The Electronic Gaming Monthly Compendium

A brief update on poster rewards
4 months ago – Thu, Nov 07, 2024 at 02:54:19 PM

We've been listening to your feedback on the EGM Covers Poster reward throughout the campaign, and we have some news to share today.

We can now confirm that anyone who backs at a tier that includes the poster reward is getting an upgrade. Backers at the Special Collector's Edition, Quartermanniac, Super Collector's Edition II Turbo (and Restock) tiers will receive an A2 size poster.

Backers at the Editors' Choice Leather Edition and I Am Sushi-X (and Restock) tiers will get an upgrade to an even larger poster size. Additionally, all posters for these two tiers will be signed by EGM founder Steve Harris.

We hope this makes the reward tier you've pledged (or plan to pledge) at just a little more exciting.

Thanks again for your support.

Thanks to you, a new high score
4 months ago – Wed, Nov 06, 2024 at 04:45:25 PM

We know we already sent you one update today, so we'll keep this quick and to the point. Thanks to you, our campaign has now passed the $600,000 mark—a truly unbelievable figure that also means The EGM Compendium is now the most funded video game book in Kickstarter history.

We wouldn't be here without the support of each and every one of you. Thank you for sharing your love of EGM and for the opportunity you've given us to honor the legacy of an institution that means so much to us all.

We've got more updates planned for the rest of this campaign, and we'll of course stay in regular touch after that, as we work to deliver you the Compendium, the Digital Archive, and all of your rewards. We're honored to have you on this journey with us.

Thanks again.

Super Collector’s Edition II Turbo and I Am Sushi-X restocks live—and the new Editors’ Choice tier revealed
4 months ago – Wed, Nov 06, 2024 at 12:09:11 PM

Hello to all of our backers, and thank you for your support of The Electronic Gaming Monthly Compendium. We know today’s the day many of you have been waiting for, so we’ll get right to it!

The restocks are now live. As we discussed in our Monday update, the new batch of Super Collector’s Edition II Turbo and I Am Sushi-X tier rewards are up as new tiers with "Restock" at the end. This is the last time we’ll be adding in more of these tiers, so once they’re sell out, they’re gone forever.

As we hinted earlier, we also have one more surprise to reveal to you today: Ever since launch day, when we first got a sense of your incredible response to the campaign, we’ve been working hard behind the scenes to see if we might be able to deliver a high-end, extremely limited version of The EGM Compendium for backers interested in the ultimate collector’s edition of the book. Today, we’re finally ready to announce it.

This new edition of the physical book will go out to all of our I Am Sushi-X tier backers as a retroactive upgrade to that tier. It will also be the centerpiece of a new limited tier: the Editors' Choice Edition, named in honor of the awards EGM’s Review Crew handed out to the best of the best.

This version of the book will be bound in leather, with premium sewn binding, gold gilded pages, gold foil stamping on the cover and spine, and two ribbon bookmarks. It will also come with its own cloth slipcase for storage. Each copy will be hand-numbered and hand-signed by EGM founder Steve Harris.

Each copy of the leather edition of the book will have a special frontispiece, or art page at the beginning of the book. The 24 copies we send to I Am Sushi-X tier backers will feature an image of (what else) Sushi-X, commemorating their support of the campaign, and be numbered 1 through 24. Each of the 264 copies available as part of the Editor’s Choice tier will have a frontispiece based on the cover art of a different issue of EGM, from #1 through #264. In other words, each of these Editor’s Choice copies will be one of a kind, literally unique.

All told, only 300 of these leather editions will be printed: 264 for the Editors' Choice backers, 24 for the I Am Sushi-X backers, and 12 artist proofs.

Apart from the unique book and slipcase, the contents of the Editors' Choice Leather Edition Tier are otherwise identical to the Quartermanniac tier, so backers will get the poster, enamel pins,"Lost Issue" print copy, access to the Digital Archive, and your name in the book as an honorary EGM Associate Editor. To keep on theme, the pricing for this tier is $264.

We hope you’ll enjoy this chance to own a piece of EGM history, history you’re helping to write with your support of this campaign.

Thank you again, each and every one of you.

First look at Review Crew bookmarks
4 months ago – Tue, Nov 05, 2024 at 11:31:11 AM

Thanks again for your support of this campaign and Electronic Gaming Monthly. You, and all of our backers, have already made this an experience we'll never forget, and thanks to you we will properly honor the legacy of EGM.

You may remember that on the first day of the campaign we unlocked the Review Crew Bookmark stretch goal. At the time, we promised we'd have a preview to share with you soon. Soon has arrived!

The full set of Review Crew Bookmarks will go out to anyone who backed the campaign at a tier that includes physical rewards. They're based on the multi-person reviews that ran in EGM for eight of the most iconic and well-reviewed games. We tried to mix it up to include a variety of eras and platforms, in the hopes that at least one of the eight will scratch your personal nostalgia itch.

Here's the full list:

• Street Fighter II - SNES
• Sonic the Hedgehog 3 - Genesis
• Metal Gear Solid - PlayStation
• The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time - Nintendo 64
• Soulcalibur - Dreamcast
• Halo: Combat Evolved - Xbox
• Metroid Prime - GameCube
• Grand Theft Auto III - PlayStation 2

So how do we turn a review in a bookmark, and what does that look like?

Let's take a look at one example, Ocarina of Time. Here's the original review column, as it appeared in EGM #115:

As you can see, it's a bit on the tall and narrow side to be a substantial bookmark. Even beyond that, just cropping and printing a magazine scan onto a bookmark wouldn't be ideal. You'd be able to tell. So instead, our designer recreated the layout from scratch, trying to capture as much of the original spirit as possible at new dimensions. (In this case, we also decided to abridge the lead review, using an excerpt that keeps the spirit intact, to save space and make the boxes more balanced.)

There's one more issue, though: The screenshot. Again, reprinting a scan is going to be a little rougher than we'd like. And that's especially true if it's an image from the age before publishers sent out high-quality image files to use in coverage. Keep in mind, some of the images in earlier issues of EGM are literally photographs of a TV.

So if we really want these bookmarks to look good, there's only one thing to do: Boot up the game ourselves and try to recreate the screenshot as closely as possible. For Ocarina of Time, we had to match Link's position on the map, the correct frame in his run cycle , his equipment, his current level of health, and number of arrows. If you look closely, you can probably spot some minor differences. But we hope it's a close enough match to at least feel like it's ripped straight from the original review.

Take a look at what we captured, side by side with a blown-up version of the original:

So after all that hard work, we're ready to show you an early preview of the Ocarina of Time bookmark (with all the necessary caveats that the design is not final and may change):

Pretty neat, huh?

We also have a small surprise we'd like to share with our backers: We are planning to add a special ninth bookmark to the collection, based on a game the entire community selects! After the campaign ends, we'll send you a form that will let you vote for the game that you want to have included in the bookmark set. This is just a small way for us to once again thank everyone who has participated and let you know how much we appreciate your faith in us and love for EGM.

We can't wait to get you the full set of (now nine) bookmarks along with your copy of The EGM Compendium.

Thanks again for your support, and we'll be back in touch with more updates in the days ahead.