NES Endings Compendium: Volume 2

Stretch Goal #2 Achieved + Entering the Home Stretch!
over 1 year ago – Wed, Oct 09, 2024 at 07:40:16 AM

You did it, NES faithful!

I woke up this morning to the pleasant sight of our funding total having crossed above the $40k barrier, which means our second Stretch Goal was met! All Print Tier orders and above will now have the bonus Challenge Checklist item added at no extra cost, so you can keep track of your own personal journey through the 1990 NES library!

We're now in the final 36 hours of our campaign — this Kickstarter is set to conclude tomorrow night, at 10:10 p.m. Eastern time on October 10. (A.K.A. 10/10). Please remind any friends, family members or random people you see on the street that the window of opportunity for them to join in here is rapidly closing!

As we near the finish line, I'm preparing to go live for another celebratory livestream playing some of the games included in the book. Or maybe more than one livestream! The first should be tonight, at around 9:00 Eastern or so, and we'll plan to play at least until we hit the 24-hours-remaining mark at 10:10 tonight. Please keep an eye on the @NintendoForce account on Twitter for a link to the livestream as it gets closer to the time for it to go live (and give me a little flexibility on the start time in case my 2-year-old is having trouble getting to bed before we start). You can also just go straight to the Nintendo Force Magazine YouTube channel and hang out there waiting for the stream to pop up: Nintendo Force Magazine - YouTube

Thanks again for all your support so far! Let's finish strong!

~ Lucas M. Thomas

Stretch Goal #1 Achieved + #2 Announced!
over 1 year ago – Sun, Sep 29, 2024 at 03:40:48 PM

Greetings again, NES book backers! 

First up, I hope all of our backers here who live in areas affected by Hurricane Helene are safe and have been able to make it through the last few days OK. I know several communities have been hit heavily. Here where I live, in Kentucky, we got a fair amount of damage -- a towering, decades-old tree just across the street from me split apart and landed on one neighbor's house and another neighbor's car -- but I know that's nothing compared to what others are dealing with.

The storm kept me offline for a while heading into this weekend, and while I was away you all came together to keep pushing our funding total ever higher! The first Stretch Goal was met and surpassed fairly quickly after our last update, and additional pledges coming in have already propelled us a few thousand dollars higher still. So we need a second Stretch Goal!

If we're able to hit Stretch Goal #2 by raising at least $39,900 in pledges, then we'll add another bonus item to all orders placed at the Physical Tier and above. We're calling it the Challenge Checklist! It will be a roughly half-poster-sized extra document tucked into each print copy of the book (16 inches by 10 inches) and it'll display all the box arts for every NES game released in 1990. Then, it'll have checkboxes next to each one to allow you to chronicle your personal journey through that year's Nintendo games! 1] Do you own it? 2] Have you played it? And 3] have you gone the distance and actually completed it, earning the endings Rey discusses in the book for yourself, and seeing them with your own eyes? It's the 1990 NES Endings Challenge! So let's hit Stretch Goal #2 and kick it off officially for every backer.

How do we hit Stretch Goals? By bringing in more pledges, of course! And how do we bring in more pledges? By getting the word out! We know there are tons of NES-loving gamers of the '80s and '90s who would love to read Rey's work in this book -- and Volume 1! -- but so many people still aren't aware of the existence of either one of them. 

So please do your part to spread the word! Share this Kickstarter campaign on your social media feeds, and tell your friends about it. You know those kids you used to play NES with in your neighborhood? You remember them! Get in touch with them and let them know about it! :p 

(My neighborhood had five or six other boys living on the surrounding streets who all had different NES games than me. The kid up the hill had a Game Genie! It was a magical time.)

That's all for now! Again, hope you all are doing OK. When the troubles of the real world rush in with things like hurricane weather, I like being able to play some small part in offering people a mental break -- nostalgic reminders of childhood through books like this one and the Nintendo Force magazines we make. Maybe reading these gives people enough of a reset that they can then charge back out into the fray, doing things like figuring out how to get the downed tree lifted off their car. :/

~ Lucas M. Thomas

Two Weeks Left! + First Stretch Goal Revealed
over 1 year ago – Thu, Sep 26, 2024 at 04:30:00 PM

Hello again, NES Endings aficionados! We're overdue for an update, so let's get to it.

We have passed the halfway point of our 30-day campaign, and as of this writing we've got almost exactly two weeks left! This is the typical Kickstarter campaign midpoint when progress is usually on cruise control, but you all have actually pushed our total up another $8,000 above and beyond our original target through the past several days. Thank you all for the continuously increasing support!

Since we did hit that baseline funding goal so quickly and we do still have two weeks left, we've got some time to aim higher and deliver an even more incredible product. That means Stretch Goals!

For our first Stretch Goal, we're targeting another simple improvement that we can make over Volume 1: upgrading the endsheets! Pictured below is Volume 1, which simply used blank white paper bonded on the inside of the front and back covers, along with a plain white flyleaf on either end as well. (The first loose page with nothing printed on it.) That's totally common, but it's also something that can be easily improved with a splash of color! Let's hit this first Stretch Goal and punch up this first impression upon opening the book with just a bit more pizzazz.

I also wanted to let you all know that our artist Greg Melo has completed all 10 of the illustrations that will appear in various places (primarily the Art Cards included in the Collector's Edition and higher tiers). You've had early looks at his takes on five 1990 NES classics' endings already. Let's show off a sixth! Here's the final showdown with the sinister Malroth at the end of Dragon Warrior II. (Another original creation of the late manga master himself, Akira Toriyama.)

That's all for now, but I'll get back in touch again here soon. And hopefully I'll be able to schedule a third livestream in the near future as well — if I can pry the Switch away from my kids and our just-opened copy of Echoes of Wisdom!

~ Lucas M. Thomas

We Did It! + Celebration Livestream
over 1 year ago – Sat, Sep 14, 2024 at 06:30:21 PM

Thank you all!

Due to each of you jumping in to become the earliest backers for this new Kickstarter campaign, we've already surpassed our funding goal after just four days! You all rock. Thank you for going first!

We want to celebrate hitting this milestone, so we're planning to go live on the Nintendo Force YouTube channel for a second livestream tomorrow, Sunday, September 15, at 3:00 p.m. Eastern. This time we'll be playing Super Mario Bros. 3!

We'll again try our best to complete the entire adventure, so that we can arrive at the final boss fight and ending sequence that Rey covers within the book!

If you missed our Mega Man 3 stream from a few days ago, here's the VOD for that one. It went fairly well! (Consider my livestreaming skills are quite rusty.) Mario 3 is sure to be smoother! 

Thanks again, and I look forward to seeing you all in the chat tomorrow afternoon. If you can make it!

~ Lucas M. Thomas

Halfway There! + Launch Day Livestream
over 1 year ago – Tue, Sep 10, 2024 at 02:29:08 PM

Welcome, NES Endings aficionados! Thank you all for being part of the Day 1 push for this brand-new book project.

As of this writing, less than seven and a half hours after our campaign launch, we're already right at 50% of our fundraising target! The response has been quick. And why wouldn't it be? Rey did great work in Volume 1, and his fans are ready to read more in Volume 2. :)

To celebrate this early success and the kick-off of this new Kickstarter campaign, I'm planning to do a livestream just a few hours from now, starting at 8:00 p.m. Eastern, on the Nintendo Force YouTube channel. Join us as we travel back in time to 1990, playing some of the games featured inside this new book! We'll kick things off with Mega Man 3 tonight, and then plan to tackle others in future streams as the campaign continues.

Here's a link to tonight's stream:

Thanks again for your early support! This campaign is going to be a fun one!

~ Lucas M. Thomas