The good people over at Hardcore Gaming 101 want to publish a new book on obscure Japanese video games and have turned to the crowdfunding platforms Unbound and Kickstarter to help make that happen.

Hardcore Gaming 101 is a website dedicated to providing information on mostly retro video games. Their articles are pretty thorough and cover background, in game story, mechanics and obscure information. They have published books in the past, including HG101 Presents: Contra and Other Konami Classics, HG101 Presents: The Guide to Shoot-em-ups, and HG101 Presents: Sega Arcade Classics.

Hardcore Gaming 101: Japanese Video Game Obscurities will be a hardbound, 204 page book with high quality images and information on 101 Japanese video games, and unlike previous Hardcore Gaming 101 books all the information can not be found on their website. Many of the titles featured will be games that never saw an official western release and/or hold a particular historical significance to gaming.

Some titles include:

  • Emerald Dragon
  • Gimmick!
  • Metal Wolf Chaos
  • Wonder Project J
  • Xanadu
  • and many more. Check the Kickstarter for a more complete list.

Unbound is a platform based out of the UK specifically to help authors get their ideas published and the Kickstarter is technically through them, hence why all the backer tiers prices are listed in pounds. You can own a copy of the book for £15 ($20.95 USD), two copies for £25 ($34.92 USD), £50 ($69.84 USD) will get you a copy of the book as well as a 8.3 x 11.7in. print of one of two possible box arts. There are more backer options so be sure to check the Kickstarter.

The two box arts available for the backer prints.

They are looking to raise £11,629 ($16,262 USD), and as of writing this article are at $3,784 with 27 days left to go. If you think a hardcover book on obscure Japanese games sounds cool maybe check it out HERE and consider throwing some money at it.

Aaron Evangelisti
Aaron is a lifelong video games enthusiast who's been playing since the days of the NES. He enjoys just about all types of games from RPGs, to platformers, to strategy. He also fancies himself a bit of a writer so writing about video games makes sense, right?