• The definitive biography
    of Sensible Software, one of
    the world’s most ground-
    breaking software houses.

    Coming July/August 2013.

    Pre-order your copy now.

  • Sensible Software 1986–1999
    will be an exhaustive
    retrospective cataloguing
    every single game – from sprites
    and level maps to hand-drawn
    plans and previously unseen
    artwork, all plucked from the
    Sensible archives.

  • Written by renowned games
    journalist Gary Penn, the
    book will tell the complete
    Sensible history, comprising
    anecdotes and first-hand
    interviews with legendary
    developers, industry bods
    and games writers.

  • Find out how Read-Only
    Memory began and see more
    of the book in our animated
    Kickstarter campaign video
    starring Jon Hare.

    Watch on Vimeo

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Description

*Important Sensi-Update!*


We've realised that in order to squeeze in every single word of our Sensible story, our book would need to be even bigger than planned. So, we've decided to add an additional 44 pages at no additonal cost to you. This boost in page count has meant that we've had to push the shipping date back a few weeks. You can read more about the upgrade and see plenty of new preview spreads over at our latest Kickstarter update [click here].


Produced together with Sensible Software founder Jon Hare, Sensible Software 1986–1999 is the ultimate retrospective of the British software house behind some of the most pioneering and fondly-remembered games ever produced, including Sensible Soccer, Cannon Fodder, Mega Lo Mania and Wizball.

It is the flagship title for Read-Only Memory, a new publishing company specialising in high-end books on gaming history, that combine art book production values with the very best in games journalism.

The book will chronicle the rise of Sensible – from its C64 beginnings making games such as Parallax, Microprose Soccer and Wizball, to its million-copy-selling Amiga heyday in the early ‘90s. The narrative – guided by games industry luminary Gary Penn – will tell the Sensible story through interviews and anecdotes from the team, legendary developers, industry bods and our pick of the games journalists who saw Sensible rise to world stardom, first hand.

This will be paired with an exhaustive visual tour celebrating the company's idiosyncratic style: sprites, game maps, typefaces and box art, all beautifully reproduced. We’ll also be digging into the Sensible vaults to uncover a bounty of never-before-seen archival material including hand-drawn maps, characters and menus that show the first inklings of Sensible’s most famous games.

This book was successfully crowd-funded on Kickstarter, so it is thanks to the support of hundreds of Sensible Software fans worldwide that we are able to make the project a reality. The book is currently in production and will be published in June 2013. For those who missed out on the original campaign we are pleased to announce that you can now pre-order your copy here.

Contributors

  • Jon Hare
  • Chris Chapman
  • Stoo Cambridge
  • Jools Jameson
  • Dave Korn
  • Martin Galway
  • Mike Montgomery
  • Archer MacLean
  • Gary Bracey
  • Peter Molyneux
  • David Darling
  • Stuart Campbell
  • Dominik Diamond
  • Graeme Boxall
  • Gary Whitta
  • Jackie Reed
  • Alex Joseph

Place an order

Pricing & Specification

Price: £25.00

UK p&p: Free
Europe p&p: £2.50
Worldwide p&p: £6.00

Publication: Jul/Aug 2013
Size: 165 x 230mm
Binding: Softcover
Pages: 340 (*upgraded*)