The Walkthrough, Uncovered At Last

I should really be revising the seventh chapter right now, but it’s been a month since I’ve posted on the blog and, well, I’ve been keeping this project secret long enough. As mentioned to my newsletter subscribers last month, learning that Prima Games was shuttering hit me pretty hard. You might recall me saying as much back in November.

I wasn’t only sad about losing my one semi-reliable source of income, but the announcement felt like watching something I held near-and-dear get wiped from the planet. Video game strategy guides, for all intents and purposes, no longer exist. Dinosaurs struck dead by an asteroid named Dorling Kindersley. Something that was a part of my life, as a reader and author for over thirty years, is no longer a thing.

Extinct save for the boutique crocodile offshoots that remain.

After a day spent mourning the loss of an industry — and generally freaking out about my newfound unemployment — I got to work writing. My therapy. From the emails I never sent to the journal entries I’m unlikely to read, to my blogs and books, it’s how I process and cope and get things off my chest. It’s also my compass.

The Walkthrough

For nearly a decade I’ve been collecting anecdotes, examples, and insider secrets about the video game industry that I knew I would share one day. That day is May 16th, when The Walkthrough: Insider Tales from a Life in Strategy Guides releases.

Like my travel memoir, One Lousy Pirate, the eBook will be exclusive to Amazon. Paperback too, in all likelihood. Pre-orders are open.

As one of the most prolific authors of officially-licensed strategy guides, someone with over a hundred books to his credit, I feel I’m a pretty good person to tell this story. And it’s one that I truly believe anyone who ever picked up a controller or sat with a strategy guide sprawled across their lap will be interested in.

I sent two-thirds of the text to my editor the other day and aim to have the rest to him before I leave on my book tour in 2-3 weeks. With a five-day writer’s retreat on the docket for May, I can’t wait to dive back into my other work in progress. But until then, it’s a trip down memory lane.

Official Blurb

The Walkthrough offers a rare peek behind the curtain of the secretive video game industry from an unlikely perspective, that of a career strategy guide writer. For eighteen years, Doug Walsh was one of the most prolific authors of officially licensed video game strategy guides. And now he’s ready to talk.

One part memoir and one part industry tell-all, The Walkthrough takes players on an entertaining march through gaming’s recent history, from the dawn of the PlayStation to the Xbox 360 and Nintendo Switch. Follow along as Walsh retraces his career and reveals how the books were made, what it was like writing guides to some of the industry’s most celebrated — and derided — titles, and why the biggest publishers of guidebooks are no longer around.

Walsh devotes entire chapters to many of gaming’s most popular franchises, including Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater, Gears of War, and Diablo, among others. From inauspicious beginnings with Daikatana to authoring the books for the entire Bioshock trilogy, with plenty of highs, lows, and Warp Pipes along the way, Walsh delivers a rare treat to twenty-first century gamers. The Walkthrough is sure to satisfy the curiosity of anyone who grew up with the works of BradyGames and Prima Games sprawled across their laps.

With over one hundred books to his credit, and countless weeks spent at many of the most famous studios in North America, he is uniquely qualified to give an insider’s perspective of a little-known niche within the multi-billion-dollar industry.

Emerald City Comic Con

I’ll be attending ECCC next week as a member of a panel discussing the importance of writing groups and the ups (and downs) of having critique partners. Everyone interested in taking their writing to the next level can check us out Friday, March 15th at 5:30. I’ll also be on hand signing copies of Tailwinds Past Florence, and to discuss The Walkthrough with anyone interested. Stop by and say hi.

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