FAQ
Q: When will the book be published?
A: We're currently on track for October-ish of 2026. I am attending the Portland Retro Gaming Expo in early October and hope to have some copies there. Check Bitmap Books' website for announcements and details on precise timing.
Q: How far along is the book?
A: The text is done and edited. The screenshots are done. The layout is being proofed. The last steps involve a professional proofreader taking a look through the book to catch any errors I have not, and finalizing the (new) cover art.​
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The current, unedited word count, minus footnotes, appendices, and image captions, is about 215,000 words. The book is currently 536 pages including the table of contents, introductions, main book, and appendices.
Q: Will the book’s length change?
A: Most likely not. We're too far along to add (or delete) any new text or images at this point.
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Q: What's this I hear about including images from The Art of Sierra?
A: The Art of Sierra team graciously let us use images from their preservation project, including concept and background art from all five Quest for Glory games. They provided more than a hundred images and we used as many as we feasibly could.
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Q: Will there be a collector's edition of the book?
A: We really, really want to do a collector's edition. The proposal includes a clamshell case that will match the FACS manual from the original game, and some extra "feelies" included. It's not a 100% done deal yet though.
Q: How involved were Lori and Corey with the project?
A: Very! I ran the idea by them before beginning, and they graciously agreed to meet with me on a weekly basis to answer questions about the games. We met weekly for almost two years, during which we discussed all of the Quest for Glory games, Hero-U, Summer Daze: Tilly’s Tale, and various related fan projects.
Lori and Corey also provided copies of pre-Sierra design notes for video games, digital copies of internal Sierra emails and memos, and scans of photographs. We will reproduce as many of these as we can.
Q: Why isn’t [PERSON] listed among the interviewees?
A: While I made every effort to contact each person involved with every Quest for Glory game (and the Coles’ Transolar Games), I wasn’t able to interview everyone. Some people never responded, or provided no way to get in touch with them. A few folks declined to be interviewed, and a few more were interested but never responded to the interview itself. Unfortunately, a couple of folks have also passed away since the games were made.
Q: Will the book be illustrated?
A: Oh yes! The idea is to richly illustrate the book with a combination of screenshots, photographs, and scans of original concept art and design sketches. Lori and Corey also provided art from their personal archives.
Q: How are you capturing screenshots?
A: For Quest for Glory I-IV (and Quest for Glory II VGA), I’m using ScummVM with the graphics settings adjusted to mimic as closely as possible how the games would appear on a VGA monitor in the early 1990s. Before removing the top menu bar, the unscaled resolution is 320x200 with a pixel width to height ratio of 5:6.
I’m capturing screenshots from Quest for Glory V and other Windows-native games like Hero-U with Windows’ on-board screencap tool.
Q: How long have you been working on the book?
A: I got the initial idea in August of 2020, and started the project not long after that. I completed the first draft in summer of 2022, and spent the next several months revising and self-editing.
Q: What have you written before?
A: I have worked as a professional copywriter and creative director at two advertising agencies, and a writer at Xbox. In addition I’ve freelanced in the tabletop roleplaying game and board game industries for decades, where my credits include work on The Expanse RPG, Eclipse Phase, Star Wars: Force and Destiny, and the Disney Lorcana card game. My video game writing includes work on the Making History expansion for Kerbal Space Program.
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Q: Will you use any AI art or text?
A: No.