Thread by @rodneylives

So, I have yet to talk much about the book I have in the current Storybundle (storybundle.com/games), 8-Bit Obituaries. Here is a few words about it.
In the early days of the internet, a popular source of comedy was the Bad Nintendo Game.

From seanbaby to Something Awful to the AVGN, many people could find common comedic ground on the awfulness of certain games. Now, I am not here to challenge their assessment so much, as to suggest that, SOME of these games DO contain a kernel of fun within them. Er, bad analogy.

There are different levels of badness. There are deeply unplayable games, and there those that throw up pointless barriers to enjoying them, and there are those that are actually good, but need some investment to enjoy them.

Deeply unplayable: Chubby Cherub. I have no idea how anyone could enjoy that.
Barriers to enjoying: Athena, Deadly Towers, NES Superman, NES MULE. You'd better believe they're flawed, but there is some fun in there.

Actually good: Amagon, Castlevania II, Zelda II. (Those last two are not always considered bad, but weird design decisions throw some folk off. Amagon is very hard, but actually well-made, and very interesting in terms of design.)

So, what the book does is take a number of games that are sometimes overlooked, sometimes derided, and try to find the fun in them. I make my own jokes along the way, because that's fun too, but I like all the major subjects of the book. I try to explain why.

And, if you do decide to give one of these... things... a try, I try to supply some tips to help you get past the difficulty hurdles, whether they're intentional or not.

Argh, I'm supposed to link @Storybundle to these tweets, but I keep forgetting!