ddvol3A quick update on the Designers & Dragons Kickstarter, whose first volume I reviewed a few weeks ago. The second volume in the 4-volume series, covering the 1980s, has been available for a while to those (such as myself) who kicked in at least $15. Today, the ‘90s volume came out. The second and third volumes are PDF-only for now, since the EPUB and MOBI versions take time to craft, but they’re coming. The fourth volume will be released in a preliminary draft form without an index sometime before the Kickstarter completes.

I haven’t had the chance to look at it much beyond the first few pages, but this volume covers various well-known companies including White Wolf, AEG, Atlas, and of course Wizards of the Coast, the inventors of Magic: The Gathering and heirs to Dungeons & Dragons who were then bought out by Hasbro.

The Kickstarter has only 12 days left to run, but already it’s racked up nearly $80,000. And it’s great!

Seriously, if you’ve ever wondered how your favorite game company got started, how it influenced or was influenced by others, or whatever happened to it if you haven’t heard anything about it in a while, this history will answer all your questions. And at only $15 for a million and a half words (plus whatever additional volumes come about as a result of stretch goals), it’s an absolute steal—especially since the e-books of the four volumes will cost at least $10 each once the Kickstarter is over.

When I was at GenCon last week, I had the chance to speak with Evil Hat folks including Fred Hicks about how the project got started. I’ll try to transcribe or summarize that interview while there’s still time to kick in.

To download the books, once you’ve kicked in use the contact link to send a message asking for the link to the directory with the e-books in it. Enjoy!

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