Felipe Pepe has finally released the new version of his great book on the history of CRPGs.

It's free!

And it's great!!

Download the PDF here, folks :)

Nice one, a fascinating read no-doubt !

this looks pretty awesome. thanks for the link!

Yep, a pretty impressive piece of work, thanks!

I'm not much into CRPGs but I guess this book will come in quite handy when I decide to tackle some of the classics.


PS: Nobody has questioned the selection of games yet, so I might just do it myself: e.g. Defender's Quest, Transistor and Undertale are included but no Shadowrun game?

The articles are contributed by volunteers. If a game isn't there it's probably because no-one stepped up and delivered a review rather than there being an editorial choice made to exclude an obviously relevant RPG such as Shadowrun.

Damn you. I just procrastinated 2 hours because of this :)

As HiddenAsbestos stated above, the reviews are done by volunteers. If you think there's an RPG missing in that list (that you've played) you can contact Felipe Pepe directly and tell him that you'd like to write a review. Then your review will enter the book too :)

I should've put a :P smiley at the end of my message or something, as I wasn't really complaining. Sorry if I came across as a whiner. It's just that I recently played through Shadowrun Returns and I was curious to read about it in the book, so I felt a bit disappointed when I saw it doesn't include a review of it.

I'm aware the book was compiled by many volunteers, and I imagine they'd welcome any contribution. But as I said I'm not much into CPRGs so I don't think anything I could write about any of them would be worthy enough to be included in it.

Re-reading my reply and I probably seem pretty brusk, I wasn't trying to be. Good ol' text communication :)

I didn't see your comment as whining :)
On the contrary. I was only hinting that you could also write a review (I didn't realize you weren't much into CRPGs). I'd love to write a review, but all the RPGs I've played have already been covered.

There's some classics missing, though. Games like UnReal World still need reviews. Unfortunately I haven't played it (that game should also be on GOG too).

How come (according to the table of contents) there's no mention of Dragon Quest (the first game that could be called a JRPG)? That game is *very* significant when it comes to CRPGs, as it basically established the WRPG/JRPG split, although it still differs in fundamental ways from its successors (it's open world, for example).

Also, there's Rogue, which actually *named* a different subgenre: the "roguelike". Shouldn't that game be covered?

Dragon Quest probably isn't included because it's a console game.

Rogue...I dunno, apparently no one has contributed a review?

Awesome, thanks for sharing :)

Opa, valeu pelo aviso Karnak! +1
Bom saber que essa pessoa não desistiu desse projeto monstro!
Uma dedicação admirável.

I think that is an arbitrary restriction, especially since some games appear both on computers and consoles.

Also, Dragon Quest and its sequel did get released for a Japanese computer system called the MSX, as did Final Fantasy. (Although, from what I understand, the Monk in MSX Final Fantasy is useless due to a bug that denies them their unarmed attack power.)