Ĭameron Kunzelman, writing for Paste, gave the book a mixed review. The book's structure has been likened to Grant Morrison's Supergods and Matthew Berry's Fantasy Life. The book meshes Baumann's analysis of the game with autobiography, chronicling his playing of the game as a child, his upbringing, and his acting career. Baumann recalls playing EarthBound with his older brother as 'one of the most formative experiences of my childhood', and he credits researching the book with a rekindling of his relationship with his brother. List of books Season 1 No.įinal Fantasy VI and Chrono Trigger were considered as candidate subjects initially, but Baumann believed that the scope of those games was narrower than that of EarthBound, a game he describes as 'a weird, satirical, emotional, spiritual game', and 'unlike any story I've experienced since'. Like the first campaign, backers got to vote on the subject of one of the books they chose Shadow of the Colossus. Boss Fight Books returned to Kickstarter to fund a second season consisting of a further six books it too was successful, raising $53,186 in November 2014. As part of the crowdfunding campaign, backers got to vote on the subject of a sixth book, and Chrono Trigger, which had been considered but not included in the first five, was chosen. At the close of the campaign in July 2013, Boss Fight Books had raised $45,429, allowing the project to proceed. Īfter securing agreements with authors for the first five books, Durham turned to Kickstarter, seeking $5,000 in funding, a target that was met within eight hours.

After finding there was no equivalent of 33⅓ for video games, Durham pitched the idea of the series to his friend, Ken Baumann, who agreed to write the first book and serve as the series' designer. The idea for the series came when Durham was reading Jeff Ryan's Super Mario: How Nintendo Conquered America, as Durham wished that the book would slow down and provide more depth to the games it covered. The company was founded by Gabe Durham in June 2013, and following a successful Kickstarter campaign in July, they released their first book, EarthBound by Ken Baumann in January 2014. Similar to the style of 33⅓, a series of books about individual record albums, each book focuses solely on one video game. Boss Fight Books is a Los Angeles-based book publisher and its eponymous series of books about video games.

Earthbound by ken baumann