If you're looking to explore the history of Nintendo and its games, Chris Scullion, video games journalist extraordinaire and Nintendo Life contributor no less, is a go-to expert in the field. Having worked at Official Nintendo Magazine back in the day, he's already got several tomes' worth of facts and figures for you to peruse in his encyclopedia series covering the NES and SNES, with a new N64 encyclopedia coming later this year.
Not content with cornering the Nintendo market, yer man Scullion has expanded plans for encyclopedic domination with several projects in the works covering other systems, too. He's already got the Sega Mega Drive & Genesis Encyclopedia under his belt, but before we enjoy his take on the Dreamcast library and beyond, his latest book, Jumping For Joy: The History Of Platform Games, is perhaps the perfect stepping stone for Nintendo fans who might want to expand their knowledge of games on those aforementioned other platforms.
Given Nintendo's mastery of this particular genre, there's an appropriately generous helping of Mario throughout Jumping For Joy's 167 pages, which — as you might expect given the title — chart the course of the humble platform game from its origins to the present day. Shot through with Scullion's trademark humour, the book's largest section follows a similar format to the encyclopedias, with breakout facts accompanying entries for a whole bunch of notable works spanning over four decades of platform games.
In addition, you'll find a massive Mario section covering every one of the plumber's platforming appearances to date, as well as the other side of that console wars coin — a corresponding zone exploring every Sonic the Hedgehog platformer. As you'd expect, Scullion's immense knowledge and passion for games (Nintendo and otherwise) is showcased throughout, and if you're familiar with his writing, you'll know his enthusiasm is infectious.
Jumping For Joy is available to buy (or order) from all the usual retailers, with an RRP of £25, or $32.95 in the US. If you've ever enjoyed a platform game — and as a reader of Nintendo Life, we'd hazard a guess that's probably the case — you'll probably want to check this out.
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Comments 24
This looks like something I could hop into!
Love the JSR reference in the tagline.
Highly recommend his books, the encyclopaedias are great fun and have little funny facts for every game on a specific system. He’s currently playing through every Dreamcast game for research and sharing his thoughts on Twitter!
The book is probably cool and informative and all, but... why Yooka Laylee for the cover art? Is that just what they could get permission for?
@thenikdavies My thoughts exactly
Interesting, that they put Yooka-Laylee on the cover. Nothing against the series, but that isn't the first games I would think of, if I here the word “Jump'n Run”. Mario, Kirby, DK, Rayman, Banjo-Kazooie, Conker, Earthworm Jim, even Sonic, as bad as his games can sometimes be, are bigger names.
This looks great, I'll definitely pre-order it!
@RareFan - Likely has to do with licensing. Nintendo and SEGA are big names, sure, but they have big price tags.
@Paraka Probalby.
Oh, I love books like this! And Chris was the author?! Heading off to Amazon as we speak!
That cover art would trick me into thinking it is mostly about recent games.
A bit odd to feature Yooka-Laylee on the front cover when the game received such mixed reception. I'd understand if they were one of many mascots in a collage or something. Though I guess slapping Mario on the front would make this a lot more likely to get a cease-and-desist.
It would seem like a book aiming to cover platformers in general would be better served with a more generic image. Yooka Laylee does at least have one foot in each style of platformer (between side scroller and 3D), but it hasn’t really gained a wide enough popularity to represent the entire subject matter over the more obvious choices.
A cover featuring multiple games may have been a legal or logistical problem, and Mario or Sonic may have been too on the nose or also a rights issue. Something with a generic character jumping on floating platforms might have been better, but they probably were afraid it would seem too vague or bland.
Or maybe they could have gone extra obscure and just slap Rocky Rodent on the cover. That would sure sell some books...
@Jimsbo @Jimsbo @Paraka @Not_Soos @thenikdavies
I can answer this question. Originally, the book had a placeholder image of legally-distinct question block. When it came to choosing a cover image, Chris approached Playtonic about using thier artwork (it helped that The Impossible Lair is included in the book). I'd also guess contacting Playtonic would be a lot easier to get the blessing for what with it being UK based, an indie dev and what not.
Pitfall! is the OG platformer for me. 😊
@brod_ika Is JSR another way to refer to House of Pain's Jump Around? What's JSR?
Thanks for the write-up guys, really appreciate that. Nice wee surprise.
To those asking about the choice of Yooka-Laylee on the cover, @martynstuff has already touched on part of it but let me clarify a bit more.
As well as the sections covering every Mario and Sonic game, there's a big bit at the back of the book covering 50 other notable platformers, and one of those is Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair (notable because it's a spiritual successor to DKC).
I didn't want to put Mario or Sonic on the cover because there are so many books with Mario on them, and Sega has its lawyers on speed-dial, so I gave Playtonic a shout and asked for permission to put Impossible Lair on the cover instead.
I personally think it's the perfect fit because it's a lovely, colourful piece of art, and it makes it clear that the book isn't just ticking the usual boxes, and is actually covering a (hopefully) interesting range of titles.
Just Yooka-Laylee on the cover does feel a bit odd. I'd have loved to see some sort of collage of all the biggest platformers over the years, and yeah you could fit Yooka-Laylee on that kind of cover and it wouldn't feel so odd.
@scully1888 Congrats on the book! Probably an understatement, but I am sure it has been a lot of work.
I'm actually so happy that Yooka Laylee and the Impossible Lair was chosen to be featured for the cover
@duffmmann Well, like I say, you have to ask for permission for these things, you can’t just put a big collage of character art on a cover and sell it. Playtonic were a great help and provided us with all the print-quality artwork we needed.
Great to see this, Scully's excellent writing is always worth reading. I personally like the cover art even though I haven't played YL. Think it really fits with the book's name and is a nice piece of art. It also shows that platformers are more than just the usual names.
@TotalHenshin There's a song on the Jet Set Radio soundtrack by Richard Jacques named Everybody Jump Around that has those lyrics. May be a sample. It's a fun one, worth the listen.
@brod_ika Gotcha. Thanks.
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