Alex Wiltshire

An in-depth visual guide presenting the captivating creative journeys behind the world's leading videogames. Making Videogames is an unprecedented snapshot of modern interactive entertainment, with insight from true pioneers about the most important games in the world. Illustrated with some of the most arresting in-game images ever seen in print, the book explores the unique alchemy of technical and artistic endeavour that constitutes the magic of videogames, striking a captivating balance between insight and accessibility. Across eleven chapters, each focusing on a specific game from AAA blockbusters such as Tom Clancey's The Division, Control and Gran Turismo to cult breakthrough games including No Man's Sky and Fortnite, the book will document the incredible craft of videogame worldbuilding and visual storytelling via the world's most popular, but seldom fully understood, entertainment medium. The book's text orbits breathtaking, specially created imagery 'photographed' in-engine by the author, demonstrating the magic and method behind each studio's work. A book not only for die-hard videogame fanatics, but also for designer-creatives and the visually curious, Making Videogames is a thrilling showcase of the boundless creativity of this amazing industry.

Home Computers showcases the quirky and characterful beginnings of a commercial product that would come to unite the globe: the personal computer. As so much technology is forgotten once it is superseded, this is a celebration of machines, industrial design and techno-utopianism of an era in the not-so-distant past. Conceived as a visual sourcebook of the most popular, most powerful and most idiosyncratic computers to grace our workspaces, this timely publication offers a reflection on how far we've come and a nostalgic look at a time when digital worlds could be contained in a box and turned off, rather than ever-present in our lives. Home Computers opens with a scene-setting retrospective by computer and gaming writer Alex Wiltshire. The book's heart is a series of specially commissioned photographs that capture details of switches and early user-interface design, letterforms and logos, and the quirks that set one computer off from another. Images are complemented by a potted history of each device, the inventors or personalities behind it, and its innovations and influences.

An innovative and beautifully designed history of the nascent Japanese videogame industry, as told by those who were there, Japansoft takes readers inside the games, companies, and human experiences which forged a whole new culture. Comprising interviews with game developers at companies including Sega, Enix, Capcom, Hudson Soft, and Nihon Falcom, Japansoft: An Oral History offers fresh and diverse perspectives on many of the defining games of our time. A deep dive into the beginnings of the videogame industry in Japan, this book documents a much-loved era of creativity that defined the industry for decades. Enhancing a book already rich with insightful interviews are anecdotal illustrations by iconic Japanese illustrator Yu Nagaba, as well as never-before-seen period photographs, rare press ads, and an illustrated guide to the key computers and consoles that were landmarks of the early Japanese gaming era. A reedited digest of game journalist John Szczepaniak's three-volume series, The Untold History of Japanese Game Developers, this book adds specially conducted interviews with figures including Harumi Fujita (Bionic Commando), Noritaka Funamizu (1943, Area 88), Manami Matsumae (Rockman), Nasir Gebelli (Final Fantasy, Rad Racer), and Tomohiro Nishikado (Space Invaders). Japansoft is a pseudosequel to the critically acclaimed Britsoft: An Oral History, seeing editor Alex Wiltshire and leading design agency Julia return with a multilayered and eclectic publication that offers a unique reading experience through interlinked interviews that can be read in any order. 89 illustrations / 30 in color