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David L. Craddock

Break Out: How the Apple II Launched the PC Gaming Revolution Hardcover – September 28, 2017

by David L. Craddock (Author)

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Around the world, millions of people hijack cars in Grand Theft Auto, role play fantastical heroes in World of WarCraft, and crush candy on phones as small as wallets yet nearly as powerful as desktop computers. But long before video games became a multi-billion-dollar industry, two hackers invented the Apple II, a PC that contained less memory than the average Microsoft Word document and bowled over consumers by displaying four colors at once. Some users tapped its resources to design productivity software. Others devised some of the most influential games of all time. From the perils along the Oregon Trail and the exploits of Carmen Sandiego to the shadowy dungeons of Wizardry and Prince of Persia's trap-filled labyrinth, Break Out recounts the making of some of the Apple II's most iconic games, illustrates how they informed the games we play today, and tells the stories of the pioneers who made them.

Print length

256 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Schiffer
Publication date

September 28, 2017
Dimensions

7.5 x 1.25 x 10.5 inches
ISBN-10

0764353225
ISBN-13

978-0764353222
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Editorial Reviews

Review

Break Out covers a deeply important era in game creation, marketing, and distribution that is often overlooked by even the most avid historians. Everyone who loves video games should devour this one cover-to-cover.--Patrick Scott Patterson, video game advocate

"By going straight to the source, Craddock has shed new light on such iconic titles as Zork, The Oregon Trail, and Wizardry. Break Out is a must-own for anyone interested in the history of computers and computer games."--Brett Weiss, author of The 100 Greatest Console Video Games: 1977-1987

"David Craddock's deep dive into the origins behind some of the most important Apple II games will keep you riveted as you learn the wondrous stories of how these games came to be and how the industry started."--John Romero, co-founder of id Software, co-designer of Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, and Quake

"Thanks to this excellent and thoroughly researched book, we can relive the genesis of several seminal [Apple II] games and fully appreciate the legacy this revolutionary machine had. As aptly said by Craddock in the Introduction, whatever we can think of today, 'The Apple II already did it.'"--Dr. Roberto Dillon, Author of The Golden Age of Video Games

About the Author

David L. Craddock lives with his wife in Canton, Ohio. He is the author of The Gairden Chronicles fantasy series, and the bestselling Stay Awhile and Listen books that recount the history of Blizzard Entertainment. Visit him at www.davidlcraddock.com and @davidlcraddock

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Schiffer; 1st edition (September 28, 2017)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 256 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0764353225
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0764353222
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.5 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 7.5 x 1.25 x 10.5 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #1,518,455 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #294 in Macintosh Operating System
- #382 in Computing Industry History
- #2,941 in Video & Computer Games

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David L. Craddock
Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.
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David L. Craddock lives with his wife and business partner in Ohio. He is the author of the bestselling Stay Awhile and Listen trilogy detailing the history of Blizzard Entertainment, the Gairden Chronicles epic fantasy series for young adults, and Arcade Perfect: How Pac-Man, Mortal Kombat, and Other Coin-Op Classics Invaded the Living Room. Follow him online at davidlcraddock.com and @davidlcraddock on Twitter.
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David L. Craddock
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David L. Craddock lives with his wife and business partner in Ohio. He is the author of STAY AWHILE AND LISTEN, a three-part series that chronicles the history of World of WarCraft developer Blizzard Entertainment and Diablo/Diablo II developer Blizzard North; and HERITAGE, a young adult fantasy novel. Follow his writing exploits at davidlcraddock.com, facebook.com/davidlcraddock, and @davidlcraddock on Twitter.
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Ben E.

Entertaining and informative

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on January 16, 2019

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I bought this book on a whim, having spent many hours playing Apple ][ games as a kid. From that perspective, it was entertaining and nostalgic, as well as a well-researched look into some influential Apple ][ games.

Here are the games covered, based on chapters:

Akalabeth
The Bard's Tale
The Bilestoad
Carmen Sandiego
Karateka
The Oregon Trail
Pinball Construction Set
Prince of Persia
Raster Blaster
SunDog: Frozen Legacy
Ultima
Wasteland
Wizardry
Zork

It also mentions quite a few other games, and has some history of some of the game companies and information on some of the people involved, as well as some bonus interviews at the end. If you were curious what went into the making of these games, it's worth reading.

4 people found this helpful

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Scot J

New stories!

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on September 16, 2017

Verified Purchase

Just started reading the book and I'm really enjoying reading some new stories (for a change) on the background of some early games..

One thing that intrigues me though, Steve Wozniak declined to be interviewed for the book. I wish there was more detail on why he declined - who can't spare an hour to talk about themselves? :) Maybe he has a policy against interviews. I know this isn't a big deal but it just really got me wondering.

Wonderful book so far though!

4 people found this helpful

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Alexander Smith

An excellent game history that does not quite live up to its title

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on September 19, 2017

Author David Craddock, who has previously written entertaining histories of the early years of Blizzard North and the development of the Roguelike genre, returns to tackle a far larger subject, the birth of the first real computer game industry on the Apple II. Rather than try to contextualize the entire movement, however, Craddock instead focuses on roughly 24 games he feels defined the Apple II era in an attempt to articulate why the Apple II scene continues to be an important influence on the modern video game industry. While this is a fine approach, I do feel the results are somewhat mixed.

First, the (overwhelmingly) positive. Craddock has secured interviews with some of the most important Apple II game designers from legends like Bill Budge and Richard Garriott to less heralded but no less important designers and programmers like Bruce Webster and Alan Pavlish. This has resulted in coherent and fairly exhaustive overviews of the creation of several seminal Apple II games. His chapter on Wizardry, for example, which draws input from both Andrew Greenberg and Robert Woodhead, is probably the best examination of the origin of that game that has ever been done. His chapters on SunDog: Frozen Legacy, Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego, and the Oregon Trail are likewise top notch. Chapters on the games of Budge, Garriott, and Jordan Mechner are likewise well done, but really have little new to offer over previous efforts.

If I have one major complaint about the work, its that the title really implies something different from what the book actually provides. While I recommend the book without reservation for the wonderful stories it tells, it does not really provide a complete overview of the Apple II as a platform. Due to an (understandable) decision to focus only on games and developers for which he could secure interviews, there are significant holes in Craddock's coverage, most significantly the absence of any material relating to On-Line Systems (later Sierra Online) and Sirius Software. His decision to include Zork among the games also strikes me as puzzling, for as there is no doubt it is a classic, the product was deliberately engineered to be platform-agnostic for easy porting, so including it among a list of influential Apple II games feels like a bit of a stretch. Also, a couple of chapters try perhaps a little too hard to conform to Craddock's thesis of Apple II influence, most notably the chapter on SunDog. While it was certainly a very early open world game, his claim that it influenced everything from Grand Theft Auto to EVE Online is suspect. Elite, released on the BBC Micro in the United Kingdom just six months after SunDog to more widespread success, is usually cited by the developers of GTA, EVE, and numerous other open world games as a prime influence and was developed in parallel to SunDog without drawing any inspiration from it.

As is inevitable with any undertaking of this type, there are also a few errors and omissions, though nothing too serious. Perhaps the most egregious is his assertion that FTL Games never released another game after SunDog: Frozen Legacy. The company is, of course, also responsible for Dungeon Master, one on the most influential CRPGs ever created. The author also appears to have confused the pioneering video game magazine Electronic Games with the later publication Electronic Gaming Monthly. Overall, these are minor flaws that do little to detract from the overall experience.

David Craddock remains one of the finest authors exploring the history of the video game industry today, and I highly recommend this book to video game history enthusiasts.

11 people found this helpful

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Yzabel

and I was glad to read this book

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on March 11, 2018

[NOTE: I received a copy of this book through Netgalley.]

I never owned an Apple II, but my family did have a Commodore 64 when I was a kid, and I do have a soft spot for the history and evolution of computing (and computers) in general, and I was glad to read this book, for it reminded me of a lot of things. The Apple II, after all, was part of that series of personal computers on which a lot of developers cut their teeth, at a time when one still needed to dive into programming, at least a little, if one wanted to fully exploit their machine. (I’ve forgotten most of it now, and was never really good at it anyway since I was 7 and couldn’t understand English at the time… but I also tried my hand at BASIC to code a few simple games, thanks to a library book that may or may not have been David Ahl’s “101 BASIC Computer Games”, I can’t remember anymore now.)

In other words, due to a lot of these developers coding not only for the Apple II, and/or to their games being ported to other machines, C64 included, I was familiar with a lot of the games and software mentioned in Craddock’s book. Even though, 1980s and personal computer culture of the time oblige, most of what we owned was most likely pirated, as we happily copied games from each others to cassettes and 5 ¼ floppy disks on which we punched a second hole (instant double capacity! Just add water!).

A-hem. I guess the geek in me is just happy and excited at this trip down memory lane. And at discovering the genesis behind those early games which I also played, sometimes without even knowing what they were about. (So yes, I did save POWs with “Choplifter!”, and I haunted the supermarket’s PC aisle in 1992 or so in the hopes of playing “Prince of Persia”. And I had tons of fun with Brøderbund’s “The Print Shop”, which I was still using in the mid-90s to make some silly fanzine of mine. And even though that game wasn’t mentioned in the book, I was remembered of “Shadowfax”, which I played on C64, and some 30 years later, I’m finally aware that I was actually playing Gandalf dodging & shooting Nazgûls. One is never too old to learn!)

This book may be worth more to people who owned and Apple II and/or played the games it describes, but even for those who never owned that computer and games, I think it holds value anyway as a work retracing a period of history that is still close enough, and shaped the world of personal computing as we know it today. It’s also worth it, I believe, for anyone who’s interested in discovering how games (but not only) were developed at the time, using methods and planning that probably wouldn’t work anymore. All things considered, without those developers learning the ropes by copying existing games before ‘graduating’ to their own, so to speak, something that wouldn’t be possible anymore either now owing to said software’s complexity, maybe the software industry of today would be very different. And, last but not least, quite a few of our most popular post-2000 games owe a lot, in terms of gaming design, to the ones originally developed for the Apple II.

My main criticism about “Break Out” would be the quality of the pictures included on its pages. However, I got a PDF ARC to review, not a printed version, and I assumed from the beginning that compression was at fault here, and that the printed book won’t exhibit this fault. So it’s not real criticism.

Conclusion: If you’re interested in the history of computers and/or games; in reliving a period you knew as a gamer child or teenager; and/or in seeing, through examples and interviews, how developing went at that time: get this book.

One person found this helpful

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