![]() It was followed by "Mastering Nintendo Video Games II" which was a minor updated edition that reused much of this book's content. The first of a four-book, me-too Nintendo video game hints series. This isn't just a piece of gaming history. I hope you enjoy looking through it as much as I have done over the years, back when I was just a little girl, doing her best hunt-and-peck typing on her TRS-80 keyboard, trying to figure out how to beat The Sands of Egypt. But putting it out here, so it can have a new life and be seen and appreciated by others who may never have even known of its existence before now, gives me a warm and fuzzy feeling. It (and its sequel) are long out of print, expensive on the second-hand market, and highly sought-after by retro adventure game enthusiasts and collectors. I've had this book for almost as long as I've been alive. It was such a no-brainer that one year later, Kim Schuette put out The Book of Adventure Games II, which covered forty-five more adventures that had either been left out of the first volume, or had come out in the meantime, and it too sold like gangbusters. So the notion that, for half the cost of a typical adventure game, you could get puzzle solutions and maps for over seventy-five of the most popular titles from the last few years? That was a no-brainer. Nobody wanted to dump $40 on a game they couldn't beat, there was no internet where you could consult a FAQ, and while BBS systems were a thing, modems were not a part of the typical home computer installation. Minimum wage at the time was $2.75/hour, so you can do the math. If you wanted to play Zork, or Wizardry, or Ultima, it was going to cost you. ![]() Sure, there were deals to be found when shops were looking to clear out last year's inventory to make room for the next wave of software, but there was no Steam Summer Sale where you could pick up a bunch of AAA-blockbusters for 75% or more off their list price. And that was after you factored in the several thousand dollars that buying the home computer itself had already set you back. Computer games weren't just costly, they were downright extravagant. To put that a bit more in perspective, purchasing a copy of Zork I: The Great Underground Empire for your Apple II home computer back in the halcyon days of 1981 would have set you back $39.95 (or roughly US $120 in today's money). get away with charging that much for a black-and-white, mostly-text guidebook? How on earth could publisher Arrays, Inc. Twenty bucks probably seems like an average price for a strategy guide, especially a 350-page behemoth like this guy, but in 1984 that was the equivalent of sixty US dollars in today's currency. It covers seventy-seven adventure programs released across various computer platforms, everything from Adventure to Zork III, and had a cover price of $19.95. Exhibit one, were I attempting to make a legal case, would have to be this book right here. Unless you were alive back then, it's almost impossible to understand just how massive the adventure genre of gaming was for personal computers. It won't help you break a speedrun record or anything like that, but it does actually feature a small section on getting through the game as quickly as possible, using only 13 of the game's stages (or 11 if you're willing to skip the Yellow Switch Palace), which I absolutely used back in the day. In any case, this is a perfectly awesome walkthrough for the game, even if it's only black and white. So while I did scan both versions of that book, I don't see any reason to do so for Super Mario World Secrets unless someone can point out some major differences or discrepancies in the text. This is entirely different from the Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past book from the 'Secrets of the Game' series, where one version contained tips for Link's Awakening on the Game Boy, while the other had strategies for Legend of Zelda and Zelda II on the NES. I haven't done a page-by-page, line-by-line comparison on my copies, but if there are any differences, I've been unable to find them. But they otherwise have exactly the same information, the same page count, the same screenshots and information. This one is copyright 1991, while Super Mario World Secrets is copyright 1992. I have both books, but aside from some minor changes on the Library of Congress page and some slight differences in cover design, I can't tell a difference. It's a bit odd, in that there were two different versions of this book published (one with this name, the other with the slightly different title of Super Mario World Secrets), and I'm unsure of the reason behind the name change. This was one of the best-selling video game guidebooks of the 90's.
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