John Szczepaniak's Blog
I am the author of The Untold History of Japanese Game Developers trilogy of books. Excerpts from the books, and other articles I've written, can be found below.
For anyone interested in commissioning me to write something, please contact me via my Hardcore Gaming 101 email:
[email protected]
All three volumes are now published. They are not chronological, so you jump right into whatever volume has your favourite interviewees or games.
Volume 1 is available on Amazon US, and Amazon UK, and probably all the other Amazons too. Available in print and Kindle.
Volume 2
Volume 3 - published February 2018!
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John Szczepaniak has been a journalist for over 15 years and has interviewed over 180 people. He is also a novelist and copy editor. He's written for Gamasutra, Game Developer Magazine, Retro Gamer, GamesTM, Official PlayStation Magazine, The Escapist, plus over a dozen other publications. He frequently contributes to Hardcore Gaming 101, where he helped put together The Guide to Classic Graphic Adventures book and was managing editor on the Sega Arcade Classics Vol. 1 book.
Licensed by Great Britain's Royal Yachting Association as a naval skipper, John also holds a Marine Radio Operator's license. MENSA certified, speaks Japanese, programs indie games, brews wine.
Member Blogs
Creator of Sonic the Hedgehog, Naoto Ohshima, reveals the plans for Michael Jackson to create music for Sonic 3. Jackson was creating the music as a human beat box! In this video Ohshima also does impressions of this "a cappella" music
On Friday 29 September 2017 no one on Earth will be able to buy anything on Xbox Live Indie Games. Here are the facts...
An examination of the controversial underworld of the Japanese videogame industry
A collection of short videos documenting the history of Japanese console and computer games.
Project yourself astrally through space and time, and imagine what it was like standing inside a game developer's studio from the past
Resident Evil concept and character artist collaborating on new Italian survival horror - read an interview on his life in games! (Warning: article contains nudity)
John Szczepaniak's Comments
Comment In:
[News - 03/26/2009 - 02:14]
As the years go on ...
As the years go on Kojima seems to increasingly retcon the history of Metal Gear and how it came about. r n r nIn a very old interview with him, he stated he took over the original MSX2 Metal Gear project from a colleague, who had started it but was ...
Comment In:
[Blog - 04/11/2019 - 10:40]
I read the article up ...
I read the article up to the fly/honey subtitle and stopped. r n r nI disagree strongly with this whole argument. Especially the Roguelike defence. r n r nI absolutely detest Roguelikes for the very reasons they 're praised/defended here. The genre gets a lot of praise so I have ...
Comment In:
[News - 03/15/2019 - 06:43]
This entire video made me ...
This entire video made me think of a highly skilled and well trained theatrical stage set designer complaining about going to work in Hollywood, because the multiple camera angles and moving cameras found in films ruins their theatrical stage sets created to be viewed statically from a single angle.
Comment In:
[Blog - 11/07/2018 - 11:27]
This was a fantastic read. ...
This was a fantastic read. I always enjoy discovering distinct words or phrases in foreign languages to describe something specific or unique. German is full of them. r n r nAnyway, I 've yet to play Breath of the Wild, but the sword breaking mechanic sounds awful, because it would ...
Comment In:
[News - 07/09/2018 - 04:11]
This is all kinds of ...
This is all kinds of fascinating. I love seeing a modern dev wrestle with the complexities of antiquated hardware. r n r nCool to know he 's also testing on real hardware, not just DOSbox.
Comment In:
[Feature - 09/19/2012 - 04:00]
I doubt anyone will read ...
I doubt anyone will read this but... r n r nI recently played through the original Crackdown on X360 for the first time, and was astounded to discover that it 's basically a remake of Immercenary. Sci-fi futuristic setting, orbs to increase stats, generic fodder enemies over an entire giant ...
