The Game Boy Encyclopedia – Pre-Order Now!

Published on June 2, 2024February 16, 2025 by Chris Scullion1 Comment

It’s tiiiiiiiime.

Following the releases of the NES, SNES, Mega Drive / Genesis, N64 and Dreamcast Encyclopedias, yer man has finally taken things portable with my first ever encyclopedia dedicated to a handheld system.

Well, two handheld systems, actually. The Game Boy Encyclopedia covers not only every game released in the west for the Game Boy, but also for its successor, the Game Boy Color.

The book is currently due for release in late September, but both the N64 and Dreamcast Encyclopedias turned up a little early so I’m making sure to start taking pre-orders for signed copies with plenty of time to spare.

The Game Boy Encylopedia is my largest book to date, and will come in at around 50 pages more than the biggest book so far, The Mega Drive & Genesis Encyclopedia.

We’re looking at a total of 1,148 games covered across both the Game Boy and Game Boy Color, every game released in Europe, the Americas and Australia.

I should also point out early on that, for the first time, the book will cost a fiver more. This is down to the publisher, not me – my books usually have a cover price of £30 but the Game Boy Encylopedia will cost £35 purely because it has another 50 pages or so and therefore costs more to print and bind.

As ever, every game gets a description and a screenshot, and because there are so many this time they’ll be split into quarter-page and half-page entries.

Here’s a couple of sample spreads for you, one from the Game Boy section and one from the Game Boy Color section, to give you an idea of what to expect (especially if you’ve never seen any of my previous books before).

When a lot of people think of the Game Boy they think of Pokémon, and when I think of Pokémon I think of Serebii.net so I’m delighted to confirm that the foreword has been written by Joe Merrick, the webmaster behind the legendary Pokémon website. Serebii celebrates its 25th anniversary this year, so I couldn’t be happier to have Joe’s words opening my book.

Sold? Lovely. As with all my previous books, The Game Boy Encyclopedia will be available at all good book shops (and plenty of mediocre ones) around the world.

Whether your preference is Amazon (all countries), Waterstones, Barnes & Noble, Indigo / Chapters or even Walmart, all you have to do is search for ‘Chris Scullion’ on your site of choice and with any luck, you’ll find it available to pre-order. It’s already up on Amazon, for example.

If you live in the UK though – for now – and want to support yer man directly, then until the end of July you can pre-order a signed copy directly from me. Here’s how to do it.

Signed copy pre-orders

As ever, I genuinely don’t care where you choose to buy the book from. I spend day and night sweating over these things so that people read and enjoy them, so I’m frankly just delighted that you take an interest in my work wherever you choose to hand over your money for it.

That said, if you like the personal touch or just prefer to support creators directly, I’m selling a limited number of Game Boy Encyclopedia books directly here.

The book is an open pre-order until the end of July, which means you don’t have to worry about me running out.

How it works is this: once I see how many people have pre-ordered the book by the end of the month, I’ll round that up to a nice round number (so I’ve got some spare copies) and that’s what I’ll order from the publisher.

If 143 people order one, for example, it’ll be limited to 150. That way anyone who wants one will definitely get one.

Here are the brutally honest pros and cons of buying directly from me.

PROS

• It’ll be personally signed and numbered by yer man Scullion.
• Retailers are a bit of a dice-roll: Amazon was weeks late at delivering my SNES book, but surprisingly quick with the Mega Drive one.
• It’ll be sent through recorded delivery by the Royal Mail and will come with PayPal buyer protection in case anything goes wrong.
• You’ll be supporting me in the best way because I get a far greater royalty for each book sold: £17.50 for signed books sold through Tired Old Hack, £3.50 for books sold everywhere else, roughly £1.75 for books sold on Amazon.

CONS

• Although I’m only charging the cover price £35 plus postage and packaging (£41 in total), this is still probably the most expensive way to get the book, since I can’t offer a discount on either the cover price or shipping, so almost every other book shop will be cheaper (Amazon in particular). You’re paying full price for the signature, basically.
• If you don’t care so much about the signature and just want the book, ordering directly from the publisher Pen & Sword Books will get you it cheaper than ordering it from me, and you’ll get it earlier than anyone else because they obviously get the stock in first. You really only want to order it from me if you want it signed, or you really care about me getting more royalties.

Still keen to buy from me? Lovely.

Before I give you the PayPal link to put down your pre-order, please make sure you read the instructions below. It’s all fairly straightforward but if any of the steps are missing it could hold up the process:

SERIOUSLY, PLEASE READ THESE INSTRUCTIONS. EVERY SINGLE YEAR SOMEONE DOESN’T READ THE INSTRUCTIONS AND I HAVE TO PLAY DETECTIVE PIKACHU TRYING TO FIND THEM THEN CHASING THEM UP FOR SOME MISSING INFO. THESE ARE OPEN PRE-ORDERS, IT WILL NOT SELL OUT. PLEASE TAKE YOUR TIME. DON’T RUSH.

• Before you even click anything, please bear in mind I can only deliver to people in the UK for now. I’m going to be dealing with a large number of orders and I’m handling them all myself, so I need to keep things simple with a single price and a single delivery type. Again, sorry for the bold text, but UK ORDERS ONLY PLEASE. I promise you every single time I launch a new book I get a couple of international orders who ignore this and I have to get in touch to refund them. I am currently looking into selling to the US and Canada at least, but until you hear otherwise it’s UK ONLY.

• Click the link below. You’ll be automatically taken to a PayPal site already set up to pay me the full price. It’ll cost £41 – this covers the full price of the book, packing material and recorded delivery postage through Royal Mail (so I can chase it in the very unlikely event that you don’t get your book).

• Look carefully for a bit that asks you to specify what the payment is for (apparently the PayPal app has changed its UI a bit so you may have to look for this). Choose that and leave me a note telling me what name you’d like me to sign the book to. While I’ll be using your real name to post the book, if you’d rather I signed it to your username or nickname, this is where you can let me know. If you don’t want me to sign it to any name, please write “no name” in the notes so I know. If you don’t write anything at all I’ll have to chase you up to find out what you want, and if I can’t get hold of you or you don’t reply I’ll just sign my name and nothing else.

• Make sure the payment is marked as “paying for goods or a service” instead of just sending money to a friend. Not only does this help protect your payment if the delivery goes missing, it actually lets you give me your address. Otherwise, you know, I can’t send you the thing. A few people always miss this part out and it’s a huge hassle for us both so let me make it clearer in bold: This bit is VERY IMPORTANT. If you don’t choose to pay for goods or a service, it won’t let you give me your address. I need your address to send you the book, and if I can’t get in touch with you I’ll have to refund your order.

• You should see the option to choose your address. PLEASE make sure you have the correct address there, because that’s where I’m going to be sending the book. There’ll be an option to add a new address if you don’t have one stored on PayPal, or if the one you still have on your PayPal account is out of date. Last time one person accidentally had their old address listed and only managed to get their copy because luckily a family member still lived there. I can’t chase this up for you if it goes to the wrong house, so PLEASE make sure it’s right.

• Job done! Once I get the order in I’ll personally send you an email (to the email your PayPal account is registered to) and confirm that I got the order. I’ll be sending these manually, so don’t be alarmed if you don’t get a confirmation email right away (other than a PayPal one). In case you haven’t noticed, Summer Game Fest week is just about to start and I’ll be covering the hell out of that, and in July I’m going to be in Japan for a week and a half, so it may be a couple of days before you get your email in some cases.

• I’m happy to draw wee doodles or write specific messages when signing the book, within reason. Please don’t ask for anything really elaborate (I’ll probably be doing well over 100 of these), and if I’m not comfortable with what you ask me to write I’ll politely decline. Speaking from experience here!

Right, with all that said, if you’re up for it, here’s the link. Some people have been reporting that it’s not filling in the £41 automatically, so if it shows you a blank amount please enter that.

PRE-ORDER THE GAME BOY ENCYCLOPEDIA (UK ONLY, £41)

If you do decide to buy the book, whether you order a signed copy or order from somewhere else, thank you so much for doing so.

The Game Boy Encyclopedia is my largest book to date and it was also by far the hardest to write, because there’s surprisingly little information available on quite a lot of Game Boy titles. That just makes the book even more important though, in my opinion.

I’ll see you in two years’ time for an even bigger book – the gargantuan PlayStation Encyclopedia – but until then I hope you enjoy my first handheld encyclopedia.

Thanks everyone.

Chris ❤️

The Dreamcast Encyclopedia – pre-order now!

Published on June 5, 2023June 2, 2024 by Chris ScullionLeave a comment

Here we go again.

After releasing The NES Encyclopedia in 2019, The SNES Encyclopedia in 2020, The Mega Drive & Genesis Encyclopedia in 2021 and The N64 Encyclopedia in 2022, it’s time for the fifth book in my series.

The Dreamcast Encyclopedia is currently due for release in late September, but if it’s anything like the N64 book it might turn up earlier than planned.

As the name suggests, this covers every game ever released for the Dreamcast.

And, as with the N64 Encyclopedia last year, the Dreamcast book also covers every game released in Japan too (which means a hell of a lot of visual novels).

Again, much like last year’s book, the Dreamcast’s library is fairly small compared to those of the NES, SNES and Mega Drive, but that doesn’t mean the book will be shorter as a result.

The book is still more than 270 pages long, and all the smaller library means is that far more games are given a full page, meaning you can read even more about them.

No fewer than 76 games from the console’s western library will get full pages dedicated to them, while the vast majority of the other western titles will get half-pages.

How does that look in practice? Here’s a couple of spreads: one from the western section, and one from the Japanese section:

In total, there are a little more than 610 games in the book, incorporating 272 western releases and 340 Japanese releases.

I’m also delighted to announce that the foreword has been written by Gary Cutlack, the man behind the now-late UK Resistance, the greatest (and funniest) Sega fan site ever created.

Sold? Splendid. As with all my previous books, The Dreamcast Encyclopedia will be available at all good book shops (and some rubbish ones too, probably) around the world.

Be it Amazon (all countries), Waterstones, Barnes & Noble, Indigo / Chapters or even Walmart, just search for ‘Chris Scullion’ on your site of choice and with any luck, you’ll find it available to pre-order. It’s already up on Amazon, for example.

If you live in the UK though, and want to support yer man directly, then until the end of June you can buy a signed copy directly from me. Here’s how to do it.

Signed copy pre-orders

I frankly don’t care where you choose to buy the book from: I’m just delighted and hugely grateful that you’re taking an interest in my work at all.

That said, if you’re the type who likes something a bit more personal in return, I’m selling a strictly limited number of Dreamcast Encyclopedia books directly here.

The book is an open pre-order until the end of June, which means you don’t have to worry about me running out.

Essentially, once I see how many people have pre-ordered the book by the end of the month, I’ll round that up to a nice round number (so I’ve got some spare copies) and that’s what I’ll order from the publisher.

If 93 of you order one, for example, it’ll be limited to 100. That way anyone who wants one will definitely get one.

Here are the brutally honest pros and cons of buying directly from me.

PROS

• It’ll be personally signed and numbered by yer man Scullion.
• Retailers are a bit of a dice-roll: Amazon was weeks late at delivering my SNES book, but surprisingly quick with the Mega Drive one.
• It’ll be sent through recorded delivery by the Royal Mail and will come with PayPal buyer protection in case anything goes wrong.
• You’ll be supporting me in the best way because I get a far greater royalty for each book sold: £15 for signed books sold through Tired Old Hack, £3 for books sold everywhere else, roughly £1.50 for books sold on Amazon.

CONS

• Although I’m only charging the cover price £30 plus postage and packaging (£36 in total), this is still probably the most expensive way to get the book, since I can’t offer a discount on either the cover price or shipping, so almost every other book shop will be cheaper (Amazon in particular). You’re paying full price for the signature, basically.
• If you order directly from the publisher Pen & Sword Books you may get it earlier than anyone else, because they have their stock in too.

Still keen to buy from me? Lovely.

SERIOUSLY, PLEASE READ THESE INSTRUCTIONS. EVERY BLOODY YEAR SOMEONE DOESN’T READ THE INSTRUCTIONS AND I HAVE TO PLAY WHERE’S WALLY CHASING THEM UP FOR SOME MISSING INFO. THESE ARE OPEN PRE-ORDERS, IT WILL NOT SELL OUT, PLEASE TAKE YOUR TIME.

• Click the link below. You’ll be automatically taken to a PayPal site already set up to pay me the full price. It’ll cost £36 – this covers the full price of the book, packing material and recorded delivery postage through Royal Mail (so I can chase it in the very unlikely event that you don’t get your book).

• Look carefully for a bit that asks you to specify what the payment is for (apparently the PayPal app has changed its UI a bit so you may have to look for this). Click that and leave me a note telling me what name you’d like me to sign the book to. While I’ll be using your real name to post the book, if you’d rather I signed it to your username or nickname, this is where you can let me know. If you don’t want me to sign it to any name, please write “no name” in the notes so I know. If you don’t write anything at all I’ll have to chase you up to find out what you want, and if I can’t get hold of you or you don’t reply I’ll just sign my name and nothing else.

• Job done! Once I get the order in I’ll personally send you an email (to the email your PayPal account is registered to) and confirm that I got the order. I’ll be sending these manually, so don’t be alarmed if you don’t get a confirmation email right away (other than a PayPal one). In case you haven’t noticed, Summer Game Fest week is just about to start and I’ll be covering the hell out of that, so it may be a couple of days before you get your email in some cases.

Right, with all that said, if you’re up for it, here’s the link:

PRE-ORDERS NO LONGER BEING TAKEN

If you do decide to buy the book, whether you order a signed copy or order from somewhere else, thank you so much for doing so.

I’m so happy that the Encyclopedias are building up a nice wee following now, and I’m really happy with The Dreamcast Encyclopedia because there’s a nice combination of detailed descriptions of western games, followed by a Japanese section in which you see a man descend into madness as he struggles through literally hundreds of dodgy visual novels.

I’ll see you next year for The Game Boy Encyclopedia, but until then I hope you enjoy going back to the Dreamcast era one more time.

Thanks everyone.

Chris ❤️

The N64 Encyclopedia – pre-order now!

Published on August 9, 2022June 5, 2023 by Chris Scullion1 Comment

It’s that time again!

After releasing The NES Encyclopedia in 2019, The SNES Encyclopedia in 2020 and The Mega Drive & Genesis Encyclopedia in 2021, it’s time to return to Nintendo for the fourth book in my series.

Friends, I give to you The N64 Encyclopedia, which is due for release in late September / early October.

As the name suggests, this covers every game ever released for the Nintendo 64.

And, for the first time in my encyclopedia series, I even cover every game released in Japan too (including the handful of 64DD games that were released).

Because the N64 had a much smaller library than the systems I’ve covered in my other encyclopedias to date, you’d be forgiven for thinking this would be a much thinner book as a result.

On the contrary, the book is still a hefty 260 pages, and all the smaller library means is that far more games are given a full page, meaning you can read even more about them.

For comparison, the SNES Encyclopedia had around 30 full-page entries, while the Mega Drive Encyclopedia (which featured nearly 1000 games) had exactly zero.

This time, the N64 Encyclopedia will have 128 full-page games, meaning more than a third of the console’s entire western library will get special treatment.

How does that look in practice? Here’s a couple of spreads I haven’t shown yet: one from the western section, and one from the shiny new Japanese section (which I’ve never done before in an encyclopedia):

Note: sample spreads are from an earlier draft and may contain typos

Sold? Lovely. As with all my previous books, The N64 Encyclopedia is available at all good book shops (and some rubbish ones too, probably) around the world.

If you live in the UK though, and want to support yer man directly, then until the end of August you can buy a signed copy directly from me. Here’s how to do it.

Signed copy pre-orders

I frankly don’t care where you choose to buy the book from: I’m just delighted and hugely grateful that you’re taking an interest in my work at all.

That said, if you’re the type who likes something a bit more personal in return, I’m selling a strictly limited number of N64 Encyclopedia books directly here.

The book had previously been an open pre-order until the end of August, but then I was took by surprise when it actually turned up at the publisher’s warehouse earlier than expected.

Because of this, I had to order without knowing the final numbers. The benefit of this is that I ordered more than I expected I would reach by the end of August, meaning now it’s September you still have the chance to get one.

The signed books are strictly limited to 150 copies and we’re into the 100s now, so if you’d still like one they’re still around but may start thinking about getting a wriggle on.

Here are the brutally honest pros and cons of buying directly from me.

PROS

• It’ll be personally signed and numbered by yer man Scullion.
• It’s in my possession now, so you’ll get it relatively quickly. Other retailers are a bit of a dice-roll: Amazon was weeks late at delivering my SNES book, but surprisingly quick with the Mega Drive one.
• It’ll be sent through recorded delivery by the Royal Mail and will come with PayPal buyer protection in case anything goes wrong.
• You’ll be supporting me in the best way because I get a far greater royalty for each book sold: £15 for signed books sold through Tired Old Hack, £3 for books sold everywhere else, roughly £1.50 for books sold on Amazon.

CONS

• Although I’m only charging the cover price £30 plus postage and packaging (£36 in total), this is still probably the most expensive way to get the book, since I can’t offer a discount on either the cover price or shipping, so almost every other book shop will be cheaper (Amazon in particular).
• If you order directly from the publisher Pen & Sword Books you may get it earlier than anyone else, because they have their stock in too.

Still keen to buy from me? Lovely.

SERIOUSLY, PLEASE READ THESE INSTRUCTIONS. THIS IS NOT A PS5, IT WILL NOT SELL OUT WHILE YOU’RE READING. WHEN THERE ARE ONLY A COUPLE LEFT I’LL CLOSE THIS ARTICLE AND ONLY TAKE ORDERS VIA TWITTER, SO TAKE YOUR TIME.

• Before you even click anything, please bear in mind I can only deliver to people in the UK for now. I’m going to be dealing with a large number of orders and I’m handling them all myself, so I need to keep things simple with a single price and a single delivery type. Again, sorry for the bold text, but UK ORDERS ONLY PLEASE. I promise you every single time I get a couple of international orders who ignore this and I have to get in touch to refund them.

• You should see the option to choose your address. PLEASE make sure you have the correct address there, because that’s where I’m going to be sending the book. There’ll be an option to add a new address if you don’t have one stored on PayPal, or if the one you still have on your PayPal account is out of date. Last year one person accidentally had their old address listed and only managed to get their copy because luckily a family member still lived there. I can’t chase this up for you if it goes to the wrong house, so PLEASE make sure it’s right.

• Job done! Once I get the order in I’ll personally send you an email (to the email your PayPal account is registered to) and confirm that I got the order. I’ll be sending these manually, so don’t be alarmed if you don’t get a confirmation email right away (other than a PayPal one). As soon as I’m back on my PC I’ll send out any outstanding emails. Well, all my emails are outstanding but you know what I mean.

• Once the books turn up at my house and I send them all out, you should automatically get an email telling you when it’s been shipped out.

Right, with all that said, if you’re up for it, here’s the link:

N64 ENCYCLOPEDIA SIGNED PRE-ORDER

If you do decide to buy the book, whether you order a signed copy or order from somewhere else, thank you so much for doing so.

I’m so happy that the Encyclopedias are building up a nice wee following now, and I’m particularly happy with The N64 Encyclopedia because there’s a bit more room for each game to breathe in this one, plus the addition of Japanese games is something people always ask about.

I’ll see you next year for The Dreamcast Encyclopedia, but until then I hope you enjoy this trip back to the 64-bit era.

Thanks everyone.

Chris ❤️

The complete making of one of my Encyclopedias

Published on April 24, 2022 by Chris Scullion1 Comment

A couple of days ago I signed off on the final proof of the N64 Encyclopedia, meaning it’s finally good to go to the printers, with the aim being to release it in September this year.

It will be my fourth Encyclopedia in four years, and the aim going forwards is to continue releasing one a year, with the exception of some books which may take longer (PlayStation Encyclopedia, I’m looking at you).

Every time I talk about my books on Twitter, I regularly get people asking me how I managed to pull it off. After all, these books aren’t small, so pulling them off on an annual basis can’t be easy, surely?

Well, it is. Nah, just kidding, it’s intensely stressful. But it’s made a little easier with proper preparation and a great publishing team helping me out along the way.

For those curious to know how I make these books, then, I’ve decided to put together this article detailing the entire process, from the initial concept all the way up to the book arriving at your home.

Specifically, this article will look at how I put together the SNES Encyclopedia, but will also point out any times where the process differed for other books in the series. Continue reading “The complete making of one of my Encyclopedias” →

Jumping For Joy – pre-order my platformer book now!

Published on March 5, 2022August 9, 2022 by Chris ScullionLeave a comment

As you may know, I’ve carved out a bit of a side career for myself with my series of video game encyclopedias.

While these will continue to be released on an annual basis (with the N64 Encyclopedia due later this year), I also spent the first half of 2021 writing a spin-off book dedicated to my favourite game genre, the platformer.

Jumping For Joy: The History of Platform Video Games is a 168-page hardback beauty that spans every era of the genre, from Pitfall! all the way up to Sonic Frontiers (though brilliantly, because of print run lengths, it’s still at the stage where it’s rumoured to be called Sonic Rangers).

And, as with my past couple of books, if you live in the UK you can pre-order a signed copy directly from yer man Scullion for a limited time. All you have to do is have the dedication to scroll through all my bullshit here and you’ll find full instructions at the bottom of this article, along with a link to order one.

The book consists of three main sections: the first covers every single Mario platformer ever released, from the arcade version of Donkey Kong all the way up to Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury on the Switch. And yes, this includes every Yoshi, Wario and Donkey Kong platformer too.

You can’t have a section about Mario in a book about platformers and pretend his long-running (literally) rival doesn’t exist, so the second section is all about Sonic games.

Again, every single Sonic platformer is covered here, from the original 1991 Sonic the Hedgehog all the way up to Sonic Colours Ultimate and the two as-yet unreleased titles, Sonic Origins and ‘Next-Gen Sonic’ (which we now know to be Sonic Frontiers.

Finally, it’s the main event: an enormous 100-page section dedicated to 50 other iconic or notable platformers throughout history.

To be clear, this isn’t a countdown of the 50 best platformers ever. It’s a chronological journey through the genre, told using games that stood out in a memorable way. Maybe they changed the genre in a unique way, maybe they were the shining example of a certain sub-genre, maybe they were just too bloody good to ignore.

Each of these 50 games gets a full two-page spread like this:

As with my previous books, Jumping For Joy will be available at all good book shops (and some rubbish ones too, probably).

At the moment it’s available on the official Pen & Sword website (the book’s publisher) – if you order from them you’ll get it first. You can also find it on Amazon UK and a number of other European Amazon stores.

As the book nears release and other book stores’ ISBN scraping shenanigans start kicking in, you’ll be able to buy it from your favourite store of choice, be that Amazon (all countries), Waterstones, Barnes & Noble, Indigo Chapters, Walmart or what have you. Just search for ‘Chris Scullion’ on your site of choice and with any luck you’ll find it available to pre-order.

Signed copy pre-orders

Signed copies are sold out, sorry!

If you do decide to buy the book, whether you order a signed copy or order from somewhere else, thank you so much for doing so.

The Encyclopedias are slowly building up a dedicated following and I’m massively appreciative of that, but this spin-off book is more of a gamble so I’m really curious to see how it goes.

This one’s written more in my old ONM writing style, with more bad jokes, and I had a fun time writing it, so I really hope that shines through when reading it.

Thanks everyone.

Chris x

Buy the Sega Mega Drive & Genesis Encyclopedia Now!

Published on August 8, 2021January 5, 2022 by Chris Scullion1 Comment

It’s that time of year again, folks.

After releasing The NES Encyclopedia in 2019 and The SNES Encyclopedia last year, it was only fair that Sega should get in on the action too.

With that in mind, I give to you the third book in my series, The Sega Mega Drive & Genesis Encyclopedia.

Not only does this book cover every Mega Drive and Genesis book released in America, Europe and Australia, it also covers every Mega CD / Sega CD and 32X game released in those regions too.

That makes it the biggest book in the series so far, not only in terms of page count (its about 18 pages bigger than the SNES book), but also its number of games (991 in total).

~~As with last year, you can now pre-order a signed copy directly from me at the book’s cover price plus postage (UK only). Keep scrolling down if you want to do just that right now.~~ Sorry, signed copies are now gone!

Also as before, the exact release date isn’t confirmed: the book’s being printed in Hong Kong this year so it’ll basically be ready when it’s ready, but I’d estimate late September or early October.

Last year there were two different versions of the book: the North American version showed the NTSC SNES (with its lilac buttons) on the cover, while the European version showed the PAL SNES (with its Super Famicom styled coloured buttons).

This time, to avoid the potential logistical nightmare of changing the words Mega Drive and Genesis throughout the book, it’s one book for the entire world. What you see here is what you get.

Want to see some sample spreads? Here’s one each from the Mega Drive, Mega CD and 32X sections.

As with my previous books, The Sega Mega Drive & Genesis Encyclopedia is available at all good book shops (and some rubbish ones too, probably). Be it Amazon (all countries), Waterstones, Barnes & Noble, Indigo Chapters or even Walmart, just search for ‘Chris Scullion’ on your site of choice and with any luck you’ll find it available to pre-order.

Whether you were quick enough to buy a signed copy directly from me, or you decide to buy one direct from the publisher or buy one from any other bookstore you prefer, thank you so much regardless.

The NES book was my dream project, and the fact that it now looks like I’m writing them on an annual basis for the foreseeable future is beyond anything I could have expected, and it’s all thanks to you lot buying them.

I really hope you enjoy this one when you get it, and I’ll see you next year for the Nintendo 64 Encyclopedia!

Chris x

Pre-order The SNES Encyclopedia now!

Published on August 12, 2020September 2, 2020 by Chris Scullion6 Comments

Last year I released my first book, The NES Encyclopedia.

As the name suggests, The NES Encyclopedia was a complete guide to every game officially released for the NES in the west, along with a hefty helping of unlicensed ones too.

At the time I explained the agreement the book’s publisher and I had reached: if the NES book sold well enough, they’d contract me to write a SNES one, and if sales continued we’d keep doing more.

Essentially, the idea was that as long as you kept buying them, I’ll keep writing them. Well, enough of you bought the NES one, and it’s thanks to you that The SNES Encyclopedia is now mere weeks away from release.

Even better, this time, should you so desire, you can pre-order a signed copy directly from me at the book’s cover price plus postage (UK only). Keep scrolling down if you want to do just that right now. Update: pre-orders for signed copies are now sold out.

The exact date isn’t confirmed: the book’s being printed in India and then shipped to the UK, so it’s essentially ready when it’s ready. But the most recent update is that we’re looking at mid-to-late September (the 2Xth, basically) for both the UK and North America.

Yes, this time the book will launch in North America at roughly the same time as it does here in the UK (the NES book took a couple of months to get there). Not only that, each region will have the correct SNES model on the cover: the PAL version with the coloured buttons in the UK and Europe, and the NTSC version with the purple and lilac colour scheme in North America. It’ll cost £30 in the UK and $39.95 in the US, though if you shop around online you’ll find it for cheaper.

Just like its predecessor, The SNES Encyclopedia covers every game released for the SNES in America, Europe and Australia. Obviously all the big games are in there – Super Mario World, Star Fox, Street Fighter II Turbo and the like – but in my opinion the book’s strength is its acknowledgement of all the ‘smaller’ games that are often forgotten in ‘best of’ compilations.

Maybe you were a big fan of Kid Klown in Crazy Chase. Maybe you bought Michael Jordan: Chaos in the Windy City in a bargain bin and developed a soft spot for it. Maybe a grandparent got you the wonderfully named Spanky’s Quest for Christmas and nobody knows what you’re on about when you try to bring it up in conversations today.

Or maybe you just like the idea of having a reference book with a console’s entire library in it, that you can either look up whenever the need arises or read cover-to-cover. Whatever your situation, hopefully my book will appeal to you.

That’s not all: there’s also a bonus section at the back. My dream is ultimately to one day write an encyclopedia for every system, but I’m fully conscious that some systems have very small libraries.

Take the Virtual Boy, for example: it only got 21 games before it was canned, and with the best will in the world nobody’s going to buy The Virtual Boy Encyclopedia if it’s only 21 games long.

So I decided to put The Virtual Boy Encyclopedia at the back of the SNES book, making it two systems in one. Hooray!

Sorry for blurring it, but come on: that’s more than a quarter of the entire section

How to order

As was my previous book, The SNES Encyclopedia is available at all good book shops (and some rubbish ones too, probably). Be it Amazon (all countries), Waterstones, Barnes & Noble, Indigo Chapters or even Walmart, just search for ‘Chris Scullion’ on your site of choice and with any luck you’ll find it available to pre-order. Here’s a selection to help you order quickly.

UK
• Pen & Sword Books (the book’s actual publisher: your best chance at getting it quickest)
• Amazon UK
• Waterstones
• Blackwell’s

The Americas
• Amazon US
• Barnes and Noble
• Walmart
• Amazon Canada
• Chapters Indigo (Canada)
• Amazon Brasil
• Amazon México
• Book Depository (likely to be the UK cover)

Europe
• Book Depository (free worldwide delivery)
• Amazon France
• Amazon Deutschland
• Amazon Italia
• Amazon Nederland
• Amazon España

Australia
• Book Depository (free worldwide delivery)

Asia
• Book Depository (free worldwide delivery)
• Amazon 日本 (Japan)
• Amazon भारत (India)
• أمازون الإمارات (UAE)

Whether you were quick enough to buy a signed copy directly from me, or you decide to buy one direct from the publisher or buy one from any other bookstore you prefer, thank you so much regardless.

When I started writing this book my daughter had only just been born, so to say that writing it was exhausting is a severe understatement. You should have seen the state of me (and the literal pain my hands were in) when I finished it.

It’s worth it, though, and every time someone buys my book, gets something out of it, laughs at some of my terrible jokes and lets me know they had a good time with it, all it does is remind me why I wrote it, and why the publisher and I have agreed to keep going.

However you choose to buy it, I hope you thoroughly enjoy The SNES Encyclopedia when it turns up, and I’ll hopefully see you next year for The Mega Drive Encyclopedia.

With love

Chris ❤

The NES Encyclopedia: Every Game Released for the Nintendo Entertainment System (my book!)

Published on March 23, 2019July 3, 2019 by Chris Scullion4 Comments

UPDATE: Here’s a video with yours truly showing the finished book in all its glory.

I’ve been writing about video games professionally for nearly 13 years now.

In that time I’ve reviewed thousands of games, written hundreds of features and covered thousands of news stories.

I take pride in all the work I do, but the NES Encyclopedia is by far my proudest accomplishment.

If you’ve been following my work for a while you’ll already be familiar with the NES Encyclopedia and everything it entails, but if you’ve just stumbled upon it for the first time, allow me to explain all via the not-at-all-overused method of the fake conversation.

Hello there, Chris.

Hello there, completely fictional person I always conjure up for articles like this. How have you been?

Oh, you know, I haven’t been up to much. Literally, I mean. Any time you aren’t making use of me in an article I don’t actually exist.

Right, right. So what’s the topic today?

Well, it’s your shiny new NES Encyclopedia. I shall be fulfilling the role of ‘person who’s never heard of it and wants to know more’.

It’s the role you were born to play! Well, created by me to play.

Quite. So, what’s this book all about then?

Glad you asked. The NES Encyclopedia is the definitive guide to the Nintendo Entertainment System’s software library. Every single game released for the NES during its lifetime is listed in this very book.

Every single one? What, so is Low G Man in it?

Yes.

How about Dusty Diamond’s All-Star Softball?

Yup.

And Super Mario Bros 3?

Of cour… why would you start with obscure ones and end with an obvious one?

You tell me, you’re the one writing the questions.

Regardless, the point is when I say every game, I mean every game: a grand total of 714 officially licensed NES titles, all present and accounted for.

Ah, but not every NES game was officially licensed. What about stuff like Cheetahmen II, or the Tengen games? They didn’t get a Nintendo Seal of Approval, so they don’t count in the list of 714.

That’s right, they don’t. That’s why there’s a second section at the back of the book dedicated to unlicensed games: the ones released on dodgy bespoke cartridges to bypass Nintendo’s copy protection.

There are another 162 games in this section, all given the same level of attention the licensed games get, making for a grand total of 876 games.

That’s a lot of games. Presumably most of the crap ones get a single-sentence acknowledgement just to make up the numbers.

Nope. The book is an A4 hardback, and every single game gets a quarter page at the very least, including a screenshot and a piece of trivia.

Trivia?

Yup, as in a fun fact or something related to the subject matter.

An example, damn you.

Well, take a look at the Donkey Kong spread. That shows the three ‘tiers’ of games in the book. The iconic games get a full page, other big titles get a half page and everything else – no matter how obscure or terrible – still gets a quarter page to itself.

I see. And those ‘fact’ bits are there for every game in the book?

Yup, all 876 of them. Even the unlicensed ones.

So this is a big book, then?

It is indeed. Like I say, it’s an A4 hardback. It’s full colour, consisting of around 270 pages, and around 180,000 words in total.

That’s 20,000 words longer than the first two Harry Potter books combined, and you also have my promise that I won’t half-heartedly add retrospective information about the characters’ sexual orientations years after it’s been published, like Rowling does.

That’s a shame. I always wished the Battletoads were gay.

Well, you do you, and I’ll support any fanfiction you choose to write.

Anyway, the book sounds good. How do I buy it? There’s usually a Kickstarter for these things, isn’t there?

Not this time. It’s done. It’s out in less than a week (30 March).

It’s done? No crowdfunding?

Nope. It was commissioned by a proper publisher, and everything. The lovely folks at White Owl Books (an imprint of the successful military publisher Pen & Sword) are handling publishing and distribution: this isn’t a crowdfunded, self-published thingy, it’s a legit, proper publication that you’ll find in book shops and the like.

So which book shops are we talking about?

Any shop that sells books, just like any other book. So you should be able to buy it in Waterstones and the like and if they don’t have it on the shelves you should be able to get them to order it in through their usual channels. If you need it, the ISBN number is 9781526737793.

A look at the ‘Unlicensed Games’ section. The 162 games here get the same treatment as the 714 licensed games.

And online…?

Yup, of course. The retail price in the UK is £30, but there are plenty of online stores selling it at a discount. Here are some links (all prices correct at the time of posting this):

Amazon UK – £21
Pen & Sword (direct from the publisher) – £24 introductory offer
WH Smith – £21
Waterstones – £30
Wordery – £26.70
Book Depository – £26.85
Blackwell’s – £26.40
hive.co.uk – £22.85
Foyles – £30

Note: These are all reputable book sites but I can’t speak for which ones will get stock in first, and which ones will result in you getting the book earliest. If I’ve learned one thing through this, it’s that the world of book releases is less reliable than the world of video game releases!

That’s all well and good, but I don’t live in the UK. I live in the United States of America.

Are you sure?

Yee haw.

Ah, I see it now. Well, you’re in luck: much like Eddie Murphy, the book is Coming to America™ – it’s due for release in July, with a retail price of $39.95. Here are some pre-order links.

Amazon US – $26.76
Barnes & Noble – $27.97
Powell’s – $39.95
Books-A-Million – $39.95
Wordery – $35.55 (UK based)
Book Depository – $35.44 (UK based)

Since the book isn’t due out in the US until July, my guess is that if you buy from the UK-based sites, you’ll get the book a bit earlier. That said, I can’t guarantee you won’t have import fees to pay or what have you, so it may be best to play it safe and go with Amazon, B&N etc. – you’ll save money if you don’t mind waiting a little longer.

Actually, I lied. I’m actually living in Canada just now. Can you tell me whereaboots I can order it from?

Are you allowed to say “whereaboots”? Isn’t that a bit… you know.

It’s okay, your wife is Canadian.

That’s right. Well, naturally, it’s going to be released in Canada too, where it appears the retail price is $55.50. Here are some links.

Amazon CA – $45.61
Indigo Chapters – $49.39
McNally Robinson – $55.50
Wordery – $46.72 (UK based)
Book Depository – $47.15 (UK based)

I lied again, sorry. I actually live in a different, undisclosed country that doesn’t fall into either the UK, USA or Canada.

Well that’s… okay, no worries. Amazon is really good these days at handling its own imports, so if your country has its own Amazon store the book should hopefully already be available to pre-order there.

Amazon Australia – $42.10
Amazon Brasil – R$139,05
Amazon Deutschland – €37,49
Amazon France – €36,99
Amazon Italia – €36,70
Amazon México – $615.28 (I certainly hope Mexican dollars have a crazy exchange rate)
Amazon 日本 – ￥4,785

Nothing yet in Amazon China, India, Netherlands, Spain or Turkey, I’m afraid.

If you live in a different country or don’t want to use Amazon, just search for ‘Chris Scullion’ in any other online bookstore located in your country. Alternatively, your other best option is to import from the UK, so I recommend either Wordery or The Book Depository.

Both sites are based in the UK, so should be getting in stock from 30 March, and both promise free worldwide shipping. I’ve never bought anything from them from abroad so can’t vouch for them personally and have no idea how long it would take your book to arrive, but both sites have been well-established for a long time so I have no doubt they’re above board.

Lovely. Just one thing… the NES isn’t my favourite console. Why have you gone with that?

That’s fine! I chose the NES because it’s the console that means the most to me personally. It was the first time I fell in love with video games, it was the reason I continued playing games my entire life, it’s the reason I studied journalism at university, it’s the reason I moved to London to become a games journalist at Official Nintendo Magazine, and it’s the reasons I subsequently met the woman who would become my wife and have our beautiful baby daughter.

Long story short, the NES shaped my life, and for a large part of my life I’ve always wanted to write a book that celebrated its entire library. I could have chosen any other system, really, but in my heart there was only one option.

Ultimately, getting it published is my dream being fulfilled. If it doesn’t sell a single copy, I’ll still be happy it exists. But please do buy it anyway, because it’s good.

That’s lovely. Would you do a SNES one though? I was more of a SNES person.

Here’s the thing. If it’s possible then yes, I would love to do a SNES one. In fact, my main dream now is to become the ‘encyclopedia guy’ and keep writing loads of these books, one for every system.

Then do it!

Hold your horses: remember I’m dealing with a publisher here. They (and I) want to make sure the NES book does well before we consider doing more.

I can’t justify once again spending hundreds of hours of research again and writing another 180,000 words, if only 20 people are going to buy the book (especially now I have a baby and free time is at a premium as it is). And, more importantly, the publisher can’t justify printing another book if it won’t sell enough copies.

So, no SNES book then? You SCUM.

I didn’t say that! Wow, you flew off the handle a bit quickly there. No, the reality is actually the opposite.

The publisher and I are both delighted with how the book looks, so we already have an agreement that if The NES Encyclopedia hits a certain sales target – and we’ll be able to tell fairly quickly based on pre-orders and the like whether it’s going to manage that – then I’ll be contracted to write The SNES Encyclopedia.

If that sells well, I’ll be contracted to write The Mega Drive / Genesis Encyclopedia. If that sells well… you get the idea.

I would love a situation where, 10-15 years from now, my shelves (and yours) have a load of my books side-by-side: the NES Encyclopedia, SNES Encyclopedia, Mega Drive Encyclopedia, N64 Encyclopedia, Dreamcast Encyclopedia, Game Boy Encyclopedia, PlayStation Encyclopedia and so on. But we need to get over this first hurdle.

Long story short, if you keep buying them, I’ll keep writing them.

Okay, I’ve pre-ordered. Anything else I can do to help?

Bless you. Spread the word: tweet about it, post about it on Reddit, talk about it on any forums or Discord servers you frequent. Essentially, do your best to make sure as many people as possible know this book exists. Link them to this page if you want: it isn’t going anywhere!

Also, when you get the book, please tweet about it (I’ll RT you) and please, please, please review it, especially if you bought it online. Customer reviews on sites like Amazon are an amazing help when it comes to convincing others to buy products, and if your reviews are positive (which I really hope they will be!) that’s only going to build more momentum.

That’s about it, really. If you have any more questions about the book at all, please do ask them in the comments and I’ll answer as best I can.

This is a massively exciting time for me, but it’s also a hugely nerve-wracking one. I’ve put so much into this book and while I’m so happy with the results, I really hope other people like it too. I wrote it for me, but more than that I wrote it for you, and I can’t wait to hear what you all think about it.

Thanks guys.

Chris x

If you want to help me write more, please consider donating to my Patreon account.

Don’t want to commit to a regular payment? I’ve now got a PayPal ‘tips’ jar: if you like my work in general feel free to chuck yer man Scullion a couple of quid and help stock up my Irn Bru fund so I can continue working away like a bastard.

Alternatively, if you can’t afford to support me on Patreon, please do your normal Amazon UK shopping via this link or Amazon US shopping via this link. Tired Old Hack is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for me to earn fees by linking to Amazon.co.uk and affiliated sites.

Revealed: My Secret Project™

Published on September 14, 2018 by Chris Scullion27 Comments

When I was six my dad came home from work with a new games magazine for me to read.

He’d been doing this for a while – he used to buy ZX Spectrum mags and CVG before I was even born – and now I was old enough to read and very much obsessed with my NES I loved each new issue he’d buy for me.

This one was something else, though. It was bright yellow, was twice the size of normal magazines and was a special edition created by the CVG staff. It was called The Complete Guide To Consoles.

Inside its 124 pages were over 300 reviews, covering “just about every game available on the PC Engine, Mega Drive, Sega, 7800, Coleco and VCS”.

Over the years the CVG team released a further three issues of The Complete Guide To Consoles, each one offering a new batch of reviews.

There were spin-off issues too: The Complete Guide To Sega, for example, covered “every” Master System and Mega Drive game available at the time (though in reality it was missing loads of stuff).

While I always enjoyed reading every magazine my dad brought home, I adored these ones in particular. I was constantly blown away by how many games were in there, and given that the first was released in 1989 – long before the internet was commonplace – they truly felt definitive.

I carried them everywhere I went, read them over and over, knew them cover to cover. By the time the fourth book – covering the likes of the Neo-Geo and Super Famicom – was released, I was old enough to know what I wanted to do when I was older.

Firstly, I wanted to write for a video game magazine: preferably CVG or Nintendo Magazine System, its official Nintendo spin-off.

Secondly, I wanted to write something ‘definitive’ too. Something like The Complete Guide To Consoles, that people would love, read multiple times and cherish like I did with those mags.

The ‘Welcome’ page of The Complete Guide To Consoles, written by my hero Jaz Rignall

Basically, I wanted to follow in the footsteps of my lifetime hero, Julian ‘Jaz’ Rignall. He joined CVG as a staff writer, became editor, then ended up editing The Complete Guide To Consoles too. Jaz was the man, basically, and I wanted to do what he did.

Those of you who know me already know how the first part of my dream went.

I went to university and got my Journalism degree in the hope it would help me get into a games magazine, and sure enough I made it: first as a staff writer (and then games editor) for the Official Nintendo Magazine, then online editor for Nintendo Gamer and finally – completing the dream – as games editor for, yes, CVG in its final years before it was tragically closed down.

I’ve been a games journalist for 12 years now, and have been lucky enough to do the ‘holy trinity’ of working on a magazine full-time, working on a website full-time and working freelance while running my own website. It’s safe to say, then, the first part of my dream – to write about games for a living – has been well and truly ticked off.

The second part, though – to write something definitive – has continued to elude me. Until now. Continue reading “Revealed: My Secret Project™” →