers: that there is a world beyond these pages waiting to be explored. But it’s not simply a proof of concept for a game waiting to be developed. The book is secondary material lacking a primary source. The “Official Guide” to Vermis (which, for simplicity’s sake, let’s call “ Vermis”) stands, as of today, by itself. Yet this catalog of catacombs has its own devious twist: there is no game called Vermis. Since last winter, independent Italian comics and games publisher Hollow Press has released to an enthusiastic audience no less than six limited-edition printings of a strategy guide to the dark fantasy role-playing video game Vermis, written and illustrated by pseudonymous artist Plastiboo.Īcross pages plastered with all sorts of bogs and bogeymen, lushly illustrated in a gnarly lo-fi style, the book lets readers in on everything they need to know about the game, from the stats and equipment of its playable characters to strategies for defeating its toughest enemies, avoiding its fiendish traps, and finding its secret treasures. More than 20 years later, at long last, the strategy guide is back. With just this book, one can imagine, can play. At this moment, for my friend and me, this strategy guide is a tool, yes, but it is also, perhaps above all else, an enchanting object in its own right. And in an era that predates the internet’s recent deluge of gaming video content in the form of walkthroughs, let’s plays, and livestreams, these 272 pages let him do just that. Of course, he wants to be prepared.įar more than that, he wants to start playing the game now, in his head. During the school day’s scheduled reading time, I’ll pore over all 272 of its glossy, dog-eared pages, rich with hi-res, full-color artwork and eminently useful annotated maps, before lending the guide to a friend of mine who does not yet even own the game, but who will beg for it for his upcoming birthday. IT’S THE WINTER of 2003 and I’m stuffing my spine-broken strategy guide to The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker into my backpack.
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