A few years ago, artist and author Philip Summers set up a crowdfunding effort to publish hand drawn strategy guides for video games he cherished as a youth, evoking similar works which appeared in publications such as Nintendo Power, Megafan. Despite successfully funding the project, the fact that he lacked the licenses to publish the guides as physical books led to his decision to err on the side of safety (and not having to pay lawyers fees) and canceled the crowdfunding project at the last minute.
Time has passed, but Phillip didn’t give up hope. Working in the background he teamed up with NF Publishing (the creators of Nintendo Force Magazine and The Impact of Iwata) and together they obtained the right from Capcom to produce a Hand-Drawn Game Guide for the 1987 platformer classic Mega Man!
A new crowdfunding campaign has been set up, set to launch on January 14th will allow fans of bespoke retro strategy guides to pre-order a copy of this hand drawn tome. It will be intriguing to see if there will be any stretch goals or will the campaign focus purely on selling the guide. Those who want to make sure they are informed when the project goes live can visit the preview page and sign up for an alert here.
Here’s hoping this campaign is a success as it would be great to see Phillip tackle other memorable games and give them a strategy guide treatment.
