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Pilgrim in the Microworld

(Boss Fight Books #22)

3.76  ·  Rating details ·  101 ratings  ·  21 reviews
Hardcover, 242 pages
Published December 31st 1979 by Warner Books (NY)
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 ·  101 ratings  ·  21 reviews


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Chris Salzman
Mar 26, 2015 rated it it was amazing
A deep analytic meditation on Sudnow's journey from never touching a videogame to mastering Breakout for the Atari. Every bit of the journey is told in excruciating detail as he takes time to reflect on everything (I mean everything) about the game. This might be the best writing on video games that's ever been produced.

There's so much I take for granted in games and getting a glimpse into it from the perspective of a pilgrim is fascinating.
...more
Caleb Ross
(click the image below to watch the video review)

Breakout: Pilgrim in the Microworld by David Sudnow from Boss Fight Books book review

I’m reviewing all of the Boss Fight Books releases, so subscribe to my YouTube channel to be sure you don’t miss future reviews.
I just finished reading Breakout: Pilgrim in the Microworld by David Sudnow, which was originally released in 1983 and has been reprinted by Boss Fight Books as their 22nd book, and I’ve got some thoughts.

Breakout: Pilgrim in the Microworld is basically a memoir of one man’s discovery of, and obsession with, t
...more
Max
May 23, 2017 rated it it was ok
I'm glad to have read this seminal work. Mostly glad because it means I won't have to read it again. It was not a fun read, but somehow remains clout with me for its rave reviews and general renown for being the first book that looked at video games. In my personal opinion, this book is not worth reading at all. It is only my recognition of my own flaws that I consider myself unfit to judge it worthless, and so finished it anyway.

It is incredibly boring and hard to understand. Rereading a sectio
...more
Ryan Stanton
This book is a chore to read in many places... but when it clicks, it’s a fascinating read that makes the many plodding sections worth it.

A deep dive into one man’s first experience with digital games, and their slow descent into obsession, Sudnow’s tale is one of the best phenomenological accounts of what it feels like to learn a game for the first time. His descriptions of the slow but persistent progression of his obsession, the frustrations that come with attempting to nail a particular cha
...more
Jonas
Mar 26, 2022 rated it it was ok  ·  review of another edition
Shelves: 2022
Don't get me wrong, I'm glad I read this. There's just a lot of nothing here.
Breakout is a memoir about a man's obsession with the titular video game around the time of their birth. It's good. It's interesting how much the game consumes him; at least at first. Then it gets stale and repititive and hard to read/follow. Sudnow has a writing style unlike anything I've ever read. I saw two words I'd never seen before, only to learn upon googling them that this book is the only time they've ever been
...more
Mut
May 18, 2020 rated it it was amazing  ·  review of another edition
Videogames as modern visual music making devices

Not sure I ever read an in depth analysis of the experience of playing a game (or even the video game playing experience as a whole) that goes as deep in the players thoughts and feelings as this book does. I really wish there was more long form video game writing like this, as the closer I can think of is videogame blog. Please point me more in that direction if you read this comment and know of it. Video game writing is usually way more about the
...more
Travis Timmons
Jul 02, 2019 rated it it was amazing
I'm a reader of phenomenology. It's the field in philosophy that I find most compelling -- human consciousness is bottomless stuff. This being said, _Pilgrim_ is phenomenology. A sort of living-breathing-moving version of the philosophy. And in some ways, far more insightful than the philosophical stuff written about phenomenology. This book does IT.

The writing is sometime clunky and counter-intuitive, but I find this normal deficiency to actually enhance the kind of work Sudnow is doing in the
...more
Tyler Barlass
Apr 18, 2022 rated it it was ok  ·  review of another edition
Shelves: boss-fight
As Gabe Durham writes in the forward to this book, Pilgrim in the Microworld is the first book to focus it's entirety on one single video game. So, it makes perfect since for Boss Fight to add this nearly 40 year old book to their catalog. But as I worked my way through this often times difficult read, I wondered who this book was really for back in 1983 or even in 2022. While I found the author's introduction to video gaming, his spot on predictions of gaming's future and the way that he compar ...more
Bob Makin
Apr 18, 2022 rated it liked it
A tough read. Incredibly long winded. BUT. I do get the historical importance of the book. It needs to be somewhere between 1 star for being so long and rambling and 5 stars for being brilliant.

It’s basically one man’s breakdown over breakout. And it’s difficult to read as he explains in crazy detail his playing. But it’s just so rambling. I really can’t give it more than 3, it should probably be 2.

What a slog. I initially thought he was bonkers, but actually if you think about it it’s the late
...more
Vsevolod Zubarev
It's incredible that this book was published so long ago, back in 1983. It is about the original Breakout (1976) for the Atari 2600. The author obsessively plays the game and describes his exact moves, tactics, kinesthetic feelings, etc., all the while pondering about game design and related topics that are intrinsic to video games and relevant today, maybe even more than ever. ...more
Kevin
Nov 13, 2020 rated it liked it
As far as I can tell, the correct publication date for this is 1983. Some online sources claim 1979, but that can't be as it mentions Missile Command for the Atari VCS which came out in 1981. ...more
Michael Erwin
Sep 06, 2020 rated it it was amazing  ·  review of another edition
Shelves: my-library
What an excellent, weird, absolute time capsule of a book. Somehow so of its time and yet decades ahead. Still haven't read any kind of video game analysis quite like it. ...more
Joe Henthorn
Jan 25, 2015 rated it it was amazing
'Something vital was being dispensed.'

I remember reading about this getting a really glowing recommendation a couple of years ago on Anna Anthropy's blog and desperately wanting to read it - but I couldn't find a cheap copy (it's a long, long time out of print), and inevitably forgot about it. But when I saw it pop up again on Brendan Keogh's blog the other month and realised it was being sold for a penny plus £2.99 shipping by one of those weird Amazon marketplace sellers, I snapped it up immed
...more
Stacey Mason
Jan 25, 2013 rated it it was amazing  ·  review of another edition
Recommends it for: game studies researchers, obsessive gamers, gamers who also happen to be musicians
Shelves: research, gamedev
Jazz pianist David Sudnow didn't play video games until he went to retrieve his teenage son from an arcade in the early 80s, and he immediately dismissed them as a silly money-sink designed to keep teenagers occupied. When an Atari 2600 ruined a party of academics, however, he decided to give games another shot and try the Atari for himself. Thus began his decent into obsession.

Following in the style of Ways of the Hand, Sudnow's deeply detailed exploration of the phenomenology of playing jazz p
...more
Jlawrence
Dec 17, 2016 rated it liked it
Jazz pianist Sudnow's super-analytic, hyper-intellectualized account of his addiction to beating the Atari 2600 game Breakout when it first came out (he even travels to Atari Inc headquarters to grill the game's programmers on how to best play). As a nostalgic Atari 2600 fan and someone with interest in in-depth analytic digs into games of yore (The Digital Antiquarian is probably my favorite blog), this seemed like it'd be right up my alley.

But Sudnow's blow-by-blow detailing of his minute vari
...more
Mjhancock
Jul 29, 2012 rated it liked it
Neil David Sr. (or David Sudnow, as my copy stubbornly claims) describes in great, great detail his experience playing Breakout when it first came out on a home console. It's an extremely in-depth tale of his obsession with the game, from his trip to talk to Atari designers in person to his personal demand that he create the exact perfect playing sequence. It's of a reasonable amount of interest to those interested in game history, or game scholarship, as it's one of the earliest (and again, mos ...more
BookieWookie
Mar 26, 2016 rated it liked it
Fascinating as an early example of literature about videogames, and at first the author's descent into madness over the game Breakout and how all its mechanics work is very interesting, but it tends to meander for long stretches at a time, which can make it a struggle to read. Definitely needed an edit to cut out a lot of the fat. Still, aa fascinating artefact but I wouldn't recommend reading it unless you're as interested in literature about games as much as I am. ...more
Alex
Oct 03, 2007 rated it it was amazing
fucking awesome

to qualify that:

it's amazingly OCD, it's a thinly veiled fictional account about a grown man getting addicted to 'missile command' and 'breakout' on atari 2600 in 1982.

he has screenshots of strategies, combined with social and cultural criticism; he says of his first sight of arcade:

"something vital is being dispensed."

not 'good' by any 'literary' account - but it's a must-read for any geek.
...more
Erik van Mechelen
Oct 19, 2013 rated it it was amazing
Stumbling upon an interest, seeking mastery, and finding a world within worlds are Sudnow's high order bids in his epoch spent with Atari's "Breakout." Useful for philosophical introspection, applications to learning a craft, and reflections on the motivations of mankind and the behavior of individuals in a machine world. ...more
Nate
Mar 29, 2011 rated it really liked it
I love reading about other people's insanity. This guy became obsessed with Breakout for Atari, played it 8+ hours a day, took *meticulous* notes, and play by play accounts of individual games, then wrote a book about it. I mean, the amount of lunacy it built up in this man is staggering. ...more
Tony
Jun 17, 2007 rated it liked it
Shelves: gamesindustry
Interesting tale of a man who explored the limits of consciousness and the video world... by playing Atari Breakout.
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